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<div>Some years ago on YouTube there was something called the "blasphemy challenge." What is this?
People were challenged to submit videos in which they recorded themselves blaspheming or denying the existence of the Holy Spirit.</div><div>The so-called “Blasphemy Challenge” is a misguided attempt by some unbelievers to commit the unforgivable sin—i.e., blaspheming the Holy Spirit (Matt. 12:32) People were encouraged to submit videos in which they recorded themselves blaspheming or denying the existence of the Holy Spirit. Obviously, this is a foolish endeavor.
Some Protestant Christians, who anticipated being raptured to heaven and wanted to have their pets cared for in their absence, cooperated with nonbelievers in taking up this challenge so as to ensure ongoing temporal care for their canines and/or other pets. Such actions are obviously contrary to Christ’s teaching and ironically place the good of mere animals over human beings, i.e., those who are made in the image and likeness of God (see Genesis 1:26-27). In addition, the rapture is not biblical, as can be read about <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-rapture">here</a> and <a href="http://www.cuf.org/2005/02/now-you-see-em-now-you-dont-dispensing-with-the-rapture/">here</a>,
Finally, the unforgivable sin cannot be committed by a mere utterance, we are happy to report, thanks to God’s great mercy. The only real unforgivable sin is final impenitence (<a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c1a8.htm">CCC 1864</a>).
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The Blasphemy Challenge

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God is infinite.

A caller asks Fr. Hugh Barbour if indigenous dances are allowed <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/is-liturgical-dancing-permitted-at-mass">during Mass</a>. His answer: it depends.
Transcript:
Caller: I&#8217;d just like to know if indigenous dancers are allowed during the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/sacrifice-of-the-mass">Mass</a>.
Fr. Hugh: With the question of indigenous dances, we all know the difference between something which fits in a particular culture and makes sense and something which is kind of like a corny school pageant approach where, you know, it&#8217;s not something people do every day. It&#8217;s not a part of their normal religious practice, but suddenly, in order to do something nice for the liturgy, they do some kind of dance.
You know, I would say to start with good taste. And, you know, if it&#8217;s not something you normally do, then it&#8217;s not an authentic expression of your religious practice, either. And there&#8217;s a lot of fake liturgy out there where, you know, even though people are not doing indigenous dances, ever, they stir them up and arrange them for the liturgy.
And the liturgy is made up of signs which correspond to our human religious experience. If you&#8217;re living in the Congo, for example, and you have a church-approved liturgy which involves also the congregation processing, swaying back and forth, and playing instruments, and whatnot as part of the liturgy, but that is the normal way in which they celebrate anything, then that&#8217;s something very, very different. And, when you witness that you can tell the difference between a self-conscious &#8220;Aren&#8217;t we great? Aren&#8217;t we inclusive? Aren&#8217;t we just lovely?&#8221; cultural experience and the serious, focused, God-oriented liturgy of the church.
And I think there&#8217;s a consideration. There&#8217;s room for cultural accommodation. But people react when they begin to feel like it&#8217;s fake. And I&#8217;m not going to say where you draw the line or what&#8217;s fake and what&#8217;s not.
And of course, the thing is, at any given Mass, a lot of people could go away edified even from the corniest, tackiest display of self-conscious religiosity. They can still like it. And they may be edified because God is the Lord of all, and He can move hearts any way He wants.
So, I&#8217;m not saying that that&#8217;s a complete loss, but the church does not foster a liturgy which is a fabrication which is planned, which is calculated. She fosters a liturgy which is according to her liturgical law, her books, her traditions, her music, and each and every place. So I would just say it&#8217;s not so much an easy answer, but rather you have to look at it in each particular context.
Host: Tony, I&#8217;m interested because here in the U.S., we have lots of Catholic parishes or Catholic missions and chapels on Indian lands. And, you know, I&#8217;ve never—I&#8217;ve been to many masses on Indian lands, but I&#8217;ve never seen indigenous dancing. But I would imagine—you&#8217;re calling from Idaho, that might be the case there. Is that what you were talking about?
Caller: No, Aztec, Mexican Aztec dancing.
Host: Oh, Aztec dancing.
Fr. Hugh: But where?
Caller: My local church.
Fr. Hugh: Yeah. And are any of those people Aztecs? That&#8217;s my question.
Caller: Well, I mean, I guess the Mexican community&#8230;
Fr. Hugh: The distant, distant ancestors. But, I just, my thing is to just look at it and say, is this something that they naturally would do or is it something that would be suggested to them as a political-cultural statement? Because Mexican Catholic culture has a long liturgical tradition and very beautiful music that&#8217;s been there for hundreds of years. And so I&#8217;m a little suspicious when these things are introduced. Not that they have to be wrong, but just that we should apply these things with certain caution because the church&#8217;s liturgy is not simply a class project.

Are Indigenous Dances Allowed during Mass?

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Karlo Broussard carefully walks step-by-step through 1 Corinthians 3:11-13, which he calls &#8220;the key classic text&#8221; for the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory.

Scriptural Proofs of Purgatory

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Should Christians avoid AI / ChatGPT?

Do Catholics believe Saints answer prayers?

I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your seed and her seed; 
he shall bruise your head, 
and you shall bruise his heel.
So God spoke to the serpent after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. Our reading did not include the whole story, but I’m sure you know it: God told Adam and Eve that they could eat from any tree in the Garden but one. The serpent deceived them, and they ate of the tree.
Genesis tells us the true story of our origins—the origin of humanity in God’s creation and the origin of the world’s long struggle with sin and death. Something went very wrong, and yet God, from the beginning, has a plan to fix it. Let’s consider those two things, then. First, what went wrong? And second, what is God doing about it?
Probably a lot of us were taught as children that the basic problem was disobedience. God gave a command—do not eat from the tree—and Adam and Eve disobeyed. That is true. But to put it in this way, as a story of law and disobedience, makes it sound arbitrary. God makes law, and our duty is to follow it. We are not allowed to ask why. If this the way of things, many of us may naturally wonder if Adam and Eve were right after all. We resent the idea of arbitrary rule. We don’t want to live in a world where things are the way they are simply “because I said so.”
Perhaps some of us do. But in order to trust any kind of “because I said so” law, we have to trust the lawgiver. We have to trust that the person in authority is not just powerful, but good. And there we have a better hint at what is going on with Adam and Eve in the garden. Adam and Eve had been put in a place of overflowing goodness and life and joy. They were literally in paradise. They were in perfect fellowship with God. They lacked nothing. They ate from the tree of life. They were in a place without hurt, without evil, without hunger, without pain. When they chose to eat the forbidden fruit, then, it was not a choice designed to correct some problem, to escape from a difficulty or improve their lot. The fruit itself was not evil; it was not somehow unclean. It was, as created by God, good. But in choosing this one good, they preferred it to the other goods they had been given. In particular, they placed this lesser good above the greatest good—they chose a piece of fruit over fellowship with God.
So the problem wasn’t evil, per se, or at least not evil as we normally think of it. It was disordered good. It’s not that Eve, when she ate the fruit, stopped loving God—there wasn’t a flip switched between love and hate, as if it’s just one or the other—but she removed that love from its proper position. This is a good description of much of our sin as well. It’s definitely possible to do something intrinsically evil. But a lot of the time, it’s not that we’re doing evil directly; it’s that the good we do is not ordered in its proper place. We love some things way more than we should, and we love other things much less than we should. This is ultimately less a problem of disobedience than it is of disordered desire, disordered affection.
So Adam and Eve disobeyed. But their disobedience wasn’t just the disobedience of an arbitrary command. It was the rejection of trust; it was the choice of a lesser good over a higher good.
We may still wonder why it was that God chose this particular way—why God gave this particular prohibition. The divine will is ultimately inscrutable, but I find myself moved by C.S. Lewis’s answer from his novel Perelandra, where a new Adam and Eve on Venus face exactly the same kind of seemingly arbitrary command. They live in a world of floating islands, and their one law is that they cannot sleep overnight on the fixed land. The figure of Satan, a man from earth, pesters the woman repeatedly about the arbitrary absurdity of this command. There is no reason for it, he insists. It’s all relative. People on his world stay on fixed land all the time. Surely God—that is, Maleldil—did not really intend her to follow such a strange law. Surely its real intention was to test her freedom and reveal her own strength. After all, Maleldil wants his children to think for themselves.
To this the character responds: “I think He made one law of that kind in order that there might be obedience. In all these other matters what you call obeying Him is but doing what seems good in your own eyes also. Is love content with that? You do them, indeed, because they are His will, but not only because they are His will. Where can you taste the joy of obeying unless He bids you do something for which His bidding is the only reason?” (101).
From the disobedience of our first parents, we lost the joy of obedience. We lost the joy of loving God for his own sake and not only for the many benefits we receive at his hand. It is this loss of true joy—and its cheap substitute in other kinds of love, other kinds of joys—that persists in humanity. It has become part of our human identity, our social and cultural DNA.
How can we restore fellowship and harmony? How can we recover obedience not as duty and burden, but as joy? How can we receive the gifts of God and eat for fellowship rather than death? We’ve seen the problem, and now we can ask: what is God doing about it?
Even in Genesis, God declares that this fall from grace will not last forever.
I will put enmity between you and the woman, 
and between your seed and her seed; 
he shall bruise your head, 
and you shall bruise his heel.
This passage is often called the proto-evangelium, the original or primitive gospel, because it contains in a hidden way the whole story of Christ. The seed of the woman is Jesus, the incarnate Son. Mary’s son, the new Eve’s son, is hurt—he dies the death of a sinner. But from this death he emerges with a mere bruise, a mark of the conflict that did not ultimately overcome him. By contrast, the devil receives a mortal blow: his power and his deception are caught up in the greater purposes of God. When Mary gives her “fiat,” her yes, at the Annunciation, she steps into that original human calling of fellowship and joy.
The good news of God’s plan is not yet fully known in Genesis, but we know it now in Jesus Christ. He enacted both God’s justice and man’s responsibility, submitting himself to the yoke of mortal obedience. He submitted himself to all the pain of our disordered love so that he might put our loves in order.
This is the story of our fall and our redemption. We, like Adam and Eve, face a choice—many choices, in fact—about whether or not to obey the word of God. But what Jesus has shown us, in his selfless love for us, is that this word is not arbitrary or selfish; it is trustworthy. God is trustworthy. When God asks us to love him above all else, when he asks us to do things that seem arbitrary or hard to grasp, he does this always and only for our good. We know this now more fully than Adam and Eve did.
“So we do not lose hope,” as St. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians, “for this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”
It’s probably worth saying that, for Paul, this was no question of idealistic principle. He knew suffering, both from his own personal struggles and in his own eventual trial and execution. He wrote in an era when life often was, compared to our current age, short, brutal, and full of misery. But this “momentary affliction,” for Paul, can reveal joy because it teaches us to love what really matters.
Whom do we love? What do we love? To what authority do we give our obedience? The question is not whether to love, whether to obey, or whether to eat—the alternative is not, as we might think, perfect freedom, but perfect nonexistence. Human beings love, obey, and eat—even if they love and obey only themselves and eat only to their destruction. But there is a better love, a more perfect food, and a worthier obedience, in whose perfect will all human stories find their meaning.

Genesis Is True

Is asking saints for prayers divination?

<div>Was St. John Chrysostom a Greek Orthodox priest or a Catholic one?</div><div>St. John Chrysostom lived in the fourth century, the Catholic and <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/eastern-orthodoxy">Orthodox Churches</a> did not split into two separate churches until the eleventh century. He was simply a priest of the Church in Antioch of the one universal Church. Toward the end of his life (c. 398), he became the bishop of <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/constantinople">Constantinople</a>, which would eventually split with the Western Church, but that would not be until six centuries later.
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John Chrysostom: Catholic or Orthodox?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says “Of all the divine attributes, only God&#8217;s omnipotence is named in the Creed: to confess this power has great bearing on our lives. We believe that his might is universal, for God who created everything also rules everything and can do everything” (268).
Yet how can God be omnipotent when the Bible says he was defeated by iron chariots? This is a common atheist meme and was even the title of a now-defunct atheist wiki called “Iron Chariots.” The claim references Judges 1:19: “And the Lord was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain, because they had chariots of iron.”
This part of the book of Judges describes the Israelites attempting to drive the remaining Canaanites out of the promised land. You should know that later in the book the tribe of Judah was able to drive out the Canaanites and their iron chariots. Judges 4:15 describes how God “routed” the Canaanite commander, Sisera, and his 900 iron chariots.
Judges 1:19 isn’t saying God failed to drive out the Canaanites in the plain. The pronoun “he” in this verse refers to the nearest proper noun, or the tribe of Judah. It was Judah who took possession of the hill country but failed to secure the plains. The Lord was “with Judah,” but that doesn’t mean Judah accomplished all their goals. Genesis 39:21 says the Lord was with Joseph while he remained falsely imprisoned for two years because a person who promised to free him forgot to do this (Gen. 40:23)
This only meant God did not abandon Judah during their failure to capture the valley, which was due in part to a lack of faith. According to James Jordan’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Judges-Theological-Commentary-James-Jordan/dp/1579102492">commentary on Judges</a>:
<blockquote>Chariots could not function in the hills, so Judah did not have to fight them there. Where the iron chariots could function, however, Judah did not succeed . . . as Judges 4 and 5 will show, God is fully capable of dealing with iron chariots. Thus, the problem was not the iron chariots. The problem was faith, or rather the lack of it. (13)</blockquote>
Ultimately, the book of Judges reveals that God keeps his promises to us even when we break our promises to him. That’s why in the next chapter in Judges, after the defeat of other tribes is described, God says “you have not obeyed my command. What is this you have done? So now I say, I will not drive them out before you; but they shall become adversaries to you”. (Judges 2:2-3).
God never abandons us, but he also lets us suffer the consequences of abandoning him, so let us pray to always remain faithful to him no matter how many “iron chariots” we face in our own lives.

Iron Chariots vs. Almighty God

<div>Besides Deuteronomy 18, are there other biblical references warning against tarot-card reading or fortune telling?</div><div>As you indicate, Deuteronomy 18:10-15 is a fundamental passage that condemns both divination and magic/sorcery (CCC 2115-17). There are number of other passages in which divination and/or magic are condemned directly or indirectly, the latter being when things go badly for a practitioner of magic, Elymas (Acts 13:4-12). For more Scripture passages, see these two articles from the Catholic Encyclopedia on <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/divination">“Divination”</a> and <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/witchcraft">“Witchcraft.”</a> For a general treatment of tarot cards, see also <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-enduring-allure-of-tarot">our related article</a>.
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Where Does the Bible Forbid Divination?

<div>When did God as 'Father' become common? Jesus called him Father, but was that common?</div><div>Referring to God as “Father” took place in Old Testament times, but it was rather unusual prior to the coming of Jesus, who regularly referred to his heavenly Father, e.g., John 1:14, 18.
In the Old Testament, God is referred to as the father of the nation of Israel several times, (Deut. 32:6, Is. 63:16, Mal. 1:6). He is also referred to the father of certain people more than a dozen times, (e.g., 2 Sam. 7:14, Ps. 89:26). And at other times, the imagery of “fatherhood” is present even though the word Father is not used, (Ex. 4:22-23, Mal. 3:17).
In coming to redeem the world (see John 3:16-17), Jesus invites us into an intimate relationship with his heavenly Father in which we can call him “Abba” or “Daddy,” (e.g., Mark 14:36, Rom. 8:15, Gal. 4:6).
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When Did God as ‘Father’ Become Common?

<div>Have you heard of Antonious Aquina? He recently wrote an article titled "Francis, the Pope of Perversity."</div><div>Antonius Aquinas is the pen name of a person who neither accepts the valid election of Pope Francis nor accepts Vatican II as a legitimate ecumenical council. In addition, it is one thing to criticize Pope Francis in a constructive way, as a number of faithful churchmen have. But Antonius does not. In short, there are better resources on the Internet, including authentically Catholic ones like Catholic.com. And please pray for Antonius Aquinas, Pope Francis, and the Church in general.
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Critic Not Worth Your Time

Karlo Broussard tackles a fascinating question: Could Marian apparitions be the devil masquerading as Mary? Karlo delves into the possibility of demonic deception, emphasizing the importance of discernment and the Church&#8217;s role in evaluating alleged apparitions. He highlights the criteria used to distinguish genuine apparitions from potential deceptions.
Transcript:
If the devil can appear, Karlo, as an angel of light, could these Marian apparitions be the devil appearing as Mary?
Yeah, great question. And the answer is, yes, it&#8217;s possible. It could be the devil appearing as Mary. That&#8217;s a possibility. But then the question becomes, is it the case that these Marian apparitions approved by the Church is perhaps a manifestation of the devil in visible form? And the answer would be no. So it is possible that the devil can visibly manifest himself in the image of Our Lady or any other image. And this is why, Si, that whatever apparition is experienced, whether for me personally or whether it&#8217;s going on, right, in a public setting or something, those events need to be submitted to and subject to the discernment and the investigation of the ordinary of the bishop. So he can employ his team of experts to assess that situation and that alleged apparition to see if it is, in fact, Our Lady or if it is the devil or a demon manifesting himself in the form of Our Lady. And so for us as laypeople, Cy, we&#8217;re going to defer and look to the judgment of the Church, given the Church&#8217;s competency in assessing these situations. And of course, that, of course, just raises the question, well, you know, what sort of criterion might they look to in order to discern this? Well, one criterion would be, you know, what sort of teaching, perhaps, is directly associated with the alleged apparition?
So, for example, take the Immaculate Conception, you know, that was defined as dogma by Pope Pius IX in 1854, and then you have the apparition of Our Lady under the title of the Immaculate Conception at Nords. Well, if that were the devil, I don&#8217;t think the devil would be manifesting himself to confirm for people the truth of the Immaculate Conception. Like, why would he want to affirm Our Lady as the Immaculate Conception? He would want to try and lead us away from that. So if he were to present himself in the apparitional form, he would be shooting himself in the foot, right? So that confirmation, that apparition in a direct association with the teaching of the Immaculate Conception, is a good reason for those with competent authority at the time to conclude that this is legit, you know, this is Our Lady manifesting herself and not the devil. And so these are the sorts of questions that the bishop and his team would be asking to try and discern whether these alleged apparitions are in fact apparitions. But David&#8217;s question, Cy, highlights the very reason why there should be careful examination and assessment of alleged apparitions. And we as the laity need to always be subject to and properly disposed to give deference to Holy Mother Church&#8217;s judgment on these issues.
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Can the Devil Portray Himself as Mary?

Created in God’s image in the beginning, our faces have been re-imaged into Christ’s by nothing other than his love. For when we survey human history or the day’s headlines, we see how mean and desiccated and envious our species is. Even close to our hearts we find innumerable jealousies, petty fears, and secret plans for revenge. So much of ourselves is scared and self-centered, unwilling to let love get too close.
The Christian account of how this came to be is found <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/in-the-beginning/?searchid=9525288&amp;search_query=in+the+beginning">back in Genesis</a>, when the first couple turned away from God’s invitation to intimacy with him. In so rebelling, Adam and Eve fated all their progeny to a doomed course. It is as if one of your ancestors had gambled away a magnificent sum of cash, which could have been your inheritance if he had not acted so foolishly so many years ago. But instead of abandoning us to ourselves, God decided to recreate the human race by starting over with a new Adam and a new Eve.
<blockquote>Therefore, just as through one person sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all, inasmuch as all sinned— for up to the time of the law, sin was in the world, though sin is not accounted when there is no law. But death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin after the pattern of the trespass of Adam, who is the type of the one who was to come. But the gift is not like the transgression. For if by that one person’s transgression the many died, how much more did the grace of God and the gracious gift of the one person Jesus Christ overflow for the many.
—Romans 5:12-15</blockquote>
So each of us belongs to two Adams, the first representing our disobedience and disdain for the good, and reminding us of our lost spiritual inheritance, and the second directing us toward charity and mercy and all that Christ embodies. In him, we have been recapitulated—given a new head (Eph. 1:10)—and can now share in the Son’s perfect love of the Father and his for us.
As there are a first and second Adam, so too with Eve. Our blessed mother Mary, the second Eve, remedies the first Eve’s selfishness by her love and humble obedience.
<blockquote>He became man by the virgin, in order that the disobedience which proceeded from the serpent might receive its destruction in the same manner in which it derived its origin. For Eve, who was a virgin and undefiled, having conceived the word of the serpent, brought forth disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy, when the angel Gabriel announced the good tidings to her that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her, and . . . the Holy Thing begotten of her is the Son of God.
—St. Justin Martyr
When I remember the disobedience of Eve, I weep. But when I view the fruit of Mary, I am again renewed. Deathless by descent, invisible through beauty, before the ages light of light; of God the Father was thou begotten; being Word and Son of God, thou didst take on flesh from Mary virgin, in order that thou might renew afresh Adam fashioned by thy holy hand.
—St. Gregory the Wonderworker
Death came through Eve, but life has come through Mary.
—St. Jerome</blockquote>
The name Eva (in Latin) is renewed into Ave, the greeting of Gabriel to Mary (Luke 1:28). Where the first Eve was deceived by a fallen angel, the second was enlightened by one of God’s most trusted messengers. And where the first brought about death through disobedience beneath the tree in Eden, the second led to life being given upon the tree of Calvary. That is why the early Church Fathers saw in Genesis 3:15, in the aftermath of the Fall, the Protoevangelium or “first gospel.” There the Lord forewarns Satan, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; They will strike at your head, while you strike at their heel.”
The second person of the Trinity takes our human nature to himself through the “yes” of Mary, the second Eve. Her fiat—“let it be done”—is the watershed moment in all human history (Luke 1:38). Having been preserved from the dissolution and division that are the result of original sin—for the Father had preserved her from conception for this single moment—she is able to offer the Son of God humanity in its fullness.
<blockquote>Once something has been bound, it cannot be loosed except by undoing the knot in reverse order. . . . And so the knot of Eve’s disobedience was untied by Mary’s obedience. What Eve bound through her unbelief, Mary loosed by her faith.
—St. Irenaeus</blockquote>
Good prayer comes from good theology. We can never separate spirituality from study, devotion from dogma, just as we can never divide defending the Faith from loving our neighbor. From Irenaeus’s millennia-old Mariology comes a most beautiful novena: to Mary, Undoer of Knots. This devotion arose in Germany around 1700, prompted by a painting depicting Mary untying the knots of a cord and returning the rope back to earth smooth and renewed to her children.
<blockquote>Dearest holy mother, most holy Mary,
you undo the knots that suffocate your children. 
Extend your merciful hands to me.
I entrust to you today this knot [mention your request here] 
and all the negative consequences that it provokes in my life. 
I give you this knot that torments me and makes me unhappy 
and so impedes me from uniting myself to you and your Son Jesus, my Savior. 
I run to you, Mary, Undoer of Knots, because I trust you 
and I know that you never despise a sinning child who comes to ask you for help.
I believe that you can undo this knot because Jesus grants you everything. 
I believe that you want to undo this knot because you are my mother. 
I believe that you will do this because you love me with eternal love. 
Thank you, dear mother.
—Opening Prayer of the Novena to Mary, Undoer of Knots</blockquote>
Just as God began the new era in Christ with a woman, it is a pious practice for each of his children to begin their day with this same woman, our mother Mary. Since she is the one who gave the Son of God his body and all its senses, it is also fitting to consecrate all of ourselves to her.
<blockquote>My queen and my mother, I offer myself entirely to you this day. 
Pray that I have the grace to consecrate to you 
the use of my eyes, ears, mouth, heart, words and thoughts, and my entire being. 
You hold me as your child, form me also into a more faithful friend of your son Jesus. 
This alone will make me a fit and fruitful friend 
in your loving hands and in his service, 
bringing the greatest possible salvation for me and for other souls, 
and glory to God our Father.</blockquote>

Mary Will Undo Your Knots

One of the tenets of Reformed theology is the belief in total depravity, or the idea that man is wholly defiled and incapable of doing good before being regenerated, or born again, in Christ.
According to the most prominent author of Reformed theology, John Calvin, “the will is so utterly vitiated and corrupted in every part as to produce nothing but evil” (Institutes 2.2.26), and “man is so enslaved by the yoke of sin that he cannot of his own nature aim at the good, either in wish or in actual pursuit (2.3.5).
Thus, Calvin teaches that it is impossible for man to do any good before he is regenerated in Christ. And if he is regenerated, it is in no part attributed to any of his own actions. It is solely the work of God.
This means if God does not choose to regenerate us, we are incapable of ever doing good and thus ever being saved. All we can do is sin, and we cannot turn away from evil in any capacity.
If we have no say in our salvation, then, how could we have any say in our damnation? We wouldn’t. In fact, according to Calvin, all of the evil deeds we commit are simply the result of our depraved nature. We do not have the ability to do otherwise.
But if this were the case, how could God justly punish us for something that we had to do? Would a judge punish somebody with a life sentence for a crime he was forced to commit, with no possibility of doing otherwise? That seems pretty unfair.
A Calvinist might push back and say Catholics agree that God determines who receives the grace of final perseverance and who does not. Although this is true, it is also true that all people are given sufficient grace to be saved if they are willing to cooperate with it. Thus, in the Catholic world, each person is given a real chance at salvation; God can truly be said to desire the salvation of all, since he gives everyone the opportunity to be saved.
Additionally, the Catholic Church teaches that human nature is not fully depraved or corrupted. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “human nature has not been totally corrupted,” but is simply “wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin” (405). As a result, humans can perform acts of natural good throughout their life even if they have never been regenerated in Christ, since human nature is not fully corrupted or inclined to evil. This aligns with our everyday experience.
For example, a firefighter might be an atheist, but he could still have the virtue of courage and risk his life to save others. A mother might not be a believer, but she could still practice love and selflessness with her children. Even though it is certainly more difficult to do this without having efficacious grace from the sacraments, it is still possible.
The teachings of Calvin are clearly misaligned with ordinary human experience. Even though non-believers may not be saints, they are certainly not people who “produce nothing but evil,” as Calvin suggests.
Not even Scripture describes individuals in this way. For example, in 2 Chronicles 19, King Jehoshaphat is described as doing evil and thus meriting the wrath of God, but also having some good in him:
<blockquote>Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to King Jehoshaphat, “Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord? Because of this, wrath has gone out against you from the Lord. Nevertheless some good is found in you, for you destroyed the Asherahs out of the land, and have set your heart to seek God.”</blockquote>
In addition to this, God invites all to seek after him and thus do good: “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other” (Isa. 45:22). If it were impossible for everyone to turn to him, why is he inviting us to? Again, this would be asking the impossible. It would not be fair.
It would also be unfair for Christ to judge the saved from the damned by their charitable works, since the damned have no possible way of ever having done good works. It would be like a parent requesting of his child, “If you grow five feet overnight, I will reward you. But if you don’t, I’ll punish you.” One might respond to the parent that he’s being completely unfair and unreasonable. How could you punish a child for failing at an impossible task?
And yet this is how God the Father is under the Calvinist framework. He demands an impossible task of most of the world, since wide is the path to destruction and narrow is the path to life. Most people would be eternally punished for something they had no control over. How could God be infinitely just and loving then?
It is clear he couldn’t—which is why the Calvinist view of total depravity is . . . well, totally wrong, and inconsistent.

Total Depravity Is Totally Wrong

We live life with language, with signs. Even a baby, who doesn’t speak English or Spanish or Latin, knows how to say things, and figures out pretty quickly how to say more—a cry, a cuddle, a coo. We speak with gestures and forms of dress, with emojis and text shorthand, with eye rolls and notes folded up and passed up the aisle when the teacher isn’t looking. We say things with songs and sounds, with sculptures, paintings, screenplays, cameras.
Even in our own interior way, we communicate. My body sends me, or rather I send myself, signs of pain, of delight, of confusion or fear. My mind—what for St. Augustine is the clearest sign of the Holy Trinity—is a kind of constant communication with itself: memory, understanding, will.
Language, signs, is wrapped up in the mystery of creation. So, too, it’s wrapped up in the mystery of sin, for every one of those signs can be misunderstood, distorted, ignored, and corrupted—whether with the tragic translation error leading to violence or the tragic interior communication gaps of mental illness. And so it’s no wonder that some key moments in the human story focus on this collapse.
The Tower of Babel—that great story from Genesis 11—is very much in the background of Pentecost. We don’t read it this morning, though it was read at last night’s vigil. The scene in Acts comes across as a kind of reversal of Babel. Human arrogance led to division and confusion; the Holy Spirit brings peace and understanding.
The Holy Spirit also brings . . . well, the Church as we know it. From one perspective, the Church was already Catholic in the upper room on Holy Thursday; some of the Fathers even speak of the Church going all the way back in the history of Israel and the Patriarchs. But whether the Church was born on Pentecost or simply transformed on Pentecost, it’s interesting that the main sign of this transformation, this new life, was the sudden miraculous translatability of the apostolic witness.
I use that term intentionally, because every translation is, I think, a kind of miracle, a kind of transcendence. I think the Jewish people of the first century understood this; their Bible, the Septuagint, was a Greek translation of ancient Hebrew texts. The legendary origin story of the Septuagint, where seventy translators independently produced the exact same Greek text, is meant to show not so much how special the Greek Septuagint is, but how special God’s Word is. God’s Word is alive. Muslims revere the Quran, but the Quran is the Quran only in Arabic; translations may be useful in academic contexts, but Islam does not consider them scripture. But Jews and Christians have been using translations from the beginning. And Pentecost is in one sense the ultimate validation of that tradition.
What does Jesus mean when he says that the Spirit will guide us “into all truth”? The passages for today take pains to show that the Spirit is not some independent agent, but the Spirit of the Father and the Son. So whatever “all truth” means, it cannot mean something contrary to the existing testimony of scripture and apostolic tradition.
The Catholic Church understands, thanks in large part to St. John Henry Newman, that doctrine does develop—not that the Church changes its teaching, but that it gains deeper insight into the deposit of faith over time, especially when it comes to the implications of that deposit and how it might be applied in any given age. Yet I’m not sure if that’s the main takeaway from Pentecost. For Pentecost isn’t about new knowledge—as if St. Peter stands up and declares that the Holy Spirit has taught him something new. Rather, Pentecost is about translation.
But that’s not quite right, either, at least the way that we often think of translation. In the age of Google Translate—and any number of other apps and tools out there—we think of translation as a technical achievement. So obviously it can be mechanized, perfected. But Christians are perhaps better equipped than most to understand the problem of this: we have, after all, been translating our holy scriptures for more than two thousand years. And somehow we continue doing so. Seminarians still learn Greek and Latin and Hebrew. Why bother? Why not just improve the older translations? The answer is that we know that language is not that easy. Language and human culture and society go hand in hand. How we speak, so we think, or vice versa, or both.
But if a language like Greek or Hebrew is hard to translate, how do you translate a new language like Christianity? For isn’t the Church a kind of language? It’s not just a social club; it’s a sacramental body. It’s not just a source of information; it is the information. It’s not just an abstraction; it’s a particular group of people. It is, in short, our grammar and vocabulary for approaching life. Because, in baptism, we have a new identity, a new life in Christ, we also have a new way of understanding and structuring reality.
Like any language, Christianity can never be fully understood from the outside. You can’t ever make sense of French until you speak French. You certainly can’t make any sense of Hungarian until you’ve lived in Hungary and eaten a lot of Hungarian food. Yes, you can watch a movie in Mandarin with English subtitles. But in a certain way, the movie you’re watching is not the movie that was made. It is something else. All translators know this—perhaps translators of higher art forms most of all. Can you translate a film into a poem? Can you translate a poem into a painting? Can you translate a symphony into a paragraph?
Or can you translate the experience of a group of friends who got to know the incarnate Son of God, watched him die, then met him raised to life and saw him ascend to heaven? Can you translate all that into a message, an invitation?
On Pentecost, the answer is yes. But it’s not yes in the sense that we can run it all through Google Translate, and that’s the end of it. It’s yes in the sense that the experience of Jesus has been translated—transformed by the Holy Spirit—into this language, this structure of life that we call Church. And so the miracle we see on Pentecost isn’t simply tongues, if by that we mean a supernaturally efficient translation of information. It’s that our mission to the world—our mission to preach the gospel to all creatures—isn’t something we have to bring about by force of will or brilliance of strategy. It is achieved by the Spirit working through us. He is the translator, the missionary; he is the fire.
I’m reminded of that famous motto chosen by St. John Henry Newman, “Heart speaks to heart.” It comes from St. Francis de Sales. And I think the way that both Francis and Newman use it is to remember that conversion comes to the whole person, not just to the head. Peter’s sermon on Pentecost is not a magic formula for converting souls; it’s not that he all of a sudden got the right information to share. No, he spoke from the heart, and the Spirit moved. This is always the pattern.
You see, if Church is a kind of language, it’s not always going to make sense from the outside. I say this from experience, both as a convert and as someone with Protestant family. Personally, I was something of an expert on Catholicism for many years, but my knowledge was like someone who has read a lot of French textbooks but never actually tried to speak French. Similarly, my non-Catholic family members can respect Catholicism, and they can try to understand certain parts of its idiom, but often I realize that they do not really understand it at all. And often this is how the conversation goes in the public square. We simply speak our own language.
This reality can be hard. We can get discouraged and wonder if anything we say or do will ever make any difference or even be understood. But Pentecost is a day of hope in just this way: it is God’s promise that, if our hearts are inflamed with his love, that fire can and will spread. It is translatable. Not by us: by the Holy Spirit. Come, Holy Ghost, and fill the hearts of thy faithful people: and kindle in them the fire of thy love.

Watch Your Language!

<div>Why did Jesus speak in Parables?</div><div>Jesus spoke in parables to make the Kingdom of God more easily understood by the people. Often times when trying to explain something using a story to illustrate the point is the most effective way to communicate the information.
Parables were a common method of teaching used by Rabbis and prophets in the ancient world (see 2 Sam. 12:1-9). It was a teaching style well known and accepted.
Parables invite the listener into the story. Which character do we identify with and why?
</div>

Why Did Jesus Speak in Parables?

<div>Is the Will of God dependent on what is good, or is good dependent on what is the Will of God?</div><div>In short, God is good and thus cannot do moral evil. Some might respond, “Then God cannot do everything and therefore is not all-powerful (omnipotent).” In fact, doing evil would be an impoverishment of God, showing there is something outside God that can impair or limit him. Which would thereby show that God is not omnipotent and therefore not God.
St. Paul affirms God’s goodness:
<blockquote>Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which in Christ Jesus goes with eternal glory. The saying is sure:
If we have died with him, we shall also live with him;
if we endure, we shall also reign with him; 
if we deny him, he also will deny us; 
if we are faithless, he remains faithful—</blockquote>
for he cannot deny himself (2 Timothy 2:10-13).
If we are unfaithful, God will seek us out like the Good Shepherd after a lost sheep (Matt. 18:12-13). Yet, he will not coerce our love, for that would not be truly loving and a violation of the free will he gave us. Still, as St. Paul says elsewhere, God demonstrates his merciful love in coming to die for our sins:
<blockquote>While we were yet helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man—though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5:6-8; see John 3:16-17).</blockquote>
</div>

God Is Truly Good, Not Arbitrary

Tim Staples delves into the complex theological concept of the kenosis, the self-emptying of Jesus Christ. The discussion explores whether Jesus withheld divine attributes during His earthly life and how the hypostatic union between His divine and human natures impacted His experience.
Transcript:
Is there any evidence for Jesus withholding divine attributes?
Right. Okay. It&#8217;s not that He withholds divine attributes.
It would be more proper to say, because of course, when you&#8217;re talking about Jesus in His divine personhood, He possesses all the divine attributes in full, because He&#8217;s God. The divine nature, as well as the three divine persons, cannot. It is impossible for a divine person to somehow deny the divine attributes. That&#8217;s metaphysically absurd, because they all three, of course, are the one God and possess all the, depending upon how you number them, the 14 or 15 divine attributes. Absolutely. All right. But what we are talking about in Jesus Christ, and here we go again. We&#8217;re talking about the kenosis once again. It&#8217;s in Christ&#8217;s humanity where the second person of blessed Trinity chose to humble himself. Let me think about that. That&#8217;s infinite humiliation of God, right? In the Incarnation,
in His humanity,
He withholds from what is His right, and that is the divine glory. You see, from the instant that Christ was conceived,
He merited by nature infinitely, right? From the first human act that He performed, He merited infinitely, and He continues to merit in every act, all the way up to and through the crucifixion of our blessed Lord, right? How can He merit infinite all the time? He can because of the hypostatic union, because everything that the human nature does must be understood to have as its subject the divine person. That&#8217;s what makes it infinitely propitiatory for our salvation. But He, the second person of blessed Trinity, chose to empty himself. Why?
Because if He accepted in His human nature the full reward of even His first action, guess what? He would be glorified. He would have the gifts of impassibility and subtility and agility and glory. All of that would be fully manifested in His human nature, and so therefore He wouldn&#8217;t be able to suffer. He wouldn&#8217;t be able to die, and so forth. And so He empties Himself of that which, you know,
Catholic theologians refer to it as His divine glory. But I think when they use that language, sometimes people get confused to think somehow He emptied Himself of His divinity. And that is heresy, okay? He can&#8217;t empty Himself of His divine nature. That&#8217;s metaphysically absurd. But what He could do is not&#8230; Here, the second person of blessed Trinity doesn&#8217;t permit the fullness of the glory that He has a right to, because He merited it, to be manifest. Why? So He could suffer and die for our sins, my friend. And you know, Cy and I were talking during the break of how if you look at Matthew 17 verses 1 through 3 in Luke&#8217;s version, in Luke chapter 17 verses 31 through about 35 there, and the transfiguration, what happens? He&#8217;s transfigured before Peter, James, and John. What is He doing? He&#8217;s manifesting what is His right, the fullness of the glory that awaits not only Him, but all of us. Amen. If we are faithful unto death, we will be glorified together with Him, says Paul in Romans chapter 8 verse 17.
We will be glorified together with Him if we suffer with Him in order to get there, right Cy? Well, Jesus, because He had it by right, He could manifest it anytime He wanted to, and He did. He gave them. Peter talks about this in 2 Peter chapter 1. Peter talks about how they saw His glory, and they&#8217;re talking about the transfiguration. Okay, so the point is, though, that Jesus, at every moment, He chose. This is why Jesus said, &#8220;Don&#8217;t you know I could snap my&#8230;&#8221; He didn&#8217;t say, &#8220;Snap my fingers.&#8221; I could call my Heavenly Father, and He would send a legion of angels and rescue me. But how would the Scriptures be fulfilled, right? In fact, He didn&#8217;t even need to call on the angels. He could do it Himself, you know. Jesus could, right? But what? He says, &#8220;How would the Scriptures be fulfilled?&#8221; Every instant. This is an important point to remember here.
When Jesus said in John chapter 10 verse 18, one of the most beautiful Johannine verses anywhere, &#8220;Think not that you take my life. I give it.&#8221; Right? &#8220;I give it as a ransom for many.&#8221; &#8220;I give it.&#8221; Why? Because nobody takes his life. He gives it. He could stop the whole carousel anytime he wants to. But there&#8217;s only one thing that keeps him on the cross, and that&#8217;s love.
The free choice of Him to continue to empty Himself for our salvation.

Did Jesus Christ Abandon His Divinity on Earth?

We know that pornography is a sin, but the word pornography has not always been seen as easy to define. The United States Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart in the court case Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964) struggled to give a good definition, famously <a href="https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/potter-stewart/">saying</a>, “I know it when I see it.” Yet it is worthwhile to have as clear a sense as possible of what the word means, and also what actions constitute sin. This is essential for us to be able to avoid it in the first place.
Pornography is ultimately a means to lust, the disordered desire for sexual pleasure apart from its procreative and unitive ends (CCC 2351). Lust both fuels the existence of pornography and is fueled within the person by pornography.
Let us examine the definition of pornography in a few ways.
First, etymologically, pornography can be broken down into porne (or porneia) and graphe. Porne refers to prostitutes, but porneia also is associated with sexual immorality more broadly. Graphe can be translated into writing or depicting. So, etymologically, it is the depiction of prostitution or sexual immorality. This is fitting, because pornography is essentially prostitution mediated by the internet, movies, magazines, etc.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines pornography similarly. It states the following:
<blockquote>Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense. Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials (2354).</blockquote>
The definition of pornography according to the Catechism can be simplified as “the deliberate display of real or simulated sexual acts to third parties.” Sources such as Fr. John Hardon’s <a href="https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=35655&amp;randomterm=false">Catholic Dictionary</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHe9RMDLB54">Matt Fradd</a> elaborate that pornography is “intended to stimulate arousal or has that effect.”
<h2>What the Catechism Does Not Say</h2>
An examination of the objective definition of pornography reveals some interesting and countercultural points, especially in what it does not say. Several elements that are culturally associated with pornography are omitted from this definition given to us by the Church. For example, the definition does not say that the displayed sexual acts count as pornography only if the people are naked. Second, there is no distinction made about the medium. We may be tempted to believe that only movies or videos from websites that are explicitly labeled as pornographic are problematic. However, plenty of mainstream movies contain scenes that consist of “real or simulated sexual acts.” Therefore, even if the scenes do not take place in movies considered pornographic, the scenes are nonetheless themselves pornographic. Further, the definition does not limit the medium to only that which is visual or even that which is real. While the Catechism’s chosen word, “display” may seem to imply only the visual (videos and pictures), the core meaning is the depiction of sexual acts, and sexual acts can be depicted through means that are animated. They can also be depicted through audio only. They can even be depicted in ways that are intended to arouse through writing, which is what happens in erotic literature.
<h2>Even Erotic Literature?</h2>
While a whole separate article could be written about whether erotic literature really counts as pornography, and plenty of articles have been written on this topic, I will give a few short reasons why I would assert that it does count as pornography. First, when we looked at the etymology earlier in the article, graphe can refer to writing. Second, writing explicit descriptions of sexual acts is undoubtedly a deliberate display, and the whole industry of erotic literature exists to be source of romantic and sexual enjoyment. These sexual feelings are sought out and received by the reader from a source other than one’s spouse. Further, erotic literature does what the Catechism says, all pornography does. “It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world.” For these reasons, I contend erotic literature counts as pornography.
<h2>The Heart of the Matter</h2>
When all of the above is taken into account, our working definition of pornography can be “the deliberate display or depiction of real or simulated sexual acts to third parties which are intended to arouse the viewer or has that effect”. There are some omissions in the Church’s definition of pornography that a person who wants to know what how much he can “get away with” could fool himself into capitalizing on. The primary element here is the reference to depicting sexual acts. One could argue that a picture of a naked woman, or of a woman in a swimsuit, is not a display of a sexual act, and it is therefore is not pornography.
By the definition in the Catechism, this is technically true. This is one reason why it is possible to have nude art that is not pornographic, such as that present in the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/video/porn-and-nude-art-whats-the-difference">Sistine Chapel at the Vatican</a>. However, this is where we have to be brutally honest and dig to the core of the teaching, and also to the core of what God commands of us.
As stated earlier, pornography was created from the lust of the hearts of sinful fallen humanity. In itself, it fuels lust. However, in the two-thousand-year history of the Church, pornographic movies and internet videos have only just arrived on the scene. Jesus himself, over two thousand years ago, in a world without the advanced visual technology we have, stated that “everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:28). Humans have engaged in lust for far longer than we have had access to the pornographic material of today.
This is the heart of the matter, and it leaves no room for one who wants to get away with as much as he can. This is why, when my Covenant Eyes colleague Sam Black <a href="https://www.thehealingchurch.com/">was asked on stage</a> at an event, “What is considered porn?”, he gave this answer:
<blockquote>What causes your heart to look with lustful intent? What causes your heart to treat another as a sexual object? What do you store in your memory for masturbation fantasies? Not just the object, or image, or video itself, but also consider the lust that comes from seeking to use these things for sexual gratification. Do you not know that you are defiled by what comes out of your heart? That is porn. That is porn to you (17).</blockquote>
<h2>Do Not Just Avoid Pornography—Pursue Holiness</h2>
Let us do a quick review. Pornography is the deliberate display or depiction of sexual acts to third parties which are intended to arouse the viewer or has that effect. This is all-inclusive of pornographic videos, sex scenes in movies, pictures of sexual acts, erotic literature, and other means of depicting such acts. Lust is disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure, which is sought for itself apart from its procreative and unitive purposes. While a picture of a woman naked or in a bathing suit might not fit our definition of pornography since no sexual act is depicted, when looked at for the sake of sexual enjoyment they become a means of lust, and therefore serves the same purpose as pornography. This means that a follower of Christ cannot settle merely to ask the question, “does this count as pornography?” but he must ask himself the primary question: “is this virtuous or is this sinful?” Answering this question involves knowing the teaching of the church. It also involves a person taking himself into account, including his temptations, struggles, previous choices, and even fetishes. The human person is hardwired for sexual pleasure, and any explicit depiction of sex with real people is almost inevitably going to evoke arousal in its viewers. The same could be said for anyone viewing pictures of swimsuit models online or in magazines. Further, when anyone being depicted in such a way might be seen but not known, that person’s dignity is violated. That is why Pope St. John Paul II said that pornography shows not too much, but rather too little.
At the heart of the question “What can I get away with looking at?”, and at the heart of “Well, this does not even count as pornography,” is the very lust that Jesus condemns. At the heart of getting away with as much as one can is still the desire to use another, even if only a little bit.
Lust, at its core, is wrong because it entails the use of another person or persons for sexual pleasure. Pope St. John Paul II, before he was the pope, in his book Love and Responsibility, said that “the person is a good towards which the only proper and adequate attitude toward a human person is love.” People are never meant to be used; they are meant only to be loved. For a Catholic—and all people, for that matter—the question can never be How much lust can I get away with? Rather, the question that must guide our lives is How much love can I give to God and to others? How we live our lives will be the answer to that question, and that is all we have to give back to God, whose love for us is infinite.

What ‘Counts’ as Pornography?

Why are YOU Christian?!

The Old Testament struggled with articulating a theology of the afterlife during most of its formation. It initially came at the problem through the lens of justice. God is both good and just. Many people are neither. Sheol, the abode of the dead, is not heaven: it is the place to which all the dead go, a kind of shadowy (hence the word “shades”), inchoate existence. So, at first, the Old Testament tried to do justice in this world: God rewards the good with long life, health, and children. Only the bad die young (and suffer, which is why the Sanhedrin wanted a certain thirty-three-year-old to hang on a tree. It’s also why the first reaction of the apostles to the man born blind is “Who sinned? Him or his parents?”
As nice as that theory sounded, experience did not bear it out. Job and Qoheleth attest to that. At that point, it became a matter of faith. Since you weren’t there to counsel God when he laid out the world, trust him to do what is right and just, even if you don’t understand it.
Good advice, but not wholly satisfying.
The Old Testament finally began to shape a clear notion of the afterlife only with the Book of Wisdom, a book that was written maybe a century before Christ—i.e., at the very end of the Old Testament. Wisdom articulates an understanding of eternal life by starting with not justice (though its vision of reward and punishment is eminently just), but love. If what binds us to God is love, it assures us of life because God is faithful and would not let love aim for the futile. Love by its nature seeks to endure. Would God—who is Love—make that an illusion?
I mention this because it leads to a great film you should (re)watch: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/amzn1.dv.gti.14b465e1-ad00-f78d-9d2e-417bf079ecf0?autoplay=0&amp;ref_=atv_cf_strg_wb">The Jeweler’s Shop</a>. Based on Karol Wojtyła (Pope St. John Paul II)’s play of the same name, it’s “a meditation on the sacrament of matrimony, passing into a drama.” That’s often what happens to marriage, too.
The film version of “The Jeweler’s Shop” takes liberties with the play’s storyline. That’s largely due to two factors: the demands of a worldwide audience and the context of the original play. More concrete detail is needed to make the story clear to an audience of global viewers. And, although Wojtyła wrote “The Jeweler’s Shop” in 1960, I have the impression he remained under the influence of the “Rhapsodic Theater,” a theatrical form which accented the primacy of the word, in which he participated during the War. A word-focused play does not readily transfer to visual film.
“The Jeweler’s Shop” examines three marriages. Teresa and Andrzej deeply love each other. He dies shortly after their marriage, but not before they conceive a son, Krzysztof. Anna’s and Stefan’s love is initially more superficial and decays into a loveless marriage. They have a daughter, Monika. Krzysztof and Monika eventually marry, bringing to their marriage the baggage of their parents’ marriages, the marriages they have known.
The liberties of the film version of “The Jeweler’s Shop” do not, in the end, interfere with Wojtyła’s original storyline. The changes: Anna and Stefan escape World War II in Poland—in which Andrzej dies—by emigrating to Canada. They eventually sponsor Teresa and Krzysztof, where she carries on a profession as a pianist. Monika and Krzysztof are college-age: she an aspiring ballerina, he a college student.
The Jeweler, played by Burt Lancaster, symbolizes God. Fr. Adam, who is the first of the protagonists to be seen with the Jeweler, is clearly God’s representative. The young people—like the students Wojtyła used to take on hikes—fall in love, albeit with different motivations. Andrzej seeks someone who completes him. Stefan wants to impress Anna and would not necessarily have been bothered if she had slept with him. Andrzej grapples with the “crossroads” that the decision to marry Teresa involves; one gets the impression Stefan runs into or away from things most of his life. Watch how both men deal with women during the forest hike: Stefan ostentatiously “assists” them to descend a hill; Andrzej’s watchful eye is less focused on how she sees him than on what she needs.
I would highlight three scenes in the film: Andrzej’s proposal, Anna’s attempt to sell her wedding ring, and Krzysztof’s proposal.
Teresa and Andrzej walk the streets of Old Town Kraków when they both look at the rings in the Jeweler’s shop window. For a moment, their mutual gaze is reflected in the window along with the Jeweler looking at them—but only for a moment: God leaves room for our decision. Andrzej’s way of proposing marriage is unusual (but faithful to the text): “Will you be my life’s companion?” Before she answers, Teresa runs into an adjacent store, where she quickly buys white, high-heeled shoes. Upon returning to Andrzej, she makes clear that his question required her to “be as tall as you” to face the demands of a lifetime. But before she assents, she asks why he wants to marry her, and he makes clear that, while there were “many other choices,” grace made clear that this woman was she who completed him. Every word in that scene deserves reflection.
Much later, when Anna finds herself in a loveless marriage to Stefan, she tries to sell her ring. She takes it to a jeweler, who declines to buy it because he says it weighs nothing: “Your husband must be alive,” in which case neither ring without the other weighs anything, because they are not “the weight of metal, but the proper weight of man.” Shocked and perhaps angered, she rushes down the street, apparently ready to throw herself at any man who exhibits interest in her. A car trails her. The male driver invites her to “join him.” She reaches for the door handle, but, when she looks again, she sees not the man who flirted with her, but the face of Stefan, from which she recoils. Moments later, when she encounters Fr. Adam, he makes clear to her that “the Bridegroom could have no other face for you” and challenges her, despite her crushed faith, that love is not a moment, but a lifetime and can be rekindled.
Monika and Krzysztof labor under the heritage of their parents’ marriages. Krzysztof suffers from the lack of a male image at home and a mother whose fate was loneliness. Monika labors under the form of her parents’ loveless marriage. She initially repulses Krzysztof’s proposal, which—together with Anna’s encounter on the street—gets the elders talking. Krzysztof, while giving her space, also recognizes that life cannot be indeterminate: he proposes again, this time saying they should marry in Kraków, making clear that he will not leave her and that his having given her time shows he cares. But “time’s up.” “I want more,” says Monika—meaning more than what her parents have—but takes the risk of love and says, finally, “Yes.”
The play grapples with the fact that man is “poor,” with a limited life but a desire for love that lasts. For Wojtyła, the only way to resolve that paradox is to make a choice, to take a risk and, in freedom, pick love, which is what takes us to God. Because, as the Jeweler observes in the film’s final shot, as he closes the door of his shop (just as the Bridegroom calls time on the virgins), “the future depends on love.”

That Time John Paul II Wrote a Play

<div>If a man is unable to climax before a couple stops having sexual intercourse, for whatever reason, is this sinful?</div><div>No, but this is a rather unlikely scenario, and he should see his doctor. We assume, of course, that the couple is validly married.
</div>

Husband Unable to Complete Marital Act

“If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.”
Today is Rogation Sunday—one of those medieval Catholic things that largely fell out of use in the 70s, even while it continued in Anglicanism, and has now been brought back through the Ordinariates. In some places, it probably never left. It comes from the Latin rogare, “to ask,” and it is a time for processing around and singing litanies—litanies to the saints, litanies about the upcoming growing season, litanies about good weather and protection from plagues. This comes in part from the practical need to mark a transition period between spring and summer, from the time of celebrating Easter to the hard work of tending crops and flocks and all the work of summer. (If you want to see a nice historical reconstruction of Rogationtide as it would have been in the early sixteenth century, the series Tudor Monastic Farm is a good place to start.)
So one of the things that happened, especially in the early modern Rogation processions, was marking the boundaries of the parish. Parish boundaries are pretty abstract these days—and even more so in the Ordinariate—but in a medieval parish, this had a practical use for establishing formal lines of the village, where one person’s field ended and another’s began.
The fact that we don’t do this anymore—that we don’t even really know how to do it, aside from a generic ode to the upcoming agricultural season—is characteristic of where and who we are. In the end, we do not like boundaries very much. We might talk about setting boundaries when it comes to what we discuss with our boss, or when and where we might take a work call after hours, but one of the reasons that we find even those things hard to do is that we have, as a culture, assumed a deep suspicion of all boundaries.
This sense of individual boundaries comes to us from the modern liberalism that forms the foundation of modern conservatism and progressivism both. The assumption behind both of these dominant political philosophies, which are really two sides to the same coin, is that the ultimately meaningful thing is the individual and his will. So, in the words of one recent Supreme Court justice, “the heart of liberty is the right to define one&#8217;s own concept of existence.” And so modern politics is really nothing other than different interest groups fighting for power about their own self-definitions. We have abandoned reason, and argument, for the sake of this autonomous liberty.
“If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.”
Jesus, like Moses before him, and like the medieval rogation processions, seems to think that there are boundaries—lines that mean something—that we did not choose. He couldn’t be clearer when he says, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit.”
This is not opposed to freedom. Freedom here runs deep: “Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you.” But this freedom, this power of intercession, has definite boundaries. Boundaries that we did not choose. Boundaries that exist independent of our will, independent of our sense of self, our desires, our personal definitions.
This is in large part what Peter learns in our reading from Acts. He encounters the centurion Cornelius, a God-fearing Gentile, and realizes that the boundaries that he had drawn, that he had assumed, based on a combination of personal preference and cultural history, might be the norm . . . but God makes it clear that his boundaries are wider.
The story of Peter in Acts is a hard one. Many Christians—like many of our friends in the mainline Protestant world—have argued that Peter’s encounter with Cornelius is the model for an ever-increasing inclusivity that ignores all boundaries. But it’s important to note that the specific boundary here is an ethnic one, not a moral one. Cornelius does not, importantly, suggest a radically different form of life, a different model of morality. It’s simply that he is not a child of Abraham. And those of us who are not the direct descendants of Abraham can be grateful that this is the moment when promises of Jesus become more visibly available to all people.
The boundaries, in fact, remain. Part of how Peter was able to recognize God’s presence in these unexpected places was precisely in that they maintained the basic boundaries of the universal moral law. They also recognized the specific bounded nature of Jesus himself—the particular content of the gospel of the kingdom.
In other words, the invitation of Jesus is truly universal. The invitation is not some vague nice thought about goodness; it is an invitation to find ourselves, and to identify ourselves, not with what we want, or with how we define ourselves on our own, but in him. The universality, the inclusivity, of the Christian message is meaningless if not grounded in the specificity of Jesus and his commandments, which are not the end of the law, but its fulfilment and purpose. To follow the moral law is ultimately to love him. To love him is to follow his law. There is in the end no separation between love and obedience, between duty and affection. As human beings in the grip of sin and death, we want there to be such a separation. We think there must be. But there isn’t. Love wins only when it is obedient; love is love only when it is united to the person who is love.
So as we enter this season of boundaries, as we might think of it—this season of growth and knowledge and human freedom, which things are all the product of discipline and hard work—we do well to remember to pray, in true Rogation style, for the recognition and awareness of such boundaries, as our collect of the day has it: “O Lord, from whom all good things do come, grant to us thy humble servants, that by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that be good, and by thy merciful guiding may perform the same.” Amen.

Boundaries for a Good Christian

Most religious conversations between believers and nonbelievers lead to a contrast between religion and science. “Science is based upon reason; religion relies upon faith,” the nonbeliever will assert, believing that this in some way damages the respectability of belief. In fact, he is only echoing St. Thomas Aquinas, who taught that theology is done on the light of faith while philosophy—including the philosophy of nature and hence modern science—is based upon the natural light of reason. 
This, of course, is not what the nonbeliever wants to say. In contrasting religion and science, he is implying that the believer is a victim of superstition who fails to acknowledge that <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/is-the-only-real-knowledge-scientific-knowledge">only science can lead to true knowledge</a> because it alone is based on empirical verification and rigorous testing. 
How is the believer to respond? Is it true that science alone is rational because it is based on demonstration and logical reasoning? 
Most people would agree that religious faith is grounded in truths that cannot be demonstrated empirically using the scientific method. For the Catholic, these beliefs of faith are justified because they are accepted as true on the revelation and authority of God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. What is not obvious is that scientific knowledge too must be grounded in essential, nonprovable beliefs about the nature of the universe. 
What follows is a brief summary of the scientific method that grounds the scientific enterprise. As many philosophers of science have shown, the success and justification of the method rests on premises that cannot be demonstrated. Instead, these premises are accepted as true by the scientific community because science would be unable to function without them. These premises constitute the essential beliefs of every scientist—his natural faith—and reflect his implicit acceptance of classical metaphysics. 
<h2>First step: induction</h2>
The first step in the scientific method involves the process of induction. The scientist looks around himself, collects data, then makes a probable conclusion. For example, all the swans he sees are white. He therefore proposes the hypothesis that all swans are white.  
But using this process of induction alone, the scientist can never assert truths with absolute certainty. No great number of white swans could rule out the possibility that the next swan could be black. Consequently, the scientist often constructs his hypothesis so that it can be verified and tested through experimentation. The experiment is then thought to confirm or dismiss the hypothesis. 
But even this safeguard cannot guarantee the truth of scientific conclusions. This is illustrated by a simple example used by the philosopher Richard Swinburne (Simplicity as Evidence of Truth, 15-19). Let us say that a scientist is analyzing data composed of four pairs of numbers, the first number in each set being designated “x” and the second “y”: (1,2), (2,4), (3,6), and (4,8). He wants to determine the relationship between the first and the second numbers in the series where x increases by 1 and y increases by 2. 
Using induction, he compares the pairs of numbers and proposes that y = 2x. It is a reasonable hypothesis, but he resorts to more testing and comes up with two more pairs of numbers, (5,10) and (6,12). They seem to confirm his hypothesis, and he rejoices.  
What is not usually realized, however, is that this series of paired numbers can be adequately explained by an infinite number of alternate equations of the form y = 2x + x(x-1)(x-2)(x-3)(x-4)(x-5)(x6)z, where z can be a constant or another function of x. No further testing and collecting of data would be able to distinguish between these alternative equations and the basic equation y = 2x.
 In choosing y = 2x as his hypothesis, the scientist has made the assumption that <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/what-is-divine-simplicity">simplicity</a> is a marker for truth. 
<h2>Does simplicity beg the question?</h2>
James D. Watson, describing his and F.H.C. Crick’s discovery of the double helical structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, said it was “an adventure characterized by youthful arrogance and by the belief that the truth, once found, would be simple as well as pretty” (The Double Helix, ix). And despite the absence of any definitive data that would favor the heliocentric over the geocentric model for the solar system, Copernicus believed that his hypothesis that the Earth revolved around the sun was true because it was simpler. These are only two examples that suggest that the simplest theories are most likely to be true. Most scientists believe this. Why? 
Swinburne discusses three possible answers (Simplicity, 44-51). First, some might claim that there are reasons why scientists choose simple theories beyond the greater probable truth of a simple theory. But examples from the history of science suggest this is not true. As Watson believed, simplicity itself is thought to be a marker of truth. 
Second, some might argue that the presumption of simplicity is justified because history has shown that simplicity is a reasonable assumption that has worked. Swinburne points out that justifying simplicity this way itself already relies upon the criterion of simplicity and as such begs the question. He points out there are many ways of extrapolating from past historical data.  
“Usually, simplest theories predict better than more complex theories” is one way, but “Usually theories formulated by Greeks in the bath, by Englishmen who watch apples drop, or Germans who work in patent offices . . . predict better than other theories” is another way. (Swinburne is referring here to Archimedes, Newton, and Einstein.)  
This second explanation of past data explains history equally well but is obviously absurd. The first alternative, the simpler one, has to be preferred. However, since simplicity itself is presumed, the appeal to history cannot be used to justify simplicity. 
The third possibility is that some mathematical or logical theorem justifies belief in simplicity. This, in fact, is only a more sophisticated way of saying that some mathematical formula can be devised to demonstrate that induction can give rise to certain knowledge. But, as the skeptic philosopher <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/to-err-is-humean">David Hume</a> wrote, “There can be no demonstrative arguments to prove that those instances of which we have had no experience resemble those of which we have had experience” (Treatise on Human Nature. 1:3:6). 
The future always remains contingent. Ultimately, if the principle of simplicity is true, it is a fundamental, indemonstrable truth that the scientist must accept on faith. It allows him to do science. 
<h2>Truth is beautiful</h2>
The quote from Watson above is a reminder that the conviction that truth is simple is not the only belief held by the scientist. Closely related to this is the belief that the truth is beautiful or, using Watson’s word, “pretty.”  
The mathematical physicist Paul M. Dirac—after recalling that the greatest modern physicists have looked for “beautiful theories,” “beautiful equations,” and “beautiful generalizations” to explain nature—recounts the case of a physicist who refused to accept his mathematical theory because it did not agree exactly with the observed data. Eventually, it turned out that the mathematical solution was true, and the observation was erroneous. Dirac wrote: 
<blockquote>I think that there is a moral to this story—namely, that it is more important to have beauty in one’s equations than to have them fit experiments. . . . It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one’s equations, and if one has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress” (<a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-evolution-of-the-physicists-picture-of-nature/">“The Evolution of the Physicist’s Picture of Nature,”</a> Scientific American, vol. 208, 47).</blockquote>
Today, theoretical physicists still use elegance and coherence, elements that reflect the beautiful, as signposts for formulating explanations for nature that may not at first be provable with empirical methods. String theory, with which scientists are attempting to unify all the fundamental forces with gravity, is one example.  
In fact, string theory is just one of many attempts to find a theory-of-everything, a single equation that can be emblazoned on the T-shirt of an M.I.T. student. It is a search driven by the realization that the standard model used by physicists to describe the structure of nature seems too complicated. It is not pretty enough. 
Clearly, it is not easy to justify this intuitive understanding that truth is beautiful in a logical demonstration. However, alongside simplicity, beauty allows the scientists to choose among his different hypotheses. It allows him to accomplish his task. 
Finally, as Pope St. John Paul II points out, the scientist takes for granted that <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/is-it-true-that-there-is-no-truth">truth exists</a> and is the object of his endeavors: 
<blockquote>When scientists, following their intuition, set out in search of the logical and verifiable explanation of a phenomenon, they are confident from the first that they will find an answer, and they do not give up in the face of setbacks. They do not judge their original intuition useless simply because they have not reached their goal; rightly enough they will say that they have not yet found a satisfactory answer (Fides et Ratio 29.). </blockquote>
Hence, for the scientist, the truth is attractive—or, in classical terminology, the truth, because it attracts, is good. 
<h2> Based on an act of faith</h2>
We have seen that the scientific assumption that truth is simple, beautiful, and good cannot be demonstrated and yet must be accepted as true. As Swinburne has pointed out, an inductive argument cannot be used to justify this belief, since it has to be assumed in order to construct any conclusions from historical data. It is a metaphysical first principle, a basic assertion about the nature of reality that, as the ancient and medieval philosophers understood, is fundamental and non-demonstrable. 
Ultimately, it is nothing more than the scientist’s implicit acceptance of classical metaphysics that equates being with truth, unity, beauty, and goodness. Every scientist has to accept that reality is ordered and intelligible. As such, simplicity, beauty, and goodness constitute non-empirical criteria that must be adopted by every scientist in order to accomplish his work.  
These attributes reflect common metaphysical beliefs that must be presupposed in order for anyone—scientist or philosopher or theologian—to be rational. Hence, at the very heart of science’s rationality is an act of the will—an act of faith. 
Science is one example of human reasoning at its best. Most scientists would contend that their work attains truth, pointing at the successes of science—we fly planes, we cure diseases, we communicate on the Internet—to support their argument. These same scientists often fail to realize that these successes necessarily presuppose metaphysical and methodological principles that though non-demonstrable are accepted by them as true and certain. 
Is it surprising that there are truths that cannot be proved? Though most scientists would be suspicious, they shouldn’t be. Kurt Gödel, one of their own, showed in 1930 that there would always be some truths whose truth or falsity cannot be established using the axioms and deductive rules of arithmetic (John Barrow, Impossibility: The Limits of Science and the Science of Limits, 218-231). He used logic to prove that there were things that could not be proved. Some of these include the metaphysical first principles that ground the scientific enterprise. 
Thus, if science is considered the paradigm of rationality as many people suppose, then one must conclude that believing is also rational. The believer can now correct the nonbeliever who has contrasted science and religion: science is based primarily upon reason but, as does every rational enterprise, including religion, science relies upon principles that are grounded in faith.

Science is Based on Faith

According to the eighteenth-century century skeptical philosopher David Hume, “a wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.” For Hume, this meant rejecting belief in miracles, as it seemed there was not enough evidence ever to justify believing the most common miracle claims that are presented. Indeed, Hume’s argument against miracles has been one of the most enduring among critics of the Christian faith.
Hume’s case against miracles could be likened to someone weighing evidence on a scale. On one side, the investigator places the evidence for the miracle, like ancient writings that record witnesses who claim to have seen the miracle, as well as the trustworthiness of these witnesses. On the other side would be the evidence against the miracle, such as faults in the witnesses as well as the uniformity of nature the miracle violates.
For Hume, belief in miracles is justified only when one end of the scale massively outweighs the other. For example, Hume warns against belief in a scientific hypothesis whose ratio of experiments in its favor is only 2:1 (or 100:50, as Hume puts it) and prefers a ratio closer to 100:1. He would like the evidence for a hypothesis to be one hundred times stronger than the evidence against it.
So how does Hume weigh the evidence when it comes to miracles?
Hume is skeptical of the evidence for genuine eyewitness testimony to miracles, but even if eyewitness testimony were credible, the evidence against miracles still would outweigh the testimonial evidence for them. In other words, we know from overwhelming experience that miracles don’t happen. Instead of seeing men walk on water and rise from the dead, we see men only float in water, and dead men stay dead. These are facts humans have always and uniformly observed everywhere. Therefore, Hume says,
<blockquote>As a uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed, or the miracle rendered credible, but by an opposite proof, which is superior.</blockquote>
Hume goes on to say, “No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish.” It follows, then, that, at least with ancient miracles, it is more likely that the testimony is faulty than that the miracle happened. As Hume says, “it is strange, a judicious reader is apt to say, upon the perusal of these wonderful historians, that such prodigious events never happen in our days. But it is nothing strange, I hope, that men should lie in all ages.”
However, there are several problems with Hume’s argument.
First, it appears to beg the question, or assume what it is trying to prove. This is evident in Hume’s charge that when it comes to resurrections from the dead, “that has never been observed in any age or country.” But this argument is akin to saying the Big Bang never happened because “this event has never been observed in any age or country.” The claim that nature is uniform and resurrections never happen succeeds only if you already reject any claims that they do happen, such as the gospel accounts of Christ’s resurrection. Like the Big Bang, this evidence can show that just because certain events do not happen now, it does not follow that they never happened in the past.
One could try to rescue Hume’s argument by saying he does not assume that resurrections never happen. Instead, Hume merely claims that in the history of the world, it is almost universally certain that dead men stay dead. This is so certain that there are no uncontroversial cases of someone rising from the dead. Even Christians would agree that billions upon billions of people have not risen from the dead, whereas only Christ has risen from the dead by his own power to glorious immortal life. Therefore, the billions of cases where people don’t rise from the dead outweighs the evidence for the one particular case of a man rising from the dead that is disputed.
But the problem with this reformulation is that the scales of evidence should not place the evidence for the resurrection on one hand and the evidence for billions of non-resurrections on the other. Instead, the scales should weigh the evidence for Christ rising against the evidence that Christ did not rise from the dead—not the evidence for other people not rising from the dead.
This would be analogous to comparing the evidence for the Big Bang to the evidence against that Big Bang, and not just the evidence for all the Big Bangs that never happened in the history of the universe.
In fact, in the seventeenth century, the English philosopher John Locke had previously exposed the error of using limited experience in order to justify general negations of supernatural truths. One example he gave involved the king of Siam, who refused to believe that an elephant could walk across a frozen river since no one had ever observed such a phenomenon in his tropical kingdom (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 15).
This example was not addressed in the first edition of Hume’s work on miracles, but it did appear in the second edition under the guise of an Indian prince who doubts testimony about frost or ice. According to Hume’s logic, the prince would be justified in not believing someone who describes “walking on water” with “ice skates,” since, in perpetually warm climates like his, it is impossible to walk on the surface of water.
Against the objection that Hume’s methodology leads to the prince believing a falsehood (and thus making his methodology unreliable and his subsequent argument against miracles a failure), Hume says the prince is unaware that different temperatures can affect water, and so, upon being made aware of this fact, he can be justified in believing in the existence of frozen water he cannot currently see. But this is an ad hoc response, since the prince is no more justified in believing that “temperature can solidify water” than he is justified in believing that “water can be solidified.” After all, both facts contradict his experience.
When it comes to resurrections, Hume ignores the similar relevant fact that God can raise people from the dead, so if God exists, then miracles are not impossible quirks of nature.
Hume also says that the prince can reason analogously from other physical changes in materials to the possibility of the existence of frozen water, but the same can’t be done for resurrections from the dead, which are so out of the ordinary that no testimony could ever support their veracity. But as John Earman writes in his book Hume’s Abject Failure: The Argument Against Miracles,
<blockquote>I am dubious that [this reasoning] can lead to the kind of “proof” against religious miracles that Hume wanted. The notion of analogy is so elastic that in any moderately complex situation one can always find positive and negative analogies. If one sees a positive analogy for a solid form of water in other phase changes, why not see a positive analogy for resurrection in near death experiences, catatonic states, and the like? (37).</blockquote>
So Hume’s argument against miracles fails, because it assumes that the lack of miracles observed in the present proves the existence of a similar lack of miracles in the past. But miracles are unique, anomalous events, so we should not expect their existence in the present any more than we would expect modern-day Big Bang singularities. Hume’s argument also leads to an untenable skepticism that would cause untold amounts of error by denying the epistemic right to believe in things that contradict our own experience or even humanity’s collective experience. Contra skeptics like Hume, it can be just as detrimental to a man’s well-being to fail to believe the truth as it can be detrimental to successfully believe a falsehood.
Therefore, any miracle claim should be assessed with an open mind and evaluated on its own terms, with the evidence both for and against that particular miracle.

How an Elephant Walks on Water

A caller asks how a temporal action can merit eternal punishment. Dr. Karlo Broussard gives the Catholic Answer.
Transcript:
So, Karlo had a article in the Catholic Answers magazine that discussed the why temporal sinfulness can merit eternal punishment. And I kind of wanted to&#8230; I read it, I&#8217;ve forgotten it, I was hoping we could give a quick summary of it. And the second part was kind of about,
similarly, how can people merit or condemn to hell when, to a certain extent, almost everyone can have mitigating circumstances where they don&#8217;t fully know or understand their own simpleness. So, where it might not merit a&#8230; I guess what&#8217;s that level of symptomacy?
Be a mortal sin, not necessarily a being a female sin. Right.
Okay, yeah, two excellent questions, Matthew, and thank you for them. So, with regard to my article for Catholic Answers magazine online, the title of the article is &#8220;Doesn&#8217;t Hell Make God an Unjust Tyrant?&#8221; And so, I deal with this question of the temporal nature of the sin with regard to the duration of the action, the sinful action itself, and the eternal punishment. For some, the eternal punishment seems to be disproportionate to the temporal or finite duration of the sinful behavior itself. But in response to that sort of critique or objection, we can say that judgment is not based on the duration of sin, but the gravity of the fault. And also, the gravity of the fault is going to be determined by the dignity of the person whom you&#8217;re offending. Right? And so, with regard to the duration of sin, for example, it takes only a few seconds to take the life of an innocent human being. And yet, most people of good will would recognize that even though that crime only took a few seconds, that murderer can be detained in prison for a very, very, very long time. And so, notice there the nature of the punishment, the duration of the punishment, even though disproportionate to the duration of the crime, we still acknowledge that the punishment itself is proportionate to the crime given the gravity of the crime against an innocent human being. And the same would be true with regard to a mortal sin, which involves the rejection of God and anything that&#8217;s consistent with the love of God in grave serious situations. And so, the gravity of the fault, namely the separation, the self-exclusion of the individual from the love of God, merits an everlasting punishment. But I think, Matthew, here&#8217;s the key for the everlasting portion of that punishment.
Notice that a grave serious fault involves separation, self-exclusion from the love of God.
After death, that separation from the love of God is fixed. It remains forever. Okay? And that just follows from the metaphysics of the choice of an incorporeal being like a soul or even an angelic being. And for further information on that, you might want to check out Ed Fazer&#8217;s article, &#8220;Does God Send You to Hell?&#8221; I think the title of it is on his blog. But the fault involves separation from the love of God. Separation from the love of God is fixed for the rest of that soul&#8217;s existence.
And so, therefore, that soul, insofar as it&#8217;s forever separating itself from the love of God, merits proportionately for itself forever punishment. And so, you can see how the forever part of that punishment follows from the soul being fixed or remaining in its self-exclusion from the love of God. So, as long as you got the crime, you got the proportionate punishment. You got the crime of separating itself from the soul separating itself from the love of God. And so, you&#8217;re going to have the proportionate punishment of torment for the rest of its existence. And so, that&#8217;s one way in which we can show or reconcile or let me retract. That&#8217;s one way in which we can argue for the justice of an everlasting punishment for a finite duration of a sinful behavior. Now, with regard to your second question, how can people go to hell with regard to not having a true understanding? Or is there room for a lack of sufficient knowledge such that one does not incur mortal sin? And the answer would be yes.
The church teaches, Matthew, in its teaching on the distinction between venial and mortal sin, that in order for an individual to incur the guilt of mortal sin, which means destroying charity in the soul and separating itself from God, full knowledge, along with full deliverance and consent, are necessary. So, if someone is not responsible for his or her lack of the full knowledge concerning the gravity of the offense, well, then, that individual would not incur the guilt of mortal sin. And if that individual dies, that individual would not go to hell because the only thing that sends someone to hell is death in the state of mortal sin. And so, to speak to your question specifically, yes, it is possible that someone can lack sufficient knowledge that&#8217;s necessary to incur the guilt of mortal sin. Even for a grave serious offense against God&#8217;s law, even though you might have, objectively, the grave matter, the behavior itself being seriously wrong, the individual might not be meeting those other conditions on the subjective level in order to merit the guilt of mortal sin.

How Can a Temporal Action (Sin) Merit Eternal Punishment (Hell)?

We all know from experience that an acorn develops into an oak tree. It’s as if the mature oak shapes or molds the acorn’s growing activity, influencing the acorn to act in one way rather than some other way—say, developing into a banana tree.  And the fact that an acorn, unimpeded and under the ideal circumstances, is settled on developing into an oak tree—rather than a banana tree—is not something we impose upon the acorn. We only discover it. It is intrinsic to the acorn; it belongs to what an acorn is to have that goal.
But how can the oak shape or mold an acorn, giving it a specific direction, if it doesn’t yet exist?
To answer this question, we can move a little closer to “home.” Consider the college student, and how the hope of graduating influences or shapes his activity. It’s the end goal—the college degree—that influences the student to take classes and study hard.
Before the student sets off to college, the college degree he’ll (hopefully) eventually attain doesn’t exist in reality. But it does exist in his mind. He thinks about a college degree and says, “That’s what I want to achieve. And here are the means to achieve it.”
This “existence in the mind”—what some philosophers call mental existence—influences and governs the student’s activity, both in the beginning and as he continues pursuing his goal. In fact, that’s the only way an end or goal that doesn’t exist in the real world can influence a thing’s activity.
This makes perfect sense to us when we’re talking about a college student seeking to earn a degree, because a college student is a being with intellect and free will. But a problem arises when we consider things that lack intelligence, like an acorn.
Unlike the college student, the acorn has no mind to think about its specific effect of producing a mature oak tree. So the question becomes, “What determines the activity of an acorn to become a mature oak?”
One answer is the substantial form of the acorn—that principle that establishes the acorn as the kind of thing that it is. The specific end or goal of the acorn (being a mature oak) pre-exists in the acorn’s form by way of potency and is actualized as it naturally grows. So the goal-directedness of the acorn’s activity toward a mature oak is intrinsic to, or embedded within the nature of, the acorn.
Now, although the substantial form accounts for this goal-directed activity to some degree, it ultimately falls short of a complete explanation. We’re still left with the question, “But what makes the form of the acorn have an activity that’s specifically directed toward being a mature oak rather than a banana tree?”
We know that there must be something to account for such determinate activity. If there weren’t, then there would be nothing to account for the reliable correlation between the form of the acorn and the state of being a mature oak. The acorn really could become a banana tree, or any other kind.  Therefore, there must be something that accounts for the determinate activity that proceeds from the form of the acorn, something that combines the form with the activity that has as its end or goal a mature oak tree. And whatever this something is, the acorn in and of itself cannot account for it.
But this just raises another question, which brings us back full circle: “How can the state of a mature oak tree determine anything the acorn does when the mature oak doesn’t exist?”
After all, if the mature oak tree didn’t exist in anyway whatsoever, then the acorn and its activity would be related to nothing, which can’t be. Therefore, the oak must exist in some way. And the only way it can possibly exist, other than in reality, is in a mind of some sort that has knowledge of it.
Now, the knowledge of the end state of a mature oak tree is not merely sensate knowledge (like how a dog has some degree of knowledge of the goal of attaining food by running toward its bowl). Rather, we’re talking about intelligence, which is knowledge proper to intelligent beings. The reason is that the combining of the form of an oak in its acorn stage with its mature stage of an oak tree involves a grasping or an awareness of the form or nature of the oak and its end state of flourishing.
To grasp such a form in this way is just what it means to have intelligence. Therefore, there must exist an agent with intelligence outside the acorn that can think about the end or goal of a mature oak tree and govern, order, or direct the acorn to produce its specific effect—to achieve its end.
And this governance, or directing activity, would apply not just when the acorn begins to act to produce such an effect, but at every moment the acorn’s activity is moving toward producing its effect. For if the form of the acorn can’t account for the intelligence needed to direct its activity to its specific end or goal in the beginning, then its form won’t be able to account for the intelligence needed to direct its activity to its specific end or goal at any moment its activity is producing its specific effects.
Maybe someone could argue that this intelligent governor is the gardener who plants and tends the acorn. But that can’t be, since, as we said above, we humans merely discover this inherent tendency of the acorn to grow into a mature oak. The gardener can only guide the growth process from the outside.
Therefore, there must be some intelligent governor that has direct causal influence on the acorn’s natural powers—indeed on the acorn’s being—guiding it “from the inside,” as it were. And if this governor doesn’t direct the acorn to produce its effect by virtue of his own essence, but rather does so through another, then our inquiry for a satisfactory explanation must continue until we arrive at an ultimate intelligent governor—a governor who directs the acorn to produce its effect by virtue of his own essence, and not through another. Such an ultimate intelligent governor is what we can call God.
This line of reasoning isn’t new, but it certainly is powerful. In fact, we’ve just gone through the fifth of St. Thomas Aquinas’s Five Ways to prove God’s existence. From an acorn to God—who would have thought?

An Acorn for Atheists

Detailed instructions about the celebration of Mass are given by the <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccdds/documents/rc_con_ccdds_doc_20030317_ordinamento-messale_en.html">General Instruction of the Roman Missal</a>, in addition to the texts and rubrics (set actions) of the rites themselves, and this has the force of (liturgical) law. Some liturgical issues are also covered the Code of Canon Law.
Pope John Paul II was extremely worried by the issue of liturgical abuses. So he added to the above resources <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_dw80id.htm">Inaestimabile Donum</a> (1980), <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/laity/documents/rc_con_interdic_doc_15081997_en.html">On Certain Questions</a> Regarding the Collaboration of the Non-Ordained Laity in the Sacred Ministry of the Priest (1997), and <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccdds/documents/rc_con_ccdds_doc_20040423_redemptionis-sacramentum_en.html">Redemptionis Sacramentum</a> (2004).
It is sometimes said that John Paul <a href="https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/how-john-paul-ii-restored-liturgical-sanity">restored order</a> to the liturgy, and certainly some of the wilder liturgical abuses of the 1970s, such as the use of invalid, homemade cookies for consecration in Mass, did come to an end. However, on many issues, law and practice were reconciled by changes to the law, not changes to practice.
For example, the first rules allowing the distribution of the precious blood alongside the host to the faithful at Mass specified that it should be for small, homogenous groups, and only for “particular” occasions (Sacramentali Communioni [1970]). Nevertheless, the bishops of the USA were permitted to allow it on Sundays in 1984, and restrictions on it become rather vague in later documents.
The same story can be told about the use of females to serve the altar and the reception of Holy Communion <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/how-ancient-is-communion-in-the-hand">in the hand</a>. On still others, practice contrary to the official rules is so widespread that Catholics could be forgiven for regarding it as normal. Examples would be the routine use of extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, the priest leaving the sanctuary to take part in the Sign of Peace, the saying of the Lavabo prayer aloud, and lay people cleansing the sacred vessels after Holy Communion.
The situation is unsatisfactory, to say the least. John Paul’s documents condemn laxity on liturgical law in the strongest terms, but ultimately, they failed to curb it. Their failure was symbolized by Pope Francis washing the feet of a non-Catholic woman on Holy Thursday in 2013. The law was not changed to allow the washing of women’s feet until 2016, and the <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/news/archbishop-roche-popes-foot-washing-change-is-a-return-to-tradition">new rule</a> still excludes non-Christians from the rite. Pope Francis was certainly making a telling, symbolic, point: the battle over liturgical law is over, and the legalists have lost.
There is clearly no point in doing what some did under Pope John Paul: to insist on adherence to liturgical law just because it is liturgical law. If bishops, seminary rectors, parish priests, or laity are going to argue for closer adherence to the law, they need better arguments than that. Naturally, the Holy See had reasons for all of its legislation, but some of these reasons are stronger than others.
The most powerful reason for a liturgical law is to ensure the validity of the sacraments. Such matters are, in fact, still widely taken very seriously: the Arizona priest, for example, who used an invalid formula for baptism <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/02/15/1080829813/priest-resigns-baptisms">rightly resigned</a> from his position, though it is regrettable that he was not stopped for a quarter of a century. Ministers of the sacraments must not change sacramental formulas or accompanying actions (pouring water, laying on of hands, etc.); the faithful have a right not only to valid sacraments, but to complete confidence in their validity.
At the other end of the scale, reasons for liturgical laws can be much weaker. In 1955, the Holy See decided to tweak the symbolism of the Holy Thursday Mandatum (the washing of feet) away from the idea of serving the poor and toward the service of Christ to his apostles. Pope Francis has <a href="http://www.lmschairman.org/2016/01/is-pope-francis-restoring-tradition-in.html">tweaked it back</a> again. A lot of liturgical laws are like this, and we should not allow disputes about them to disturb our own worship of God.
Then there are intermediate cases, where liturgical abuses can rise to the level of sacrilege: the wrongful treatment of holy things. <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/on-pets-as-family-members">A dog</a> receiving Holy Communion, for example, does not endanger the validity of the sacrament for others, but is an objective, grave offense on the part of whoever allows it, causes serious and justified upset to onlookers, and potentially undermines the doctrine of the Real Presence.
It’s not clear if this has ever happened: internet references to it usually turn out to refer to Episcopalian services. But short of this obvious outrage, there are practices that of their nature conflict with the teaching of the Church—not only on the Real Presence, but on the priesthood.
Readers will be able to think of many examples of inappropriately casual treatment of the Blessed Sacrament. Ask the question: is this what we would do if we really believed that the host and the precious blood contained the body and blood, soul and divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, our God and Savior? Many historic liturgical practices serve to emphasize this reality; their abandonment does the opposite, effectively contradicting it.
To give just one example, consider the practice of “self-intinction”: when someone receiving Holy Communion carries the host to where the chalice is being offered and dips it into the precious blood before consuming it. I hope most readers can see that lay people should not be wandering around carrying a consecrated host in their fingers, nor should spillage of the precious blood be risked in this way. Once we start thinking on these lines, we can take a view on the importance of the “act of reverence” called for, but often not given, before receiving Holy Communion—the manner of receiving Holy Communion, the use of lay people to distribute Holy Communion, the use of pottery or glass sacred vessels, and so on. What confirms and what undermines the doctrine of the Real Presence?
An example of a practice that undermines the Church’s teaching on the priesthood is the saying of the words of consecration by members of the congregation along with the priest. Those who promote this practice, if not necessarily all those who do it, must intend to minimize the role of the priest and to conflate it with the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/audio/ddp/the-priesthood-of-all-believers">quite different priesthood</a> of the baptized.
If we recognize why this practice is problematic, we should be able to extend the principle to other issues: the way the celebrant can appear to be surrounded by lay people at the altar; a priest’s failure to wear proper vestments; and lay people taking on all kinds of priestly liturgical roles, from preaching at Mass to putting the Blessed Sacrament back in the tabernacle after Holy Communion. Everything that blurs the distinction between the priest, and his role, and the laity, and theirs, undermines in a practical way the Church’s teaching that a priest is not merely a convenient representative of the community, but someone able to act as Christ in Mass and in the sacrament of penance (confession), due to the ontological change made to him by the sacrament of holy orders.
Without creating pointless conflict, the Church’s more fundamental liturgical principles remain things priests and people should keep in mind, to keep the Faith clear to themselves and others.