Manage Account

Atheists often point to science—especially evolution—as a way to explain the world without needing God. One famous voice to make this case is Christopher Hitchens. In his 2009 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tYm41hb48o">debate</a> with William Lane Craig, Hitchens opined,
<blockquote>It&#8217;s not very much contested any more that we are not designed as creatures, but that we evolved by a rather laborious combination of random mutation and natural selection into the species that we are today.</blockquote>
Later in the debate, Hitchens would reaffirm, “I don’t believe that we are here as the result of a design.” Both statements were ordered in the debate to block any appeal to design as evidence for a Creative Designer.
But why? Because evolution, as Hitchens sees it, is driven by “random mutation”—that’s to say chance. If things happen by chance, so Hitchens’s argument implies, then they’re not designed—and if there’s no design, then why assume there’s a designer, like God?
But not so fast. Philosophers have pushed back on this idea by challenging the assumption that chance and design are somehow at odds.
In fact, going all the way back to Aristotle, many philosophers have pointed out that chance isn’t a thing that does stuff. It’s not an existing thing out there bringing about effects all on its own. Instead, chance happens when there’s some effect that results from different causes coming together in a way that none of those causes specifically intended.
Let me give you a down-to-earth example.
Let’s say I head to the grocery store to grab some milk so my kids can eat cereal in the morning. At the same time, Joe Heschmeyer goes to the same store to pick up bread for his kids’ toast. We run into each other, and—of course—we start nerding out about philosophy in the cereal aisle.
Now, that meeting was by chance. But notice: I had a goal, Joe had a goal, and both of us were acting intentionally. The “chance” meeting happened because of our purposeful or designed actions. In other words, it was a byproduct of two things that were already aimed at something—what you might call “design.”
Here’s another classic example. Imagine someone digging a grave and stumbling upon buried treasure. The person digging had one goal—to make a hole. The person who buried the treasure had another—to hide something valuable. The discovery wasn’t part of either person’s plan, but it came about as a result of two separate, directed actions crossing paths.
The key point here is that chance doesn’t stand on its own. It’s not something basic or fundamental. It makes sense only within a world where things are already moving toward goals—that is, where there’s already design or order at play.
And guess what! The same idea applies to evolution.
Sure, genetic mutations might be random. But randomness doesn’t happen in a vacuum. For mutations to occur, there must be living organisms already striving to survive and reproduce. Mutations don’t just pop out of nowhere—they depend on a whole framework of life, biology, and physical laws that are already in motion with design.
Also, mutations follow tendencies. A dinosaur might evolve into a bird under the right conditions, but it’s not going to turn into a daisy. There’s a certain directionality built into the process.
And when one thing acts on another—like a chemical or a gene—it produces a specific kind of result. Philosophers would say that’s because each thing has built-in tendencies toward certain effects. An acorn, for instance, doesn’t randomly sprout into just anything—it grows into an oak tree, not a banana tree. That kind of directed behavior is what we mean by “order” or “design.”
The bottom line is this: chance doesn’t cancel out design. In fact, you can’t even have chance without design already in place.
If that’s true, and design points to a supreme designer (as theists argue), then the random aspects of evolution don’t actually eliminate the need for God. They just happen within a system that’s already designed.
So the first objection—that evolution removes the need for an intelligent Creator—doesn’t hold up.
Let’s look at a second objection. Some people argue that if new creatures emerge through chance, then there must be parts of the universe that are outside of God’s control—things that weren’t part of the plan.
Philosophers who believe in God usually respond by going back to what we already said: chance happens when causes come together to bring about some effect in a way that neither cause intended directly. But in the traditional theistic view, those causes themselves exist and operate because of God. Their activity—the very reason they act at all—traces back to God’s divine power.
St. Thomas Aquinas puts it this way in his Summa Contra Gentiles:
<blockquote>All power of any agent whatsoever is from God, as from the first principle of all perfection. Therefore since all operation is consequent to some power, it follows that God is the cause of every operation.</blockquote>
In other words, God isn’t in competition with the causes he created. It’s not an either/or situation. Created causes are real and meaningful because of the divine cause.
This understanding of divine causality led Aquinas to explain two things that make up what we generally call God’s “providence,” which is helpful for us here (see Summa Theologiae I:22:3). First, there’s the plan—the order of all things foreordained toward an end. God holds this in his mind, right down to the smallest detail. This is technically called “providence.” Second, there’s the execution of that plan—how things actually play out, which often happens through a chain of created things causing other things. This part, Aquinas calls “government.”
So if God is the ultimate source of every cause and effect, then he will also know—and include in his plan—the convergences of causes that we call “chance.” Even in evolution, what we see as randomness still fits within both parts of God’s providential plan: his providence and governance.
This leads to one more helpful point: what chance is in relation to causes that converge in their actions is not chance in relation to God.
Aquinas talks about this, too. He says,
<blockquote>It happens sometimes that something is lucky or chance-like, as compared to inferior causes, which, if compared to some higher cause is directly intended (ST I:116:1).</blockquote>
Let’s go back to that buried treasure example. Suppose the person digging the grave is a poor laborer hired by a wealthy man. And suppose the wealthy man buried the treasure himself years ago, then hired the laborer on purpose, hoping he’d find it—but without telling him.
From the laborer’s point of view, finding the treasure was a total fluke. But from the employer’s point of view, it was fully intentional. The chance occurrence, therefore, ultimately reduces to the directing activity of the employer—the intelligent cause.
Same goes for the world. We might experience some event as a lucky break or a random occurrence, but from God’s vantage point—the ultimate perspective—it was part of the plan all along.
Even things like genetic mutations that help species evolve—like dinosaurs developing feathers, or fish adapting to breathe air—might be beyond what the causes themselves “expect” to do, but they’re not beyond what God intends through them, since he’s their ultimate directing cause in the first place.
So the idea that something “escaped” God’s plan because it happened by chance doesn’t really work, either.
In the end, there’s no need for a believer to feel threatened by evolution. The presence of chance in the process doesn’t rule out God. In fact, without design, there wouldn’t even be chance. And since design points us to God, it follows that chance doesn’t eliminate God—it actually depends on him.

Why Chance Can’t Eliminate God

The earliest extra-biblical surviving historical record of the Church comes from Eusebius (c. 260-339), a bishop of Caesarea in Palestine. For that reason alone, Eusebius’s History of the Church is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the first three centuries of Christianity. And, as even a cursory study of his ten-chapter work shows, there is much to confirm a singularly Catholic understanding of the Church.
It’s important to acknowledge Eusebius’s shortcomings. The fourth-century bishop was an overt advocate and defender of the emperor Constantine (the tenth chapter of his history is a not so subtle paean to the emperor), which provoked criticisms from later Church historians that Eusebius was a bit of a toady and his writings too politicized. He was an early supporter of the heretic Arius, leading to accusations that he was himself an Arian. (Eusebius was later exonerated of the heresy charges with the approval of Constantine at the Council of Nicaea.) And his history has been the object of much criticism, with many scholars, including the great patristic scholar William Jurgens, noting various historical errors in Eusebius’s work.
Nevertheless, despite these legitimate concerns, it’s hard not to overstate the value of The History of the Church. It is the first extra-biblical history of the Church. (Luke’s Acts of the Apostles is the first ecclesial history.) Even with various errors, modern scholars, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, recognize Eusebius’s work as invaluable to understanding the early Church. Indeed, in many cases, we are aware of other early Church thinkers (and their writings) because the Cesarean bishop cites them. And, whatever error Eusebius made, there is also plenty in his history that is confirmed by other ancient sources. Thus, whatever broad trends we can decipher from The History of the Church are incredibly important for us as we contemplate Christianity in its first three centuries.
There are several key themes in Eusebius’s history that illuminate the identity and interests of the early Church. The first of these is the centrality of apostolic succession. Eusebius begins the chapter, or book, noting the “chief matters” he intends to address in his work, and at the top of his list is “the lines of succession from the holy apostles, and the periods that have elapsed from our Savior’s time to our own.” Thus, throughout his history, we find reference to apostolic succession in Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome (what are called patriarchates).
Eusebius at one point cites a churchman named Gaius, who not only claims to know where the monuments to Ss. Peter and Paul lie, but also refers to the two as “those who founded this church.” Eusebius also refers to Alexander as “fifth successor to Peter and Paul.” He cites the second-century “Easter Controversy,” over the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-pope-vs-tradition">dating of Easter</a>, noting that bishops in the East—as well as Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon—disagreed with the Roman bishop (that is, the pope) Victor over his decision to excommunicate some dioceses in Asia Minor. Yet even in his criticism of Victor, Eusebius implies that he and Irenaeus both recognized the Roman bishop to possess an authority to excommunicate, since “he [Victor] should not cut off entire churches of God.” Moreover, Eusebius refers to Peter as the first bishop of Rome and describes how the great theologian Origen felt the need to prove his orthodoxy to Fabian, bishop of Rome.
A second central theme of the history is the repudiation of heresies. Among the heretical groups Eusebius discusses are the Ebionites, who rejected Christ’s divinity; the Montanists, charismatics who believed in new prophetic revelations; the Novatians, who refused readmission to lapsed Catholics; and the Sabellians, who believed that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were three distinct “modes” of God. In each case, Eusebius repudiates heretics because they are not faithful to Scripture or the traditions of the apostles preserved through their successors, the bishops. For example, the historian mentions Pope Stephen and unnamed synods of bishops as authorities in the debate over baptizing lapsed Christians.
This emphasis on alignment with apostolic teaching preserved through the episcopacy is also relevant to a third critical theme in Eusebius: the persecution of the early Church and the coeval significance of martyrs. Every chapter of the history contains stories of martyrs, and some, like book nine, contain little else. Eusebius points to their value in his citation of Justin Martyr, who writes, “When I found them [Christians] fearless in the face of death and all that men think terrible, it dawned on me that they could not possibly be living in wickedness and self-indulgence.” In other words, martyrs served as an effective, provocative testimony—the Greek word literally means “witness”—to the veracity of the Church’s claims.
Yet Eusebius recognizes that there is a potential problem with this “motive of credibility”: some heretical groups also claimed martyrs, such as the Marcionites or Montanists. The historian in response cites an unnamed Christian writer who argues that false martyrs are those who “do not truly acknowledge Christ,” and with whom members of the Church refuse to fellowship. In effect, true martyrs are those in communion with the true Church, and, by extension, the true Church is identified by apostolic succession.
There are other currents in The History of the Church worth exploring. Eusebius’s descriptions of the sometimes acrimonious debates over the dating of Easter will likely surprise twenty-first Christians (especially non-Catholics), who place less of a premium on the liturgical calendar. His hagiography of Origen evinces his theological leanings. But the themes of apostolic succession, combating heresy, and celebrating martyrs loom largest across the text. And, regardless of the historicity of Eusebius&#8217; various accounts, the work demonstrates what issues and controversies dominated the first three centuries of the Church.
In sum, the early Church put a pedigree on apostolic succession, not only as a means of identifying the true Christianity against false imitators, but also to recognize its true martyrs. Certainly, Eusebius also believed that heresies could be refuted by reference to Holy Scripture, but it was the apostolic Church that was Scripture’s faithful protector and interpreter. And that the Roman bishop—beginning with Peter but continuing with such figures as Clement, Stephen I, Sixtus II, and Fabian—is so central to the debates of the early Church is at least suggestive of the growing recognition of the pre-eminent authority of the Roman see in the early centuries.
Whatever its historical limitations, Eusebius’ The History of the Church quite demonstrably shows that <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/the-early-church-was-the-catholic-church-softcover/">the early Church was</a> a singularly Catholic institution.

Catholic History: Good Even When It’s Bad

<div>If I had an invalid baptism, then had the other sacraments up through confirmation, then was baptized properly, is my confirmation valid?</div><div>No, if your baptism was invalid then your confirmation would need to be repeated. Your confessions would also need to be repeated, at least as well as you can remember, unless you are absolutely certain that your baptism was invalid, in which case you to do not need to repeat your confessions. If you are married to a baptized person then, upon your valid baptism, your union becomes a sacrament, as long as both of you still retain your original consent.
Baptism is the entry to all the other sacraments; without it, none of them have for us a properly sacramental grace. Consult your parish priest or your diocese chancery or pastoral center about your situation, and they will help you resolve it.
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Does Invalid Baptism Invalidate Other Sacraments?

“Yes, but have you read [fill in the blank]?” It’s a common enough question in any debate, be it religious, political, or anything else.
All of us (or perhaps I should say, I hope all of us) come to serious conversations having read some number of sources that have informed our thinking on the topic we’re debating. More often than not, we’ve probably read sources that our interlocutors have not, which we believe they would benefit from reading. Nothing wrong with that, of course—it’s how every side of a debate engages with new ideas and refines opinions.
But there is another context in which the question is asked that is common in ecumenical debates. It seems, at face, a rhetorically effective tactic, though I would argue that is ultimately diversionary and purposeless. Catholics should be aware of it in order to point it out, and Protestants, if they are to argue in good faith, should be hesitant ever to employ it.
Typically, the exchange goes something like the following. You bring up a particular Protestant doctrine, perhaps articulated in a specific Reformation-era creedal document (e.g., the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Belgic Confession of Faith, or the Heidelberg Catechism) or by a specific famous Protestant thinker (e.g., Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, or Wesley). You offer an objection to that doctrine, maybe citing the internal incoherency of that doctrine. Or maybe you meet the Protestant on his own sola scriptura terms and argue that the doctrine isn’t biblical.
Perhaps the Protestant is prepared for that line of criticism and <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/meeting-the-protestant-response-how-to-answer-common-comebacks-to-catholic-arguments/">offers a retort</a>. Or perhaps he doesn’t. Either way, there is a way before him to redirect the conversation away from any perceived failings in his own system: to ask you if you’re familiar with some other Protestant historical document or thinker. The less well known that source, the better, because it decreases the likelihood that you’ll have any familiarity with it. Your Protestant interlocutor doesn’t even necessarily need to formulate an extensive summary of that source—oftentimes it’s enough simply to cite it and argue something along the lines of “Well, you really need to consider that source in order to understand [fill in the blank].”
Granted, it would be unfair to impugn upon any Protestant doing what I’ve described above as intentionally committing the “sin” of manipulative distraction. The Protestant may not be conscientiously seeking to deflect (as if he knows he’s beat) in order to avoid admitting defeat. He may very well think the key to that debate is found in some source he’s encountered. Indeed, I’ve observed Protestants often doing this to one another, as I experienced firsthand when I was a Presbyterian seminary student fifteen years ago.
When I was a Reformed Protestant, I would sometimes have a question or concern about a particular point of Reformed theology (the system of thought that defines many Protestant churches, including Presbyterians) as articulated in some standard text—say, the Westminster Confession of Faith; Calvin’s Institutes of Christian Religion; or a popular, widely recommended systematic theology. The answer to my question would vary depending on whom I asked—pastor, seminary professor, elder—and, because of that, would lead me in a variety of often contradictory directions. If I raised a particular theologian or writer to contextualize my question or concern, I would often be met with a shake of the head or even a scoff. “No, no, no” they would tell me—that person is wrong or simplistic. “You must read so-and-so for the best defense of that doctrine.” For every fellow Protestant I asked, there would be a different answer as to what source would provide me the explanation to resolve my questions or concerns.
This seemed, upon reflection, a curious problem for a religious tradition founded, so the narrative went, to rescue Scripture from the obscurantism and esotericism to which it had been subjected by an insular, hierarchical Catholic Church. Isn’t Protestantism premised on a layman’s accessibility to the Bible, that it is clear on the essentials of the faith, or what is necessary for salvation—called the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture—so that one shouldn’t have to read a long list of secondary sources to understand, say, how one is saved, or how the church is to be organized? And what should I do, as I increasingly encountered, when the sources I was recommended by those I respected disagreed with one another? And on what grounds, ultimately, should I trust Calvin, Luther, Beza, Turretin, or Peter Martyr Vermigli?
The trouble, I realized, was that the only authority all Protestants—indeed, even all Reformed Protestants—agreed upon was the Bible. And appealing to the Bible amounted to little more than question-begging, because it was precisely the Bible over which everyone was forming differing, often contradictory opinions. Thus, every Protestant had to identify which creedal documents, theologians, and scholars he trusted to direct him to its proper meaning. Even then, according to Protestantism’s own internal modus essendi, the Protestant had to make up his own mind by evaluating those creeds, theologians, and scholars against his own personal interpretation of Scripture. In the end, every Protestant was his own magisterial authority.
For as much as Protestantism became to me increasingly complicated and abstruse, Catholicism presented itself straightforwardly. Want to know what the Catholic Church teaches? Consult the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which enjoys the formal approval of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. Need more? Consult the various other magisterial documents of the Church. If you encounter Catholics rejecting the Church’s catechisms, creeds, or councils, they’re offering not an equally legitimate alternative interpretation of divine revelation, but heresy.
Now, to anticipate a Protestant retort, of course Catholics disagree over many finer points of theology or praxis that have not been definitely resolved by the Magisterium (our “liturgy wars” perhaps being the most current example). But those Catholics cannot disagree over what has been declared to be de fide doctrine. The Trinity? Settled. Seven sacraments? Settled. Mary’s immaculate conception and assumption? <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/immaculate-conception-and-assumption">Settled.</a> You may disagree with these doctrines or the evidence from Scripture or Tradition cited to defend them. But those doctrines—and how they are defended as legitimate—are universally, accessibly taught by the Church. Any priest, theologian, or layman determined to publicly reject them risks excommunication.
In the Catholic paradigm, no one needs to read St. Augustine, St. Thomas, or St. Robert Bellarmine to know the Church’s teachings on salvation, the sacraments, church polity, or human sexuality. Certainly, reading the Doctors of the Church, saints, and respected Catholic thinkers is helpful. But the Magisterium is itself sufficient to know what the Church teaches.
Protestants, in contrast, have no such magisterial authority. They can only contrive an ersatz one, built on the unsteady ground of creedal documents and theologians who, in the end, have no ultimate authority and thus can be picked up or taken off like a set of clothes.
Thus, the next time a Protestant tells you that your critique of his beliefs fails because you haven’t consulted a theologian or scholar you’ve never heard of, ask him why that person has any more authority than the ones you’ve read. No, you may not have read that. But it probably doesn’t matter.

No, I Haven’t Read That

On February 25, 2026, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops filed <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25365/399395/20260226144523582_25-365%20bsac%20United%20States%20Conference%20of%20Catholic%20Bishops.pdf">an amicus curiae brief</a> in Trump v. Barbara, a birthright citizenship case before the Supreme Court. One phrase caught my eye: “As Catholics, our faith compels us to protest laws that deny the dignity of the human person and harm innocent children.”
Immigration is a complex issue. Since I study resistance and protest from the Middle Ages down to the present day, how (and how well) my fellow Catholics understand our obligation to engage in political protest is highly interesting to me.
In many domains—family life, liturgy, even the nature of citizenship—Catholics rely on a centuries-old tradition of reflection. Political protest is not one such area, however. As Charles Taylor, the Catholic philosopher <a href="https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2019-11/pope-francis-ratzinger-prize-taylor-bere.html">who won the Ratzinger Prize</a> in 2019, explains in A Secular Age, the public sphere is less than three hundred years old. Medieval kings considered “public opinion” no more than they met anarcho-syndicalist peasants out in the fields—the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6s9IrXxGGc">gag</a> in Monty Python and the Holy Grail notwithstanding. There is no venerable old tradition, then, that instructs Catholics about how to protest in public.
The is no consensus in society at large about political protest, either. Are political protests about persuasion, pressure, or performance? Some political theorists argue that protests raise awareness about issues, communicate grievance, and aim to persuade public opinion. This is why they have megaphones and signs. For others, protesters are pressure groups that cause a ruckus so that certain policies become costly to implement. One recent example is the civil disobedience in Minneapolis, where protesters blocked traffic and blew whistles to obstruct federal officers working for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). And some radical professors even argue that protest is a liberating performance or transformative experience for protesters’ own sake. Think of protesters encamped at Columbia University who performed an act of solidarity with besieged Palestinians by inviting the New York Police Department to besiege them.
Political protest in the United States might take the form of persuasion, protest, performance, or all of these at once. Nobody agrees in advance what protest should look like.
Recent popes and the U.S. bishops <a href="https://www.usccb.org/news/2010/usccb-pro-life-committee-chairman-issues-statement-respect-life-month">call for</a> political protest as public witness. It is important to recognize that this is a fourth way of understanding political protest, and <a href="https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/faithful-citizenship/upload/forming-consciences-for-faithful-citizenship.pdf">a distinctly Catholic one</a>.
Church teaching about public witness is anchored in the last and longest apostolic constitution of the Second Vatican Council. Gaudium et Spes <a href="https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html">describes</a> the obligation of Catholic laypeople to engage in honest and charitable discussion about the laws of our nations, even when we disagree:
<blockquote>Laymen should know that it is generally the function of their well-formed Christian conscience to see that the divine law is inscribed in the life of the earthly city. . . . Yet it happens rather frequently, and legitimately so, that with equal sincerity some of the faithful will disagree with others on a given matter. . . .
Hence it is necessary for people to remember that no one is allowed . . . to appropriate the Church&#8217;s authority for his opinion. They should always try to enlighten one another through honest discussion, preserving mutual charity and caring above all for the common good (43).</blockquote>
Public witness requires neither the political unity of Catholics nor the explicit instruction of the clergy. But what it does require is a certain attitude. Gaudium et Spes informs how Catholics ought to protest: in the spirit of honest discussion, mutual charity, and the common good.
Catholic public witness involves persuasion, (perhaps) pressure, and performance, but it must exceed the usual standards for each of these. Honest discussion aims at persuasion, but public witness furthermore requires communicating in a charitable way. Pressure and civil disobedience are possibilities presented to our prudential judgment, because Catholics can draw on the principle of lex iniusta non est lex—<a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/did-martin-luther-king-jr-get-it-right">an unjust law is no law</a>. However, this principle involves strict “side constraints” that prohibit giving scandal to others, for example, by undermining the authority of law in general.
Finally, public witness is a performance, but our role model must be Christ. Gaudium et Spes explains, “Since they have an active role to play in the whole life of the Church, laymen are not only bound to penetrate the world with a Christian spirit, but are also called to be witnesses to Christ in all things in the midst of human society.”
Public witness is one of several ways, at least in the United States and in American culture, that Catholics may take an “active part in public life” to fulfill our obligations to promote the common good. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1914) <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_three/section_one/chapter_two/article_2/iii_responsibility_and_participation.html">rightly suggests</a> that public witness is less important than primary obligations of social participation that involve our personal responsibilities in our families and workplaces. This is consistent with <a href="https://isidore.co/aquinas/english/DeRegno.htm">Catholic Tradition</a>, where there is a place for political resistance, but in which revolutionaries cannot outshine the teachings of the apostles and the example of the martyrs.
Preponderantly Catholic protests like the March for Life, unsurprisingly, are marked by the public witness of families, Catholic schools, priests, and religious communities. Many marchers are honest, charitable, and willing to suffer opprobrium for their public witness. Protest demonstrations against mass deportation and war, on the contrary, often draw individuals who are attracted to a protest lifestyle.
Public witness against the foreseeable evils involved in mass deportation and war is important. But here, Catholic protesters must hold themselves to higher standards of conduct than other protesters do. We cannot utilize dishonest and uncharitable techniques of persuasion, engage in civil disobedience that undermines respect for the law and legitimate authority, or embrace protest as a form of self-expression. Our public witness is to Christ.
The political optimism of Church documents since the 1960s sometimes stands in glaring contrast to the everyday realities of polarization, the culture war, and the politics of resentment. For example, Pope Francis went further than the U.S. bishops to call not only Americans, but Catholics in every nation to “desire integration” and to <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html#_ftn180">draw closer</a> with their compatriots in a “multifaceted culture of encounter.” But public witness reminds us that we must be prepared to suffer for the common good along the way. This realistic expectation is in line with the perennial tradition of the Church. In his commentary on Romans 13:1-7, for example, St. Thomas Aquinas <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html#_ftn180">emphasizes</a> how wicked rulers are part of God’s punishment for sin, no less than natural evils like storms and sicknesses. We can simultaneously have democratic hope that our people will come together and recognize that, on our part, this will always include our suffering witness to injustice.
The highest and oldest meaning of public witness is martyrdom. Understanding political protest as a suffering witness can be part of a “spiritual discipline against resentment.” Patrick Deneen, a leading Catholic political theorist who teaches at the University of Notre Dame, <a href="https://firstthings.com/christopher-lasch-and-the-limits-of-hope/">reminds us</a> of the role of this distinctively Christian political virtue in advancing American democracy and civil rights. Whereas secular progressives might express frustration and indignation at progress that ought to have been made, Christians who prepare themselves to suffer patiently for the common good will be more resilient. Public witness must counteract, rather than perpetuate, our present politics of resentment.

How Catholics Do Political Protest

<div>Is acupuncture okay to do?</div><div>Yes, as long as its divorced from its non-Christian spirituality. And, as always, done in consultation with a medical doctor.
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May a Catholic Receive Acupuncture?

In Catholic parenting circles, nothing seems to incite more rage and disgust than video games. They are a waste of time. They are conduit for sin and the devil. They are the breeding ground of vice. Etc., etc., etc. That’s what I’ve heard about video games, and for a long time, I held similar thoughts. But then, at a work conference years ago, I sat in on a presentation detailing the benefits of video-gaming. I somewhat reluctantly changed my mind, and our family has greatly benefited because of it.
Video games, believe it or not, are able to do much good in the world, even for faithful Catholics. That’s not to say there aren’t better or worse ways of gaming. No, there are many nuances and caveats to that statement, some of which we’ll cover here. But hopefully the reader will see that there is a wide spectrum of how we can view video games, from the puritanical “all gaming is sinful” to the gluttonous “gaming is life.” Catholics can find a pleasant and recreational middle ground, on which to grow in virtue, boost quality family time, and cultivate a safe arena in which to learn and navigate the inevitable use of technology in our age. We can have our games and play them, too.
The science behind the benefits of gaming is clear: everyone, from children learning better <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01853.x?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&amp;rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&amp;rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200pubmed">spatial recognition</a> and <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ulterior-motives/201608/video-game-play-benefits-coordination">hand-eye coordination</a> to military veterans <a href="https://www.research.va.gov/currents/0519-Video-games-can-help-Veterans-recover-from-mental-health-challenges.cfm">healing</a> post-traumatic stress disorder, can benefit from video games. Video games can improve <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28522259/">manual dexterity</a>, increase the brain’s <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/gamers-have-more-grey-matter-and-better-brain-connectivity-study-suggests">gray matter </a>and connectivity, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/games/video-games-children-learning-intelligence-social-skills-study-a6920961.html">improve social intelligence</a> among children, boost <a href="https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2013/11/video-games">problem-solving</a> skills, improve <a href="https://www.livescience.com/1382-study-playing-video-games-improves-eyesight.html">vision</a>, and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3978245/">improve mood and overall mental health</a>. None of these benefits is isolated to time spent while playing games; rather, all of them are infused into everyday life. Playing video games off the job <a href="https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2008/08/video-games">makes a surgeon better</a> at performing intricate medical procedures while on the job.
All of this research paints a different picture from the vilified image of “the gamer”: the socially awkward, unproductive, miserable kid (or adult) hiding out in a darkened basement, fostering a hatred of his fellow man and a love for junk food and raunchy images.
That’s not to say such a person doesn’t exist, but it isn’t what all gamers, or even the majority of gamers, are like. Anyone who routinely plays video games as a hobby is “a gamer,” and whether folks are talking about it or not, a ton of people fall into that category, from a peak 77 percent of eighteen- to twenty-nine-year-old men to a still impressive 25 percent of men and women over the age of sixty-five. Those numbers cover a lot of ground, a lot of personalities, and a range of games, from the obscene to the educational.
Of course, just because a lot of people are doing it doesn’t make it right, but are video games really so bad that good Catholics should eschew them?
To be sure, some video games certainly are. Gore, extreme violence, foul language, and suggestive imagery can be found in quite a few games, and those are the ones l bet the anti-video game constituency have in mind when they claim that Catholics shouldn’t play video games or that the world, or at least their homes, would be better off without them.
But the same claims can be made of movies, TV, and print media. Just as Catholics ought to avoid video games that promote or lionize licentiousness, violence, and depravity of all stripes, so too should they avoid all forms of media that do. It isn’t just video games.
Unlike some other forms of modern media, however, video games, when “done right,” offer the Catholic family a slew of benefits. Over the past five years of playing games as a family, we’ve experienced some great teaching moments and quality time together.
What we’ve found is that video games offer wonderful opportunities for siblings to work collaboratively toward a goal, helping older children to be patient with and learn to teach younger siblings. The younger siblings learn to ask for help and be comfortable taking guidance from older siblings. And when communication breaks down, a nearby parent reminds everyone that respectful and patient tones are the only permissible ones to use while gaming together.
Video games also give kids a chance to practice good sportsmanship and fair play. Nothing ends a child’s turn at video games faster in our home than whining, cheating, or gloating. This means they’ve had to pause and reflect before saying anything that might get the system switched off.
Like <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/bl-carlo-acutis-and-saints-in-sneakers">Bl. Carlo Acutis</a> and his self-imposed video game limits, gaming has helped our children with time management skills, temperance, and work-play balance. Through games, which themselves offer benefits as discussed above, lessons can be imparted on how to moderate media usage. How much is too much? Too long? Is this a worthwhile game on which to spend the little time I do have?
We also have a rule about not even asking to play video games until all chores and schoolwork have been done—and not just completed, but done well. No shortcuts here. If they ask before the work has been done, then the answer is no for two days. And if they haven’t completed their daily tasks early enough in the day, then there won’t be time for games. (We typically limit screen time to before dinner so there isn’t blue light or visual stimulation leading up to bedtime.)
It’s also a group effort. No one can play until everyone is finished with his work, so they cheer each other on in order to get the job done. And as they often work together, they play together. Video games that offer multiplayer or collaborative play get emphasized. Or for single-player games, those with more intricate puzzles or problems are played, and the family helps to solve them.
Overall, as a family unit, we are creating positive memories around wholesome games while promoting temperance and prudence, among other virtues. So far, we have yet to find another simple, accessible, and enjoyable activity that is relatively low in cost and that we can hop into at any time.
Video games (the good ones, and for this I refer almost exclusively to Nintendo) have greatly benefited our Catholic family. I firmly believe we can set aside the “all video games are sinful” bias and introduce them into our homes in a mindful and meaningful way.

A Catholic Case for Video Games

The verse immediately following our first reading from Jeremiah makes this striking claim:
The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately corrupt; 
who can understand it? (Jer 17:9).
Of course the answer is “God can.” He is the one who can see clearly through our motivations and excuses. But I think we can say even more. Jeremiah asks, “Who can understand it?” The answer also might be “no one.” Because the Christian tradition thinks of sin and evil as something irrational and incoherent. It is wrong not just because God says it is, or because it is against this or that rule; it is wrong because it makes no sense.
In our Gospel passage, Jesus lays out two pathways: a way of blessing, or happiness, and a way of woe. These are strange options. We don’t normally think it is a blessing to be poor or a curse to be rich. We don’t normally look forward to being hurt, nor do we usually think it a bad thing when people speak well of us. These seem to be the exact opposite of what you might see online if you look around for people labeling things with #blessed. I never go into the home décor section and see cutesy little framed artwork or wood carvings that you hang in your entryway saying, “Hunger, weep, be insulted.” What’s happening here, apart from the fact that many people loudly proclaiming their Christian values seem to have mistaken the gospel for a celebration of their own comfort?
Jeremiah makes a distinction between those who rely on “flesh,” who put their trust in people, and those who put their trust first in God. This is the same choice that Jesus is showing in Luke. We could also say that it is a choice between this world and the kingdom of heaven.
It’s not that riches are intrinsically evil or poverty intrinsically good. It’s that when you’re rewarded and feel happy about the things of this life, it becomes easy to forget that this life isn’t the end goal. The things of this world are passing away. They will not last. As St. Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians, our hope centers on the resurrection from the dead. “If the dead are not raised . . . your faith is in vain.”
The reason it is wrong to put our trust in created things is that it is ultimately unreasonable. Think about it like this: Would I put my toddler in charge of making dinner or watching her siblings? Would I trust an important document to the table outside on a windy day? In comparison with God, created things are all ephemeral, unreliable, temporary.
We live in a time in American politics where a lot of people seem full of despair while a lot of people seem full of optimism. Certainly both groups can’t be right, though we might wonder if both are wrong. Perhaps we could attempt to agree on the goodness, in principle, of both dismantling corrupt structures and preserving good constitutional order. But as Christians, it is essential to remember that none of these things saves us.
You can hear a lot of Catholics in the public square complaining about ways that the government is failing to uphold this or that value. I wonder if that witness would be more meaningful if it came across as a little more apocalyptic—not, mind you, in suggesting that a policy is going to usher in the end of the world, but by reminding politicians that their own souls are definitely on the line, and by insisting again and again that even if, miraculously, the nation suddenly embraced a fully and recognizably Catholic policy on immigration, on abortion, on marriage and family, on education and poverty, we would not somehow be able to sit down and say, At last, the work is done! For as good as these goals are, they are no more lasting than the other kinds of “blessings” that the world gives. When we face the great judgment seat of Christ, the question isn’t going to be about the general direction of the country.
To translate this into a more local context, I want so badly to build up my parish into a shining example of stability, mission, holiness, and beauty. I want people to invest in it with their time, their energy, their money, because this is the place where, for us, heaven meets earth, where salvation is worked out with fear and trembling. This matters for us every bit as much as big questions of national policy matter, maybe more. So here the contradiction is perhaps more acute, because at the center of our witness is the crucified God who reminds us that we can find strength only in weakness, that our success is never really success, our blessing never really blessing, if it leads us to imagine that we do not need to depend on God at every moment for every breath and every act of existence.
This is the hardest lesson of the beatitudes: it is easier to have faith when you have nothing else. The more goods you have, the harder it is to remember the true and ultimate Good. The more food you have, the harder it is to appreciate the sweetness of the bread of heaven.
This world is good. God created it. And it is full of good things, not to mention God’s own people and their enormous potential to do good work. But none of these things is trustworthy in the way that God is. None of them is reliable in the way that God is. So reason demands that we put our trust in God over these other things. This is the way to happiness—to understand that nothing in this world can ever finally make us permanently happy. Nothing but God.
Today is the third Sunday before Lent. And as we approach that season, I encourage you to go ahead and think about how you might use Lent as a time to get your priorities straight. Often we give up things for Lent—but it’s important to remember that we give up things not because they’re bad—if they’re bad, we shouldn’t be doing them anyway! We give up things to help us remember that they cannot truly make us happy. Nothing can make us completely and finally happy but God. To him be glory now and forever. Amen.

The Upside to Having Nothing

Imagine that a king establishes a new country on the other side of the ocean. It is called the Celestial City and has streets paved with gold. To populate his new land, he summons the people and invites them to be citizens. Next, he builds a ship and prepares his chosen people for the long journey across the ocean.
The ship he provides is a large, beautiful ocean liner, well equipped with everything needed for the journey: food and water, showers with hot water, navigation charts, maps and GPS. He has ordained a captain and a crew and an engine with dynamic power to move the ship. The king invites many to join, and soon the ship is full.
Everything needed to reach the new country can be found aboard that ship. The founder of this new country is God, the new country is heaven, and you and I are the ones he has chosen to join the voyage. The ship that he built is the Catholic Church; the captain is the pope; and the crew are the bishops, priests, and deacons. The navigation charts and GPS are Scripture; the maps are Sacred Tradition.
The food is the Eucharist—the food for the journey. The water is the grace of baptism and the life that flows from Christ through the sacraments. What are the showers? Confession, of course. When we get dirty, we need to be cleaned up. The power that moves the ship is the Holy Spirit.
Everything we need to reach heaven can be found within the Catholic Church.
He warns the passengers, before they commit, that there will be troubles along the way. Storms will hit the ship and threaten to dash it to kindling wood. They will get so sick at times that they may wish they had never come aboard the ship.
There will be problems within, too. The captain and crew may not always conduct themselves as expected, and some may even attempt to sabotage the ship. But he promises them, boldly, that if they stay with the ship, he will get them to the other side.
Everyone agrees to go. So the king steps up to the bow. He smashes the bottle of champagne with great solemnity and christens her the Catholic Church. The engines roar, and fire is seen as he moves away from the port.
Over the first 1,500 years, there are some awful storms and waves, and within, there are debilitating intrigues and rebellions. But in the end, the ship is always righted and still on course. Some who fall overboard, due to their own recklessness and disregard for rules. The ship is battered but remains intact and seaworthy, under full steam by the powerful engine.
About halfway across the ocean, some of the passengers start to argue and protest. Like the Israelites who grumbled about the manna in the desert, they begin to complain about eating the same food all the time. They ask, “Who is this captain, and why should he be in charge? Who gave these crew members the right to tell us what to do?” They stir up emotions and rile up some factions and instigate a mutiny.
The protesters go down into the belly of the ship, where they find wood and rope, and they lash them together and build rafts. They collect food and water, clothing and anything else they can find, and throw themselves and their rafts over the side of the ship. Now they are free! No more captain, no more crew. Now they are on their own, to their own!
Instead of a single ship sailing through the sea, there are now thousands of small rafts bobbing around in the water around the ship! Each of these, surrounding the ship, has its own self-appointed captain, with all of the various captains giving conflicting and contradictory orders. Rafts are crashing into one another, competing with one another for people to jump off their rafts and swim to other ones.
As the ship continues toward heaven, some of the rafts remain close by, but others drift off into the distance, and some are moving in the opposite direction and have lost their way completely. Those rafts that are close to the ship are sheltered from some of the wind and waves; those farther away are tossed about during the storms. The farther away they are, the less chance they have to make it to the other side.
And here is a question for you. Everything good they have on their raft—where did they get it from? It all came from the ship. But now they are cut off. Eventually, the king’s food runs out, and the people begin to eat something other than what the king provided. There are no hot showers available for people to get clean.
(When I was a Protestant, I never realized that everything good that I had on my raft came from the Catholic Church. For example, the Bible was put together by Catholic bishops and copied and preserved by Catholic monks. Martin Luther even admitted that we wouldn’t have a Bible if it were not for “the papists.” My Protestant fellowship had only two sacraments—baptism and the Lord’s Supper—whereas the Catholic Church has seven. I did not define the Faith, such as the Trinity. That was hammered out by Catholic councils over the first 500 years of the Church.)
One interesting point: I wasn’t one of those who jumped off the ship. I was born on a raft. For most of my life, I didn’t even know there was ship—it was nowhere in sight! I was born on a Baptist raft, and I could yell over to the Methodist raft, and they could yell over to the Episcopalian raft, and they could yell over to the Pentecostal raft, and so forth. Our view of unity was just all trying to get along. We called that fellowship, and we had an invisible unity. How could it really be a visible unity, since we were all split up on separate and competing rafts?
Then, one day, I caught a glimpse of something large. I had no idea what it was. I yelled out, “Hey, what is that on the horizon?”
Those on my raft answered, “We don’t know!” So I yelled louder to nearby rafts, and they responded over the waves, “We don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why not?” I yelled.
“Because it’s an enemy.”
“But what is it?”
“It’s . . . it’s . . . well, it’s the ship.”
As I gazed upon the ship, I thought, “If the founder of the Celestial City had any sense, he would never have pushed all these thousands of rafts into the ocean and expected them all to successfully make the voyage. He would have prepared a ship with everything needed for the voyage.”
It dawned on me that that the founder of the country I was trying to reach had created the ship to carry me home safely. I began to ask questions and discovered from ancient documents that indeed, the founder had chartered only one ship, and the rafts were all a result of a protest!
After a year of paddling around the ship and looking up at it from every angle, and after much reading and researching and praying, I got back on board. I pulled my whole family up with me.
I became a Catholic on May 22, 1994, and I’m amazed at what I have found onboard. Cradle Catholics may take these things for granted, but we converts are in awe. You have seven sacraments, and they work! You have navigation charts—the Scriptures—and the Tradition that helps you make sense of the maps.
You have a crew that understands how to read the maps and charts without error, how to prepare the food of the Eucharist properly, and how to operate the showers so that we can get cleaned up from all the foul-smelling sins we commit. You also have a captain, the pope. There have been good and bad popes and clergy, but throughout history, the papacy has known how to navigate the ship!
So do I now want to shoot cannons at all the Protestants out on the rafts? No! My mom and dad are out there, and Vatican II reminds me that those who are baptized and recite the creeds are my brothers and sisters in Christ, though separated from the ship. Some of the people on the rafts can even sing better than some of the people on the ship.
No, I don&#8217;t want to shoot them. I have decided I will spend the rest of my life calling out to the people on the rafts: “Hey, you out there. I too was born on one of your rafts, but I have discovered the fullness of the Faith in this ship, the way the founder originally planned it. Problems, yeah! But the ship is great. Come rejoin us!”
And when I get a few minutes, I turn around and look at the people on the deck. I say, “Why are you grumbling? Don’t you realize where you are?”

Struggling Catholic? Don’t Jump Ship.

<div>Where can I donate a first-class relic of a pope?</div><div>The best thing to do is to try and contact a parish that is named after the pope. Such a parish would most likely be very interested in the relic. Failing that, I would suggest that you contact a local parish or religious community.
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Where Can I Donate a Relic?

Jimmy Akin explains the Biblical basis for free will in man, which is indicated wherever Scripture instructs us to make the right choice, and then walks through the concept of logical contradictions to show exactly what we mean when we say that God has free will.

Is Free Will Biblical and Does God Have It?

The pope’s first words: PERFECT

<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

“I will turn aside and see this great sight.”
You might be forgiven for attributing this line from Christmas morning to the shepherds. Or so it seems to me. Here is what they do say, in Luke 2:15 (read at the dawn Mass, just a verse following the reading at night): “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened.”
The language is not, perhaps, as similar as my imagination wants it to be. In fact, the situations are rather different. Moses, while keeping his flocks near Mount Sinai, sees in the distance a bush alive with flame that does not burn up. The shepherds, keeping their flocks near Bethlehem, are confronted with what was no doubt a terrifying and amazing sight: an angelic announcement followed by the eruption of the heavens into song. Rather than being quietly pulled away, they are instructed in vivid detail: “And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger” (Luke 2:12).
Differences aside, I cannot help but see that first “go and see” moment—Moses on Mt. Sinai—as a figure of the second—the shepherds summoned to the manger. In fact, the Byzantine tradition has always seen in the burning bush a type of the holy <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/mary-mother-of-whom">Theotokos</a>, the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is the unburnt bush who carries the fire of the divine nature without being consumed. Many icons show Moses looking at a burning bush in which she and her divine son are enclosed, hidden for later revelation. And so, in a very real sense, the shepherds are called to see in fact what Moses saw only in symbol. To Moses, at the bush, was revealed the holy name of God. Yet in the manger, the shepherds see God, face to face. To Moses was revealed the Law. To the shepherds was revealed the Word made flesh.
And why is the manger such an important “sign” of this news? Luke sees fit to mention the manger three times in his short story. It’s an odd detail, in many ways—one we have trouble detaching from several centuries of imaginative nostalgia. Modern Christians seem to like imagining the Holy Family as outcasts, relegated to some faraway place inhabited only by the “friendly beasts.” But there simply were no such places in first-century Judea. Animals often shared the same structure as people. Not that babies were ordinarily placed in mangers, or that there is nothing unusual about the fact that seemingly no one in the household was willing to make room for a woman heavy with child. But the manger is a sign not just of lowliness somehow separated from human society, but rather a kind of lowliness within the ordinary crowded hustle of human life.
Still, Luke’s emphasis that this is a sign bears repeating, because it was not, before Luke’s account, a sign of very much emphasis among most Christians. We do not, after all, know what those first generations knew about the Lord’s nativity. There were several reliable witnesses, first of all Our Lady, who possibly shared such details with the apostles in due time. But the Nativity enters not at all in, for example, the teaching of St. Paul, which occupies most of the New Testament. In the epistle readings for Christmas, we heard about how Christ has “appeared,” as the promised fulfillment of God’s promises. It does not seem significant that the Lord first appeared in a manger.
Yet Luke finds this important. Maybe we could pin this to Luke as, by tradition, the first painter and iconographer of Our Lord and his mother—the Evangelist, in other words, with a real sense of visual impact. This is no small thing to point out, as the ancient iconographic tradition of the Nativity almost always includes representation of <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/whats-the-deal-with-the-christmas-ox-and-ass">an ox and an ass</a>, emphasizing not so much a “stable” in the modern picture as the manger itself and the animals it normally served.
That visual tradition, I suspect, recalls a biblical memory that Luke would also have known, a verse from the opening lines of Isaiah, where God begins to indict his people for their failure in living up to the covenant:
The ox knows its owner,
and the donkey its master’s crib; 
but Israel does not know, 
my people do not understand (1:3).
The word “crib” there is sometimes translated “manger.” Either way it is the same thing we see in Luke 2. Israel, unlike the ox and even the famously stubborn donkey, cannot even recognize his master’s manger. The Lord tries to feed him, but he turns away.
Back to the Nativity, we begin to see, not very long into the story, how Israel fails to see his master. First there is the apparent scandal of the Lord’s own distant relations in Bethlehem who cannot find anywhere better for him to stay. “He came unto his own, and his own received him not” (John 1:11). Much later, when Jesus begins to tell people how he is their food and drink, how his flesh and blood will be their salvation, they walk away, scandalized. How could this man give us his flesh and blood to drink? How could this man be our manger?
In the Nativity story itself, the whole thing is painted with sign after sign, layer upon layer. God the Son lies in a feeding trough—a feeding trough that God’s people refuse to see. He is born in Bethlehem, which means “house of bread.” And the shepherds, who do acknowledge him, suggest that the mediation of Moses between God and man has now transformed into a more lavish personal investment, where God’s favor is available even in the face of a child.
This child welcomes our love regardless of whether we bring him the perfect gift. We might see the manger as a reason to scold Joseph’s cousins, all these centuries later, for their failure to see the obvious. But failing to see the obvious is rather like what humanity has been doing since Adam and Eve, since Israel’s chronic failure to keep faith, like what you and I do time after time with our favorite, habitual sins, our routine shrinking away from baptismal grace. So in God’s providence, Joseph’s uncaring family become for us another sign. God incarnate certainly deserved more, but he didn’t need more. He was, after all, enthroned on the lap of the most beautiful creature under heaven, the crown of all God’s works, the future queen of heaven, the unburnt bush, the mystical rose. Just as at the Annunciation, her welcome was enough. We made no room for him, but she made for him a “meet dwelling place.” All we have to do is, like Moses, like the shepherds, turn aside to see.
Could it be any easier? There is a necessary time to confront the teaching of Jesus in his adult ministry, a necessary time to confront the doctrinal implications of his passion and resurrection, a time to weigh the consequences of our relationship with him and the Church he founded. But before we do any of that, we have to let him in. We have to make room. He is very small, but there is no avoiding this step. Sometimes we can treat Christianity as an elaborate exercise in building the perfect nursery, rearranging the furniture, finding the perfect décor, laying out linens, toys, books. But none of that has any point unless you actually take the baby home.
This Christmas, bring the Lord Jesus home. Let him in your heart. He stands at the door and knocks.

Bring the Child Home

<div>Is it within Catholic orthodoxy to believe that Mary had freedom to commit personal sin but chose to cooperate with God’s grace?</div><div>Yes, Mary most certainly had the freedom to commit sin.  Even though she did not suffer from Original Sin and its disordered desires she still had the human power of free will.  Adam and Eve were created without Original Sin yet chose to sin, Mary chose to cooperate with the grace of God.
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Did Mary Have Free Will?

Can we trust the historical accuracy of the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/gospel-and-gospels">Gospels</a> if they were written decades after Jesus? Doesn&#8217;t that <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/are-the-gospels-myth">make them unreliable</a>? Trent Horn answers this common challenge from atheists on Catholic Answers Live.

Are the Gospels Historically Reliable?

Why did the Church Fasting rules change so much? Jimmy Akin and host Cy Kellett tackle this question in light of the industrial revolution.
Transcript:
Cy: Why did the Church go from severe fasting to weekly fasting to weekly abstinence? And now in the U.S., some other penance can substitute for abstinence. There are currently only two days a year of actual fasting and abstinence that are required in the U.S. Is this a good or bad progression, spiritually speaking?
Jimmy: Okay, so we got two questions here, but first, I need to make a minor factual correction. Shalon says that now in the U.S., some other penance can substitute for abstinence, meaning on Fridays outside of Lent. During Lent, you still have to abstain on Fridays. Abstain from meat. That&#8217;s actually not quite accurate. If you go back—and this is something all kinds of folks get wrong—the idea that if you don&#8217;t want to abstain, you gotta substitute some other penance. That is not what the Church&#8217;s legal documents actually say. Most people never go back and look up these documents, and most of the ones who do don&#8217;t read them carefully. But I have.
If you go back and look at the implemented legislation that the U.S. bishops authorized in the 1960s, they don&#8217;t say that you need to substitute another penance for abstinence if you don&#8217;t want to abstain from meat. What they say is, we hereby terminate the requirement to abstain from meat on Fridays outside of Lent, and we recommend that you either abstain or do something else. But they don&#8217;t require that you do something else. So it&#8217;s not the case that other penances can substitute for the requirement of abstinence. In the United States, on Fridays outside of Lent, there just is no requirement to do a specific form of penance. You&#8217;re advised to do so, you&#8217;re encouraged to do so, but it&#8217;s not required.
So having said that, let&#8217;s look at the first question. Why did the Church go from more severe fasting to less, notably, less severe fasting? Well, basically, the fundamental reason is the Church adapts its practices to the conditions of the time. And so conditions have changed over the last 2000 years, and bishops have ramped up and ramped down various practical requirements of how we practice the faith. This is one of them.
Now, if you&#8217;re looking for a specific circumstance that has changed in society that would lead the bishops to decrease the amount of fasting that people need to do, I don&#8217;t have an official source on this, but what I would say is it was industrialization. What you find is, if you look in the Middle Ages, when they had the more severe fasting requirements, it was during a period where people had a fairly relaxed approach to work by modern standards. In fact, in some places, almost half the year would be holy days. And so they didn&#8217;t have the kind of intense work schedules that we do now.
But then, beginning in the 1700s, this industrialization started, and we got factories. People started moving off the farm where they couldn&#8217;t just take a day off, and they had to show up for work every day in the factory and work hard in those factories— you know, the dark satanic mills that they talk about in England. You had to keep your strength up while you were working. You&#8217;re using heavy factory equipment. You know, you&#8217;re running band saws and metal presses and all kinds of things like that. You got to be careful. You got to keep your strength up. You got to keep your alertness up. And that makes it harder for a lot of folks to fast, especially people who are not used to fasting.
You know, most people here in the West historically would eat three times a day. Now, because of some recent very bad health advice that some people have gotten, they encourage a grazing strategy where you&#8217;re eating like six or seven little meals a day. That&#8217;s terrible advice. But historically, people would eat three times a day. You&#8217;d break your fast in the morning, which is where we get the word breakfast. You&#8217;d have a meal around noon, and you&#8217;d have another meal in the evening.
And if you&#8217;re used to eating three times a day, then your body will adapt to eating three times a day. If you suddenly stop, then your body says, wait a minute, something&#8217;s going on here. Food&#8217;s not available. We better slow down our metabolism and ramp up the hunger at the same time to encourage him to go find food. So that would cause problems for people in factories to keep up their alertness and strength.
And so you started finding more and more exceptions written into the Church&#8217;s moral and pastoral theology handbooks and canon law books and things like that, where it would say, well, you need to fast on Friday. But if you work in a job that would be dangerous if you did that, or you need to keep your strength up, then you can have some food. More and more exceptions got written in, and eventually they just said, let&#8217;s just diminish the requirement. Because people today work job schedules where they can&#8217;t just say, oh, today&#8217;s a fasting day, so we&#8217;re really going to kind of kick back and not spend a lot of energy.
So I think that&#8217;s the primary factor—industrialization—for why the requirements got less. Now, that actually wouldn&#8217;t bug me because I fast every day except Sundays and holy days of obligation. I have one meal a day, so it doesn&#8217;t bug me to be fasting during the day. But if you&#8217;re used to eating three times a day, it will bug you. So I think that&#8217;s the basic reason.
Shalon then asks, is this a good or a bad progression, spiritually speaking? I think that that&#8217;s something people can have different opinions on. There&#8217;s no magic level of fasting that all Christians are obliged to observe. Fasting is meant to—and like abstinence—is meant to help us grow closer to God. And so if more fasting would help us grow closer to God, then that would be a good thing to do. If less fasting would help more people grow closer to God, then that would be a good thing to do.
You know, you can imagine how in the age of industrialization, with all these folks working in factories, if they suddenly said, oh, we got to do a bunch more fasting now, well, that&#8217;s going to cause a bunch of people a bunch of problems and could alienate them from the Church and thus from God. So I think that what you think of the current level of fasting, which I acknowledge is pretty darn minimal, is something that people can have different opinions on.
Cy: Shalon, thank you very much. That brings us exactly to the break, so we&#8217;ll take a very quick break. Back with more Ask Me Anything with Jimmy Akin on Catholic Answers Live.

Why Did the Church Kill Off Weekly Fasting?

Gary Zimak shares his own struggles with hypochondria and explains how developing and deepening his relationship with Jesus helped him overcome his inordinate fear of death.
Transcript:
Host: Michelle in York, Nebraska, listening on Spirit Catholic Radio 102.7 FM. Michelle, your question for Gary Zimak.
Caller: Hi, thanks for taking my call, and I just want to say Hi, Gary. I had the pleasure and honor of introducing you when you came to speak at McCool Junction at our church, so anyways&#8230;
Gary: Oh, yes! Great to talk to you again! Good to talk to you!
Caller: Anyway, I have a special person in my life who is sort of a hypochondriac. They&#8217;re very concerned about a certain pain that they&#8217;re having, and they&#8217;ve gone to several doctors&#8230;everyone says nothing&#8217;s wrong, lots and lots of tests, it&#8217;s really taking a toll on their family. And I was just wondering, whatever your resources, maybe I could provide to him that would help, or what would you recommend?
Gary: Well first of all, Michelle, I want to say, the last time I was in McCool Junction it was 10 degrees below zero. Has it warmed up a little since then?
Caller: It is warm, it&#8217;s 63 degrees.
Gary: Alright, that&#8217;s much better. Hey, I want to say, first, it&#8217;s great to hear from you again. But, you know, in all my books I make it clear I&#8217;ve always suffered with being a hypochondriac. That&#8217;s my weakness. I had every disease imaginable, at least in my mind, and really I didn&#8217;t have any of them, as it turned out. The way I have been able to combat this is&#8230;again, I sound like I&#8217;m saying the same thing over and over but it really is true: the more I have gotten to know Jesus, the more I have been able to read in Scripture, to read his promises, to read about how much he loves me, about how much my Heavenly Father cares about me, the less I am concerned with death.
I guess that was my big fear, I was afraid to die, and the fear led to being a hypochondriac. I was afraid of all these different diseases. The personal relationship with Christ, getting to know him better, has taken away that fear of dying; and accepting whatever his will is for my life, that&#8217;s gotten better; so that&#8217;s what I would say, I mean, it really boils down to getting to know Jesus. And that has worked tremendously for me. I still have a tendency, especially with my family; if they get an illness, I start to think fatally initially, then I have to catch myself and and go back to the relationship with Jesus. But that works for me

What Can I Do to Help a Hypochondriac?

<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

Jimmy Akin, Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, delves into how the Catholic Church determines if an oral tradition originates from God or humans.

How Do We Know Traditions Are from God?

I recently had the pleasure of attending a good friend’s wedding. It was a wonderful time. The bride was beautiful; the groom was giddy. The hum of strings wafted through the tiny, richly decorated chapel, and the crowd of friends and family huddled tightly, beaming with joy.
It was one of those weddings that make you happy—not just for the couple, but for the institution of marriage in general.
The mood made it all the more striking, then, when the priest’s voice boomed out over the small congregation: “Marriage is the greatest symbol the Bible uses to describe God and his people. Not king and subjects. Not shepherd and sheep. Marriage.”
The assertion challenged me. My temperament is more inclined to view God as a king than a spouse. So I did what I don’t do nearly enough. I opened up my Bible.
Lo and behold, the priest was right. Scripture uses many symbols for God’s relationship with us, but none seems more frequent or more vivid than marriage. The Bible is full of marriage imagery, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation. The love between God and his people is like a marriage (Isa. 54:5). The relationship between the soul and God is like the relationship between spouses (Song of Songs 1:1-4). Jesus repeatedly describes himself as “the bridegroom” (Matt. 9:15). The list goes on.
Young couples understand something about this metaphor when they fall in love. In an instant, the world gets turned upside-down. Previous cares evaporate. The vision blurs, and the stomach drops. Everything suddenly revolves around their sweetheart, and, if they’re fortunate enough to be loved in return, they soon experience a depth of tenderness and care for another beyond anything they’ve known in this world.
It&#8217;s a powerful image of the enormousness of God’s love for us and his desire of our love for him. But for a young lover, it’s more than just an image of God with the world. His love becomes an image of God himself. God is love, and the beauty of romantic love gives us a hint of the Divine’s identity.
The analogy runs both ways. By comparing himself to marriage, God teaches us that he is like married love—but also that married love ought to be like him. Many elements of marriage flow out of this understanding. Marriage is total; the immensity of the love between partners demands this, but so does the comparison to the love of God. God gives his whole self when he loves, since he is love, and lovers want to give their whole selves to their beloved. Similarly, marriage is free; God gives his gifts without condition or coercion, making the rain fall on the bad and the good alike. Marriage is also forever; God is faithful to his promises for all eternity—and true lovers never say, “I love you for today only.”
This is why marriage gets to the core of God’s identity. It stands almost unique among human relationships, with a love as near the Divine as we can conceive. Of course, all human loves speak something of the love of God. The love of friendship is pure, and God loves us purely. The love of country is sacrificial, and God loves us sacrificially. But the love of country is impersonal. And the love of friendship is rarely total. Married love includes intimate friendship, but brought to new depths of commitment. And that commitment gives a sacrificial nobility even greater than sacrificing for country.
Here the analogy might break down for the Christian. Marriage and married love are between two people. But we know that the full identity of God is Trinity. Like marriage, God is a community of love between persons. But unlike marriage, it seems, God is a community of love among three Persons.
There is another important element of marriage that has so far been unmentioned: children. Marriage doesn’t just cement two individuals in their love for each other. It also establishes a family.
In the Trinity, the Father first loves the Son, who in turn loves the Father. But the love between them is so strong that it cannot be contained to two Persons only. That love is itself a third Person: the Holy Spirit, eternally proceeding from Father and Son.
A family is an image of this trinitarian love. Husband and wife love each other, but that love does not stay merely between them. In time, it produces another person—a child—who subsequently is also loved and loves in turn.
My wife and I have been blessed to experience this. We had fallen deeply in love, and lived for several happy months as husband and wife. We couldn’t have imagined a third person, who it seemed could only come between us. But something about our relationship, something even greater than that first giddy love, came to be with the birth of our son. There is the special love I have for him. But that love isn’t just a love for another person. It’s a love that’s tied into my love for my wife. He looks like his father. He laughs like his mother. In many ways, he’s a physical manifestation of the relationship between us. When I love him, I love his mother. And when she loves him, she loves me.
This is marriage as the image of God, which is the image of the Trinity. The love between two spouses shows us the depths of love between each individual Person: the Father and the Son, the Father and the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit and the Son. And the love of the whole family shows how this intense love is unable to remain merely between two Persons, but branches out into a trinitarian community.
Of course, marriage, and the family it begets, is an image of God. For finite creatures, the image works in ways that the literal, infinite Trinity does not. There can be multiple children, each one a unique manifestation of the spouses’ love. For those struggling with infertility, there can be no children, but the love of the spouses is still real, still made concrete in the family life between husband and wife, just in a less visible way. In all cases, it is the possibility of children that is more important than the number. The kind of love is the same—the kind of love that is open to the birth of a new person. In the infinite Godhead, this love eternally gives three infinite persons. In finite marriages, that love may or may not produce any number of finite persons.
Yet in both cases, love is an image of the other. That priest was right that marriage is a special symbol for God’s love. It’s an image of the Trinity, revealing to us something important about who God is and how he loves us. That connection should fill us with joy at weddings, like my friend’s recent ceremony—and at godly marriages everywhere.

What Your Marriage Really Represents

Jimmy Akin answers a caller who has a problem with Catholics worshipping the Eucharist.