Seeking God's Mercy

This week I wanted to go to confession. It had been about 4 weeks, so I felt I was due. The problem was with my 50-hour work week, when can you find a confession time available? The priest I usually confess to was gone during the week (the Mass being replaced by a "Communion Service"). He is one of the few that hears confessions on week-day evenings.

The only other weekday alternative is to go to the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, but they're on the other side of the metro area, and it's a long slog through commuter traffic. They hear confessions several times on weekday evenings. Finally, I found a confession time on Saturday afternoon. I got there early enough, so the line wasn't too bad The schedule only allows an hour for confessions, and the woman behind me was very concerned that the priest would stop before she could make her confession. I prayed that she would make it in time.

I have often heard remarks that mostly it's just older people that go to Mass and confession regularly. I believe it. Most of the weekday Mass times and confession times are during the day when most people are working. With increasingly long hours for work and shorter lunchtimes/breaks, there is no time to slip out to Mass or confession.

At first I thought it was just a liberal West Coast thing, but I checked the Mass and confession times in other locations, including St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. It was the same: no weekday confessions in the evening and a some limited time on Saturday. About the only place that offered daily confessions was the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, but they ended at 6:00 pm (have you ever been in commuter traffic in the Washington DC Metro?). So what's the average working stiff to do?

Most parishes fly on the caveat that you can always schedule an appointment with the priest for confession. Going to confession is scary enough for most people that scheduling an appointment just to make their confession is a huge deterrent.

Another excuse I hear is that nobody comes to confession, so the valuable time of the priest is wasted just sitting in the confessional. This is an empty excuse:

1. Is a priest wasting time on one of the two main channels of mercy and grace that only a priest can provide? (the other being the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass). Even if only one lost soul wanders off the street in only one of ten times he sits in the confessional, is that time wasted? I wonder what Our Lord Jesus Christ would say is too much time wasted? For the answer refer to Luke 15:4-7.
2. If you don't have confession lines in your parish, when was the last time you heard about mortal sin from the pulpit? Or the grave consequences of mortal sin?

I remember hearing a homily from a very old Jesuit priest on the topic of people not going to confession during Lent. He said something I will never forget:

"When you have mortal sin in your soul, you are one heartbeat away from hell."

During Lent of 2013, Pope Francis urged priests to be generous in offering confession:

"Open the doors of the Church, and then the people will come in…if you keep the light on in the confessional and are available, then you will see what kind of line there is for confession."

In Lent of both 2014 and 2015, the Vatican called for a program of 24 Hours for the Lord, where churches would remain open for 24 hours of Eucharistic Adoration and confession. I couldn't find anywhere in the local area where this was done.

When Pope Francis publishes and Encyclical on the environment (Laudato Si), everyone is slobbering all over it. When the Synod on the Family is announced, everyone is booking their flights to see if they can give Holy Communion to divorced people. However, when the Holy Father asks priests to make confession more available... crickets chirping.

Politically Disenfranchised and Blowing Past the Mainstream News Media

A work colleague of mine observed that the job of the mainstream news channels was to read the internet to old people. The proliferation of internet news websites, video sharing servers (Youtube, Liveleak), social media and a vast array of blogs makes it no longer necessary to rely on the mainstream news channels, which are rapidly becoming irrelevant.

This trend was evident this weekend during the nationwide protests against Planned Parenthood. Although, the protests occurred at over half the Planned Parenthood locations in 320 cities in all 50 states, there was a virtual media blackout of the events. The news media leaders congratulated themselves for squashing these politically incorrect demonstrations. However to their great dismay, the outraged pro-abortion crowd discovered that the top trending hashtag this last weekend was #ProtestPP. All over the nation, these social media-savvy pro-lifers were tweeting, sharing, and instagramming themselves onto the front page, even if the front page ignored them.

In the vast majority of protest locations, the tone was positive, respectful, and thoughtful, and the social media communication was likewise. One tweet that went viral was an endearing photo of adopted children, whose birth mothers had chosen adoption over abortion. The positive message and the way it was stated brought the pro-life cause to the fore-front of the nation's attention.

My local Planned Parenthood protest in Belleview, WA.

His Holiness Pope Francis in his message for the 48th World Communications Day, "Communication at the Service of an Authentic Culture of Encounter" he observed the effectiveness of social media in reaching out to others;

In a world like this, media can help us to feel closer to one another, creating a sense of the unity of the human family which can in turn inspire solidarity and serious efforts to ensure a more dignified life for all.  Good communication helps us to grow closer, to know one another better, and ultimately, to grow in unity.  The walls which divide us can be broken down only if we are prepared to listen and learn from one another.

His Holiness has also stressed on other occasions that the social media is a very effective way of communicating to others our Catholic Faith and moral values. In light of last weekend's events, it turns out he was right.

Scientists - the Theologians are Waiting

I was quite intrigued by an article on Cosmology published by Aaron Robotham, PhD, entitled, "Don’t panic, but the universe is slowly dying" on the academic blog/e-zine The Conversation. He describes in layman's term's the early life of our universe, and how it will proceed to the time when no more stars form, and the whole thing cools down into its entropic death.

Note: All Bible references herein are from the Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible, but it is very similar to its contemporary, the King James Bible.

As I read through the most recent research on the development of our universe, the description sounded remarkably like the account of creation in the Book of Genesis in the Bible. If we remind ourselves that in Genesis, the Lord is revealing the creation event, involving the physics of sub-atomic structures and quantum physics in a way that nomadic herdsmen would understand it. He had to dumb things down a little bit. Also bear in mind that the term "day" could also simply mean "a time period."

Since the period of the "Enlightenment" secular society has placed science as the main source of truth, and has relegated religion to the superstitious enemy of science. The Catholic Church has always proposed that since all truth comes from God the Creator of the universe, there can be no disagreement between religious truth and scientific truth, since they both come from the same source. If there is an apparent disagreement, it is only due to a lack of knowledge of science or a lack of knowledge of religious truth. This was observed by the Astronomer Robert Jastrow in his book, God and the Astronomers:

For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.

So it is with this article by Dr. Robotham: As he deals with the deeper knowledge on the birth and death of the universe some specific parallels between the latest scientific discoveries and the Book of Genesis come to light.

A 2-D Projection of the Formation of the Universe

In the first few seconds of the life of the universe, it is so hot (billions of degrees) that is a highly energetic plasma of exotic particles that don't obey the laws of physics - they pop in and out of existence, they exceed the speed of light, and all kinds of crazy chaotic things.

And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep [plasma?] (Genesis 1:2a)

A few seconds later the exotic particles in plasma settled into a highly energetic electron fog of protons (hydrogen nuclei) and neutrons and some helium nuclei.

And the spirit of God moved over the waters [hydrogen-helium fog] (Genesis 1:2b)

 Then about 400,000 years later, all of a sudden, the internal energy of the particles decouples from them and light photons stream out across the universe.

And God said: Be light made. And light was made. (Genesis 1:3)

The energy released from the subatomic particles in the form of light was a key event to forming matter, Now the basic proton particles could hold onto electrons and start forming hydrogen atoms. The hydrogen atoms formed into hydrogen molecules (H₂), and began collapsing into proto-stars where the lighter elements like carbon and oxygen formed.

Since the universe was still expanding, the early universe was a pretty crowded place, You had loosely formed proto-stars, forming and exploding, creating a chain of explosions in the neighboring stars. Whole galaxies smashed together. All these explosions caused the formation of heavier elements like silicon, and metals like iron and nickel.

This great, cosmic fireworks show went of for about 3 billion years or so, and "mysterious dark energy" entered the universe. This dark energy in combination with the expanding universe stabilized the stars and galaxies into more ordered forms that could produce planets.

And God saw the light that it was good; and he divided the light from the darkness. And he called the light Day, and the darkness Night; and there was evening and morning one day. (Genesis 1:4-5).

I always wondered in the Bible why the Lord created night and day (darkness and light) on the first day before he created the sun and the moon on the fourth day. To me it seemed like He got it backwards, but I was not thinking on a cosmic scale. Our sun is a fairly young sun and just the right size to support our form of life. The first stars that were created then would be be dead now.

So it seems the farther we look out into the heavens, the more we can see God, or as the Psalmist says:

The heavens shew forth the glory of God, and the firmament declareth the work of his hands. (Psalms 19:2)

Look up and believe... the Theologians are waiting for you.

Winning Souls - the Key is Love and Joy

Ever since His Holiness Pope Francis published the encyclical Gaudium Evangelii (The Joy of the Gospel), the concept of evangelism has been rattling around in my head. I have a great zeal for evangelizing, but what can I do? I am an obscure person, a bit on the margins of society, never married, no family, and a few friends. How can I have any effect on the conversion of anyone?

I looked back on those times when I did have success in bringing people to the true and holy Catholic faith. Most of my success has been with lapsed/apostate Catholics or just plain old secularists/agnostics. I have been thinking about what worked. There was not anything specific that I could determine. Here are some common threads:

1. I saw each one as a soul that Jesus Christ loves. I tried to see them through the eyes of Jesus. I genuinely cared about each one of them (Luke 15:7). Some of these converts/reverts are still my very good friends.
2. I kept the lines of communications open. I always told the truth about the Faith as accurately as possible, but with charity (Ephesians 4:15). This meant that I studied the faith, the Bible, the Church documents, the Catechism.
3. I didn't badger them or argue with them. I just answered their questions as best I could. I tried to show the reasonableness of the Catholic Church.
4. I listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and let God use me as an instrument of communication. Often I have just blurted out something without thinking, and I wonder, where did that come from? It turns out to be exactly what a person needed to hear.
5. Above all, I try as much as possible to set a good example of a Catholic in my conduct and dealing with others.

So those are some of the things I have done to evangelize. They seem to work.You really don't have to persuade people much or hard-sell. The truth of the Catholic Faith is its own best advertisement.

I also like the Six Rules for Dealing with Non-Catholic Family and Friends developed by the former Baptist and Catholic Apologist Steve Ray. He has some great videos on evangelization. Check out his website Catholic-Convert.com.