“to train Catholics, with ‘the Sword of the Spirit’, to live, share, and defend their faith/the Faith.”

MENTORING - providing small-group and one-to-one spiritual direction and discipleship training to young men, pre- and post- Confirmation, in order to raise up knights in service to Christ the King — men of God for the next generation.

This ministry was purposely launched on June 29^th, the beginning of the “Year of St. Paul” called for by Pope Benedict XVI.  It is St. Paul who, in word and deed, provides the best example of the eternal impact that one man’s life can have on the life of another.

On his second missionary journey, St. Paul takes the young man Timothy under his wing (Acts 16), and from that time on Timothy goes everywhere with him, being taught the doctrines of the Faith, being trained in the work of the ministry, being shaped by the daily disciplines of the Christian life. St. Paul pours his life into Timothy, reproducing himself spiritually into this young man of God. By doing so, St. Paul raises up another co-laborer in the Gospel; Timothy will ultimately serve as bishop of the Church in Ephesus.

Jesus said, “Go… make disciples…”; the  Apostle Paul shows us that one-to-one mentoring is how disciples are made.

“to train Catholics, with ‘the Sword of the Spirit’, to live, share, and defend their faith/the Faith.”

MISSION - to provide on-site leadership of custom-designed retreats, and to provide topically-focused, multi-session, conference presentations.

The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church

   In keeping with the practice instituted by Pope Paul VI in 1965, Pope Benedict regularly calls the bishops of the Church together in a “synod” to discuss some aspect of the Church’s teaching, with a view toward the Church’s mission. The theme of the 12th Synod of Bishops, meeting now in the Vatican, is “The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church.” In my estimation, the choosing of this theme — coinciding with the “Year of St. Paul” — is anything but coincidental. It seems clear that getting Catholics into “the Word”, and getting the Word into Catholics, is a crucial part of Benedict’s personal mission as pope.

   But here is where to need to consider carefully exactly what we as Catholics mean when we use that term - “the Word of God” - especially in our conversions with Protestants. We must be aware that we may be using the same VOCABULARY, but we are not using the same DICTIONARY; the same terms are often “loaded” with different meanings on the other side of the Tiber. And the phrase “the Word of God” is a prime example of our being divided by a common language.

   When a Catholic — a well-formed and well-informed Catholic — uses the phrase “the Word of God”, the dictionary behind the vocabulary provides three related, but distinct, meanings:

1. Jesus Christ, the “Word made Flesh” — the ultimate “Word” (St. John 1:1,14 and CCC 65,101-102);

2. the spoken communication of God’s revelation to mankind, the “Word proclaimed” – as in “the Word of the Lord came to me, saying…” (eg. I Samuel 3:1; II Samuel 7:4; Isaiah 2:1; Jeremiah 1:4, etc. and CCC 1101,1102)

3. the written communication of God’s revelation to mankind, the “Word inscribed” — as in “all Scripture is inspired by God…” (II Tim. 3:16), and the generally accepted truth that “The Bible is the Word of God.” (CCC 104)

        … and it is this last definition which is most often intended by our Protestant brothers and sisters when they use the phrase “the Word of God”; they mean “what is found only between the covers of the Bible.”

   While the phrase “the Word of God” may have different shades of meaning within Catholic theology and thought, the focus of the Synod of Bishops seems to be “what is found between the covers of the Bible.” Not a bad thing, as Catholics seem, (in my brief and limited experience), not to be terribly familiar with Sacred Scripture. (Is there a vague sense that the Bible is, after all, a “Protestant” book?? Hmmm…)

   This brings me to “Spiritus Gladius Ministries”, and the purpose of this newly created apostolate. As a former Lutheran pastor, who received his vision for ministry through an evangelical, para-church ministry that focused on getting you into the Word, and the Word into you, a ministry that was built on the concept of one-to-one discipleship and raising up laborers for the harvest, I want to help every Catholic I know to grab the “Sword of the Spirit” and be thoroughly trained in using it to live, share, and defend the Faith.

   Will you join me? Will you commit to being trained with “the Sword of the Spirit” to live, share, and defend your faith/the Faith? Will you make it your mission “to know Christ, and to make Him known” ?  Will your motto be:

NO RUSTY SWORDS!!

“I Stand By the Door”

By Samuel Moor Shoemaker

[Excerpts]

 

I stand by the door.

I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out.

The door is the most important door in the world —

It is the door through which men walk when they find God.

There’s no use my going way inside and staying there,

When so many are still outside and they, as much as I,

Crave to know where the door is.

And all that so many ever find

Is only the wall where a door ought to be.

They creep along the wall like blind men,

With outstretched, groping hands.

Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door,

Yet they never find it…

So, I stand by the door.

 

The most important thing in the world

Is for men to find that door — the door to God.

The most important thing any man can do

Is to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands,

And put it on the latch — the latch that only clicks

And opens to the man’s own touch.

Men die outside that door, as starving beggers die

On cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter –

Die for want of what is within their grasp.

They live, on the other side of it — live because they have not found it.

Nothing else matters compared to helping them find it,

And open it, and walk in, and find Him…

So I stand by the door…

…

 

You can go in too deeply, and stay too long,

And forget the people outside the door.

As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place,

Near enough to God to hear Him, and know He is there,

But not so far from men as not to hear them,

And remember they are there, too.

Where? Outside the door –

Thousands of them, millions of there.

But — more important for me —

One of them, two of them, ten of them,

Whose hands I am intended to put on the latch.

So I shall stand by the door and wait

For those who seek it.

“I had rather be a door-keeper….”

So I stand by the door.

 

 

 

[Note: Sam Shoemaker, DD, STD (1893-1963), was an Episcopal priest who was instrumental in the Oxford Group and founding principles of Alcoholics Anonymous. Dr. Sam Moor Shoemaker was the rector of the Calvary Church in New York City, which was the United States headquarters of the Oxford Group. Bill Wilson attended Oxford Group meetings at the Calvary Church and Sam was instrumental in assisting Bill Wilson with the writing of the book Alcoholics Anonymous ]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As St. Francis said…

“Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.”

Regarding Nominalism and Luther

Received the following comment/question from “James D.” — a question which left me “in the tall grass” so to speak. So I contacted a couple of my much more philosophically equipped colleagues… their response follows.

Paul,
I am not a Roman Catholic or a Lutheran but I am a regular viewer of the Journey Home. Your appearance interested me for several reasons, but the fact that you were involved with the Navigators when you were in the military really caught my attention. This particular group also played a big part in my early spiritual development.
I don’t want to get into the strengths and weaknesses of the Navigators in this venue but hope instead to pose a question to you. This particular question has haunted me since I began a personal study of Roman Catholicism several years ago. Thus far no one has fully answered it, and from my way of thinking it is central to your journey as well as central to the broader gulf between Catholicism and Protestantism.
Specifically, I have heard several Roman Catholic teachers state that Luther was unduly influenced by the late medieval Nominalism of William of Ockham and other lesser nominalists. The argument further goes that this negative influence on Luther lead to the Reformation. At this point, however, the contention is not developed with specific examples. I have contacted a number of Catholics to try to get this idea clarified and thus far have been unable to get an answer.
Paul, can you give me any specific examples of the baneful effects on Nominalism upon Luther’s ecclesiasology or his soteriology? If someone could ever answer this question fully, it would do a lot to help me understand the Roman Catholic Church and its broader claims.
Thanks,
James

 

Response from Fr. Jay Scott Newman:

An adequate answer to that question would require several semesters of graduate school in both philosophy (especially metaphysics and epistemology) and theology (especially dogma). However, here is brief summary of the issues:http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Nominalism

Response from Dr. Reinhard Huetter, Duke Divinity School:

Of course the whole problem of the Reformation does not hang on Nominalism, though I do think it was a contributing factor. I think Luther went philosophically a wrong way in his “Assertio” and esp. in his “De servo arbitrio.” What makes things complicated with Luther that he has a dialectical relationship to Nominalism. In some respects he continues its unexamined philosophical assumptions (as in matters of Eucharistic real presence) and in others he challenges those assumptions but then because of a lack of a proper philosophical alternative pours out the baby with the bathwater, as in the theology of grace. In both regards, where he continued to be a Nominalist and where he wanted to correct his own school, he remained problematically linked to Nominalism. On the latter part of the problem, where he wanted to correct, you might want to point this person to my essay “St. Thomas on Grace and Free Will in the Initium Fidei: The Surpassing Augustinian Synthesis” in “Nova et Vetera: The English Edition of the International Theological Journal 5/3 (2007), 521-554.

I personally think that the issue of Nominalism was a contributing, but not a decisive factor. The decisive factor coming into play was something much more simple, namely the fact that Luther could not anymore distinguish between a principle like “sola scriptura” and his personal interpretation of Scripture, which is always the private judgment of an individual theologian. He granted the latter a status of identity with “sola scriptura” (a functional inerrancy of his own interpretation) that was inadmissible in the Church.

 On the feast day of St. Bruno,

 Reinhard

Pilgrimage to EWTN

Of all the unexpected gifts, of all the things I would have never dreamed, sitting across the desk from Marcus Grodi on “The Journey Home” program was probably the most surprising. It was surreal… I kept thinking, “Mother Angelica sat in THIS chair… Fr. Richard John Neuhaus sat in THIS chair… Scott Hahn and Stephen Ray sat in THIS chair… Fr. Jay Scott Newman sat in THIS chair… (OK.. maybe not the EXACT same chair, but still… )…  WHAT AM I DOING HERE?!

If you think I looked calm, if you think I sounded coherent - thanks. But I have to tell you… it was all the the Spirit of God at work, giving me the words to say… in answer to my constant prayer: “O Lord open my lips… and don’t let me say anything stupid.” What an honor and a privilege to be able to share my story, and provide a defense of the Faith on live television, on the largest global Catholic network on the planet.

Which brings me to the other joy –being able to actually be on campus at EWTN. What an amazing global ministry of evangelism and education, what a force for broadcasting “the splendor of Truth”! And it all started with a nun — a cloistered nun with only $200 and a vision of turning plans for a convent garage into a cable TV studio. And now… it is the largest global Catholic network on the planet. It may sound strange to call a visit to a cable TV studio a “pilgrimage”, but actually being on the campus of a ministry that has had such an impact on our lives, having the opportunity to participate in the morning Mass that we watch almost every morning at home… to meet Fr. Mitch Pacwa, Fr. Anthony Mary, Br. Paschal (thanks again for the tour!), and the others… it was a true blessing.

One of the unexpected blessings was meeting a young man from Germany, named Andrew, who was staying at the Madonna Guest House with Marie and I, and who was at EWTN, (along with his priest and a young lady and her mother), taping a special series for German youth called, “Faith is Beautiful.”

(We actually had the opportunity to watch the series being taped during our tour). We enjoyed several meals with them, and their presence underscored in a very tangible way the global outreach that now exists because of the unshakable faith of one cloistered nun. Please keep the ministry of EWTN in your prayers, and remember to keep “EWTN” between your electric bill and your gas bill, (as Mother always used to say).

Coming Soon

This is the place for you to share YOUR stories of inspiration and faith, stories of conversion to Christ, or coming home to the Church.