“Heretic Philosopher-Playboy becomes Catholic Bishop — Writes Bestseller About His Conversion.”
August 28, 2009
It sounds like a headline ripped from a contemporary newspaper –even in today’s tabloid tell-all saturated society, it would make for an eye-catching headline. And the story is true, even if it isn’t necessarily “news.” The subject of the story lived over 1500 years ago, and his name was Aurelius Augustinus; we know him as St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo.
Augustine was born in 352-54, in the small city of Tagaste, Africa, where today stands the Arab village of Souk-Ahras, near the eastern border of Algeria. He grew up in a time of the ascendancy of the (Catholic) Church — the great Council of Nicea having taken place barely a quarter of a century earlier — and the growing decline of the Roman Empire. His father, Patricius, was a minor official in the Roman ruling class in the community, and unapologeticly pagan. Augustine’s mother, Monica, was much younger than her husband, and deeply devoted to Christ and His Church.
One contemporary translator of his famous “Confessions”, Msgr. John K. Ryan, writes: In keeping with the unfortunate custom of the time, Augustine was not baptized in infancy, although he was enrolled as a catechumen. His devote mother gave him some instruction in Christianity and he learned to revere the name of Christ and to have devotion to the martyers, and to have a great desire for immortality. Seriously sick [at one point in his childhood], he begged to be baptized, but he recovered and his baptism was again delayed.
He must have given evidence of intellectual and literary powers from his earliest years… and as a child he was sent to school in Thageste to acquire the fundamentals of the education necessary for a successful public career. He was taught badly by a brutal master, and as a consequence he never acquired a mastery of Greek, although before the end of his life he came to have considerable knowledge of the language. Probably at age eleven, he was sent to Madauros… twenty miles to the south of Thagaste, for further studies. There he studied pagan liturature and perhaps made some aquaintance with the works of Plato. Madauros was a stronghold of paganism and the two or three years that he spent there must have had a bad effect upon his moral formation.
The worst was yet to come, however. Because his father did not have the financial ability to keep him in school, young sixteen year-old Augustine spent a year at home, with too much free-time on his hands. It led to increased moral corruption, which was completed when he then attended the rhetorical schools of Carthage. He took a concubine, with whom he had a son, (Adeodatus), and became a member of the pseudo-Christian sect known as the Manicheans. This sect, which was gnostic in essence, held to an extreme metaphysical and moral dualism — seeing both good and evil as equal realities, equal “positive” powers. Manicheism rejected the Old Testament, and attacked certain teachings of the New Testament, seeing the body as evil. For decades, Augustine would live in slavery to his lusts, trapped in false religion.
He ultimately became a teacher, first in Thagaste, then Carthage, later in Rome, and finally in Milan. Along the way he began to read a great deal of philosophy, and his knowledge of philosophy grew in depth and extent. All during this time, he continued to struggle with chastity, (or the lack thereof), and intellectual pride, which served as a barrier to his acceptance of the Christian (Catholic) faith.
Finally, after serving two years as a professor of rhetoric in the imperial city of Milan, he grew more and more dissatisfied with his moral, intellectual, and spiritual state. He desire to live a good life, but was too weak to do so. The mother of Adeodatus was sent back to Africa, a break that was as hard on Augustine as it was on her. A future marriage was arranged, but had to be delayed because the bride-to-be was underage. In the meantime, Augustine took up with another mistress.
During this time, Augustine came under the influence of St. Ambrose, who was then bishop of Milan. Slowly Augustine’s understanding of the depth of Catholic teaching grew. His heart and mind at once desiring to receive the new life, but fearful of giving up the old, he found himself in deep turmoil. Msgr Ryan recounts: At the height of his soul’s turmoil he heard a voice, like that of a child, chanting, “Take and read! Take and read! He seized an open copy of the New Testament, and the first words to meet his eyes were those of St. Paul: “Not in chambering and drunkeness, not in debauchery and wantoness, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and as for the flesh, take no thought for its lusts.” It was late summer, 386. The fervent prayers and ceaseless tears of his mother, (Saint) Monica, were answered on the Easter Vigil of 387, when Augustine was baptized, (along with Adeodatus), by St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan.
Ever feel that you’ve lived so long as a “prodigal son” that you would never be able to return to the faith of your youth? Ever felt so lost you don’t think the grace of God will ever be able to find you? Ask St. Augustine, the heretic philosopher-playboy, who ultimately became one of the greatest theologians and “Doctors of the Church” to pray for you. Ask Monica, who never gave up on her son, and prayed unceasingly for his conversion, to consider you a “son” as well. Ask the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of all Christians, Our Lady of Grace, to pray for you. And never forget that Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is seeking you more than you are seeking Him.
St. Augustine: pray for us.
St. Monica: pray for us.
Immaculate Heart of Mary: pray for us
Sacred Heart of Jesus: have mercy on us!
St. Augustine’s feast day is August 28th. (Which, intentionally, was the day of my ordination as a Lutheran pastor, seventeen years ago.)
ObamaCare and Pope Benedict’s “Caritas in Veritate.”
August 26, 2009
by Jason Reed, Reuters News Service, July 20, 2009
The health-care debate is a perfect example of why Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical on the economy is called Caritas in Veritate — Charity and Truth.
Think of it this way: Psychologists who have attempted to care for people’s mental health without regard to the reality of sin end up leaving people at the mercy of the worst psychological disasters. A medical community that rejects the sacredness of human life ends up killing more people — embryos and the elderly — than they save.
And economists who reduce people to economic entities — ignoring human love and the truth about the human person — find that they just make problems worse.
Health care is a perfect example. Charity and truth are why we have health care in the first place. The modern health-care system started with Christ’s command to “heal the sick.” Dedicated religious invented hospitals. Catholic nuns and brothers staffed them and allowed them to proliferate. Health care was affordable to all who needed it because, at its heart, it was a service of charity that responded to the dignity of the human person.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Catholic organizations provided education and health care that were practically free. At the beginning of the 21st century, the atheistic movements that worked so hard to unshackle society from the chains of the Church are faced with a society searching for, and not finding, lifelines to replace the ones the Church once provided.
Of course, there are plenty of other factors in the health-care situation America faces.
In order to head off labor unions, employers in the early 20th century started to add benefits, among them medical plans. Today, it is an expectation that employers will provide health-care benefits. That, in turn, means that health-care costs have been hidden from consumers for years: The money for the insurance comes out of their paycheck (and their employer’s account) before they see it.
The litigation explosion in the past 50 years in America has also caused a new dynamic in health care: Providers have to pay huge malpractice insurance rates, a cost they pass on to the medical insurers, who pass it on to you and me and our employers — or to prospective employers if we lose our job.
Yet health care remains a right. “The political community has a duty to honor the family, to assist it, and to ensure especially,” says the Catechism (No. 2211), “in keeping with the country’s institutions, the right to medical care, assistance for the aged, and family benefits.”
That doesn’t mean that all health care must be government-provided. After all, the Catechism is careful to use that phrase “in keeping with the country’s institutions” and also stresses the right to private ownership, housing and emigration — none of which are expected to be provided at government expense.
What, then, does it mean? How can we ensure the right to medical care in the face of our gargantuan, overpriced mess of a health-care system?
Pope Benedict’s encyclical gives his fundamental answer. “Love — caritas — is an extraordinary force which leads people to opt for courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace. … Development, social well-being, the search for a satisfactory solution to the grave socioeconomic problems besetting humanity, all need this truth.”
In particular, Catholic social thought has translated this love and truth into the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity.
The principle of solidarity means we ought to love our neighbor, feed the poor, clothe the naked, and care for the sick.
On the one hand, the market alone will not achieve solidarity. “In fact, if the market is governed solely by the principle of the equivalence in value of exchanged goods, it cannot produce the social cohesion that it requires in order to function well,” writes the Holy Father (No. 38). He emphasizes: “Without internal forms of solidarity and mutual trust, the market cannot completely fulfill its proper economic function.”
On the other hand, “Solidarity is first and foremost a sense of responsibility on the part of everyone with regard to everyone,” he writes, “and it cannot therefore be merely delegated to the State.”
The principle of subsidiarity, on the other hand, is the Catholic belief that the person closest to a need has the strongest ability — and clearest duty — to provide care.
These two principles are at the heart of the health-care question: We are meant to help each other, and the person closest to the problem is responsible for assistance.
Pope Benedict XVI is careful not to place this responsibility solely on the shoulders of the marketplace or the state.
He nicely distinguishes between an over-reaching state on the one hand, and a laissez-faire approach on the other, when he writes (No. 58), “The principle of subsidiarity must remain closely linked to the principle of solidarity and vice versa, since the former without the latter gives way to social privatism, while the latter without the former gives way to paternalist social assistance that is demeaning to those in need.”
These two principles are helpful when assessing the health-care legislation being proposed in Washington.
Questions to ask: Does the proposal help us expand health care? In other words, does it allow us to cut the true factors that drive health-care costs — or does it kowtow to those who are responsible for those costs, for instance trial lawyers and pharmaceutical companies?
Also: Does the proposal put decisions about assistance in the hands of those closest to the need? Or does it move those decisions to Washington?
Of course, all of those questions are moot if a health-care proposal fails to protect the right to life. Health care that pays for abortion or pressures older patients to forgo necessary treatment isn’t a health-care system at all, but a death machine.
No matter how it is structured or how many benefits it provides to people, Catholics must oppose any legislator who proposes or supports a death machine.
Love and truth demand that
The Turning Point
August 25, 2009
In every life, there is a turning point. For many of those who followed Jesus, it came when He said to them, “I am the Bread of Life… I am the Living Bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is My flesh.”
This saying disturbed the crowd, and they began murmur among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat.” By saying that He was the Bread of Life, come down from heaven, Jesus was making Himself out to be greater than Moses, and — equal to God. But what He said next would be the last straw: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you have no life in you; he who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day… he who eats Me will live because of Me.” This statement was absolutely scandelous; and Jesus doesn’t attempt to calm them down, or smooth things over by pouring oil on the water — instead, He throws more fuel on the fire. “You take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?” At this, St. John tells us, “many of His disciples drew back, and no longer walked with Him.” They had come to their turning point.
Jesus then turns to the Twelve, and gives them the open door to do the same: “Will you also go away?” As always, it’s Peter who speaks.
“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed, and have come to know, that You are the Holy One of God.”
Peter, by the grace flowing from the Father and by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, speaks words of deep insight and unchanging truth. “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life…” There are only two paths… the path that leads to God, the path to eternal life, and the path that leads away from God and to eternal death. But the path to eternal life is costly; it will cost us the price of our life, it will cost us the right to claim that our life is our own. That is what lie behind Jesus’ teaching, and that is what caused many of His disciples — then and now — to walk away.
“You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that You are the Holy One of God.” Notice the progression here: it is not a matter of “faith” or “knowledge” — it is both. But it is faith that leads us to true knowledge. The disciples believed, and their faith had led them to knowledge, knowledge of “the Holy One of God.”
Have you reached your “turning point?” Are you turning TO, or turning AWAY? There is no middle ground, no third option.
August 25, 2009
