THE LIFE OF BRIAN - AND HIS WIFE, AND THE CHURCH

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Have you ever noticed who's missing from Jesus' discourse about coming not to send "peace upon earth … but the sword" (Mt 10,35)?

Or as St Luke puts it, "the father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, and the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, and the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law"(Lk 12, 53). Who's missing from that line-up? 

I put this question a couple of days ago to a priest who's spent many years in Marriage Encounter. He'd never noticed the missing link, the relationship on which all those Jesus mentions depends. Evidently, Jesus did not come to divide husband and wife.

So I invite you to consider the following (hypothetical)situation. A chap is gearing up to lead 'paraliturgies' in his parish church while Father's on holiday. His wife has a car, with petrol in it, and believes, as the Church teaches, that attending a 'paraliturgy' when Mass is available only 40 minutes away would not fulfil her Sunday obligation and so would be seriously sinful.

So the wife (hypothetically) has no intention of attending hubbie's 'paraliturgy'. 

BTW, the Catholic Dictionary defines 'paraliturgy' as "a form of public worship in which Catholics engage without following the official liturgy or take unauthorized liberties in removing or changing the words or actions required by Church law". That definition sounds a bit shonky to me, but it seems to be the best going: nowhere in Church documents is the word 'paraliturgy' defined. 

It's mentioned only four times, in two papal documents (Paul VI and JPII), a document on migration and in Instrumentum Laboris (1994), but the word is not defined. Seems like 'paraliturgy' is one of those post-Vat2 buzzwords, one which sounds impressive and saves one the trouble of saying 'Liturgy of the Word with Holy Communion' - which is what our hypothetical hubbie means by 'paraliturgy'.

The wife might ask her husband (imagine that he's on the Parish Council) why there would be Sunday 'paraliturgies' instead of Holy Mass, for a whole month, next January. Leaving aside the question of Father's whereabouts, apparently it would be to get the parish used to the idea of having no priest, sometime in the not too far distant future. 

Didn't you know, that's the reason they've been having 'Liturgies of the Word' etc at Palmerston North's Cathedral of the Holy Spirit? There we all were, thinking it was because there were no priests available to say Mass (while we knew there were), but no: it was to get us used to doing without them. And that's the reason the laity gave homilies in Advent, too. 

They were practicing priestlessness- so the hapless congregation, not informed in advance, were forced to practice priestlessness too, for that day which seems to the NZ hierarchy to be inevitable.

Talk about rolling over! My hypothetical wife might ask the hypothetical husband (let's call him Brian) what ideas the Parish Council were proposing to avert this impending catastrophe. Like prayer, perhaps?

Brian, like the sensible Parish Councillor that he might be, might imply that prayer is pretty ineffectual. Wife might say that Our Lady appeared to three shepherd children at Fatima for five months running, commanding them to pray the Rosary, and that she organised the astounding Miracle of the Sun for 70,000 people to prove that she had truly appeared, and had implored the children and the whole world, to pray. But Brian might not believe that she appeared at all, or even that God is moved by our prayers.

And indeed, Brian would seem to be on the side of right if - as I ask you to imagine - the Parish Council had recently seen fit to abolish both of the two weekly Hours of Eucharistic Adoration in one of their parish churches. 

There was a perfectly sensible reason for that move, a move which might seem to any prayerful person to be drastic and unwise. Only one person (well all right, occasionally two), attended Adoration, and that person had disqualified herself from conducting a simple Hour of Adoration (setting the Host in the monstrance on the altar, returning the Host to the tabernacle and singing one hymn before and after). The reason for her disqualification was, she'd resigned a couple of years earlier as an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion.

You might well ask, why would she be allowed to continue for a couple of years with Eucharistic Adoration then, if her resignation as EMHC had disqualified her? The answer might be that it was the Tuesday 5 p m Mass following Adoration that the hypothetical PP decided to cancel, because it also was attended by a congregation of one. 

But, I hear you say, if she'd resigned as EMHC because the Church teaches that except in extraordinary circumstances, none but the consecrated hands of the priest should come in contact with the Sacred Species, what's Adoration got to do with the price of fish? At Adoration the Host is handled only in its lunette ...

What's the answer to these questions? My hypothetical wife could ask Brian, but she'd have to be extremely careful not to produce the 'sword' (Mt 10,35) and cause the 'separation' (Lk 12, 51) which Jesus seems to imply is prohibited between husband and wife. 

The Douay Rheims Bible has this to say: "I came to set a man at variance, etc:  not that this was the end or design of the coming of our Saviour; but that his coming and his doctrine would have this effect, by reason of the obstinate resistance that many would make, and of their persecuting all such as should adhere to him."  

Yes, we get that bit. Did Jesus foresee that "all such as should adhere to him" would be persecuted by and in his Church, just like the scribes and Pharisees who held the places of honour in Jesus' Church had persecuted him? I think so, because Jesus also said, "But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth?" Lk 18, 8). And traditional Catholics are certainly being persecuted.

Pope Francis stated on September 11 (it was one of his airplane moments) that his opponents use "rigid" ideology to cover their own moral failings. He admires Greta Thunberg, poster child for climate change protest by children who more than any previous generation are precipitating the catastrophe which many who know more than I (and that's everybody) say is a fallacy. The Pope told Greta to carry on her fight, giving Catholic school children all the encouragement they need (but already have, from their teachers) to go on strike.

The Pope says ultra-conservative Catholics have allowed political ideology to infiltrate religious doctrine.

WOT? Talk about the Jesuit, Leftie pot calling the faithful, conservative kettle black … 
And Pope Francis states he is not afraid of schism. That must mean he has attained that perfect "love which casts out fear" (I Jn 4:18). But if his love is perfect, why does he denounce "rigid" Catholics for "obsessing" about abortion and homosexuality? Why would he say the worst evils in the world today are youth unemployment and loneliness in old age?

Is Pope Francis not afraid of the schism developing in Catholic marriages all over the world, a schism between husband and wife who disagree over statements such as these? He should be. 

Because not only is he dividing the Church, but he is dividing husband and wife, of whom Jesus said, "Let no man put asunder"(Mt 19,6), and one day in the not too distant future (Pope Francis is 83) he will be called to make account to Christ himself for such schism.

I was told last week by the Marriage Encounter priest that conservative, faithful Catholics need to "lighten up". And I told him that this is a wonderful time to be as Catholic. "It's a wonderful time," I said, to be a priest!" 

So enough of doom and gloom and the life of Brian. Today's saint, my favorite, the heroic Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, would love to be around right now. (And actually I know she is.) Because she was positively warlike. 

“With what joy," she once said, "at the time of the Crusades, I would have gone to combat heretics. Yes! I would not have been afraid to be shot; I would not have feared the fire!: … 

Sanctity! We need to conquer it at the tip of the sword . . . we need to fight!”

Donna Te Amo says: 
Best pope we have had for a long time.

Bob Gill says:
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I say:
Which goes to show what beauty there must be in Donna's eye. 

Donna adds:
There is lots of beauty in my eyes thanks Julie  … but not in your unkind words.

Bruce Tichbon says:

Pope Francis is popular, especially with the world. Our Lord was not popular in his day, in fact the authorities and the mob had him killed.  Notwithstanding, the teachings of our Lord, as contained in Sacred Scripture, has guided our civilization for nearly two millennia.  But in the 'enlightened' recent years it seems things have changed.  Our Pope is at the leading edge with climate change, immigration, gay rights, divorce and remarriage.  Even our faithful holy priests are now 'clericalists'.  But if it get souls to Heaven it is all for a good cause.

I say:

Obviously, as you see (above), I'm not popular either. Fiat voluntas tua.

Zaccheus says:
Yes the pope should be worried about the impending schism, which he is contributing to, even causing. A schism in the Church will of necessity be a schism between family members, between friends and within and between groups (of people) and he will bear the consequences ( as Jesus (in his enunciations on divorce ) said. That Marriage Encounter priest should know better too.