Make Disciples of All Nations

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Susan Kehoe

How Not to Evangelize

The Art of Evangelization

For many years I was a just in case Catholic. I went to Mass, on a semi regular basis, just in case there really was a hell. Just in case the Church was true.

Then I encountered Christ. It all began in a book store in Ireland.  Everywhere I turned a book with a very yellow and red cover beckoned to me.  It was the then new Catechism of the Catholic Church.

I bought it and read it cover to cover that evening. Never again would I be a marginal Catholic. It was, I realized, true. Every word. I would never be the same again.

A few years later, we returned to the states where we had this new fangled media called the internet. It was not available in Ireland at the time. It enabled me to study more Church documents.  I became a Church teaching junkie. Still am.

But I knew that God was calling me to put my faith into action. Since I did not know what God wanted of me, I checked almost every box on the time and talent form.  The only ministry that responded was the RCIA.

So I have been very involved in evangelization. Every Christian is called to spread the Gospel—to make disciples of all nations

But there is a right way and a wrong way. We should invite and not impose. In my enthusiasm and joy of finding the truth, I was ummm a bit pushy. I wanted to helicopter everyone to the top of the mountain instead of inviting them to continue on the journey.

My spiritual director at the time, a priest, admonished me, “Susan the world already has a savior and it is Not YOU.”

I learned to acquire patience. But most of all I try to remember that I have to get out of the way and let Jesus speak through me. As Mother Theresa said, “be a pencil in the hand of God”.

Monsignor Pope has some suggestions for how to evangelize: Continue reading →

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The Pope on The Role of Women in the Church

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Susan Kehoe

The Pope is starting a Catechetical series on Women in the Church. He begins with St. Hildegard of Bingen.  You can read his first talk here. Below is a video. He speaks in English following a brief introduction in Italian.

Posted in Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Valley Woman Not A Catholic Priest Because Gender Does Matter

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Susan Kehoe

This woman is Not a Catholic Priest.                                                                 

Sigh. These older woman just don’t get it. There never will be women priests in the Catholic Church. Never. It is just not possible. It is settled doctrine.  The Church simply does not have the authority to ordain women.

Sr. Sara Butler once thought that women could be ordained, but after much prayer and study she realizes that she was wrong. Read her arguments against women priests here.

http://www.archny.org/media/files-seminary/Mar7dunwoodie.doc

Here is another good explanation on why the Church does not ordain women. http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0001.html

The fundamental reason that many people have a problem with the Church regarding women and the priesthood  is that our culture teaches that gender does not matter. Men and women are seen as interchangeable.

Ergo it doesn’t matter that Jesus was male and that he is the bridegroom.

The idea that gender is not specific to male and female is the main argument in favor of same sex marriage.

What nonsense.

It is a scientific fact that men and women are not biologically, anatomically the same or interchangeable. Men do not have the equipment to carry and bear a child. Women have more fat than muscle.

Not to mention that Men Are from Mars, Women are from Venus.

Even when a man, for example, undergoes a so called sex change operation, he does not in fact become a women. His DNA still marks him as a man. He still has male chromosomes. Surgery and hormones do not and cannot change that fact. He may look like a woman. He may talk like a woman. But he is a man.

We live in a delusional world where what one feels to be true is more important than what is true.

I will be posting more on the Church’s position on homosexual acts and same sex marriage soon.

Stay tuned.

Posted in Catholic Church, Clergy, Women | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Christian Teens

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Susan Kehoe

This article reports that most Christian teens are lukewarm, at best, about their faith.

The study, which included in-depth interviews with at least 3,300 American teenagers between 13 and 17, found that most American teens who called themselves Christian were indifferent and inarticulate about their faith.

The study included Christians of all stripes — from Catholics to Protestants of both conservative and liberal denominations. Though three out of four American teenagers claim to be Christian, fewer than half practice their faith, only half deem it important, and most can’t talk coherently about their beliefs, the study found.

Many teenagers thought that God simply wanted them to feel good and do good — what the study’s researchers called “moralistic therapeutic deism.” Via CNN

I believe this is why so Christian churches which have abandoned truth and orthodoxy are all but dying. Either Christianity is worth dying for because it is true, or who cares? Even when solid catechesis is offered and the hard truths are preached by bishops, priests, and deacons it doesn’t stick because parents are not living the faith.  Most people follow the zeitgeist and not the Church.

This is true of the Catholic school kids as well as those who are in the parish religious education program for public school children.

The bare minimum to be an active Catholic is to participate in the Sunday Mass EVERY Sunday. Yet only 1/3 of Catholic school children and those in the RE program attend Sunday Mass regularly. Less than 1/3 attend occasionally, and the rest are CEO’s (Christmas and Easter only).

The sad thing is that teenagers really want to know what Catholics believe and why.

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Right Thinking Will Not Be Tolerated

Posted on August 26, 2010 by Susan Kehoe

Ha!  This video is too funny. H/T Patrick Madrid

Very funny. But sadly it is all too true. There are people in academia and behind church pulpits who actually believe and say such things.  The idea that teaching is bad but facilitating the exploration of our narcissistic feelings is good is too common.  Asking question: good. Finding an answer: bad.

Unfortunately the anti intellectual mind set is far too common. Way back in the last century I took a course in Occupational Psychology. On the first day the professor announced that he was going to facilitate and not teach. He was the only professor at the university assigned to teach the class. The class was required for my major. I was trapped.

To make matters worse he divided us into small groups in order to share our innermost feelings. Ick.  I was over thirty with a family,and the average age of the other students was about 2 er 20. Since I am not inclined to sharing or group hugs, I channeled my inner D personality. I just said NO.

When I refused to participate, the professor decided to “punish” me by assigning a weekly project.  He assigned me a study every week from medical and psychological journals to critique and write a paper on. Little did he know that I love research, and I love to write.  He reluctantly gave me an A for the course.

And we wonder why so many kids can’t read, can’t reason, and are lost and confused.

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Harvard Gal Answers a Higher Call

Posted on August 26, 2010 by Susan Kehoe

Wow this is awesome; it is the triumph of faith and reason over being led by feelings. H/T Deacon Greg Kandra.

“Don’t tell Mary Anne Marks the Catholic Church is an oppressive, misogynistic disaster. She knows better. And she’s got a Harvard degree, too.

Miss Marks, a native of Queens, N.Y., graduated from Harvard University this past semester with an undergraduate degree in classics and English, delivering her commencement address in Latin. This fall, she begins a new life, discerning her future consecrated to Christ as a Catholic religious sister with the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, in Ann Arbor, Mich. She and I are alumnae of the same high school, Dominican Academy, in Manhattan. Before heading to Ann Arbor, she talked with me a bit about how she got to this point.

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: You are a Harvard graduate. Aren’t you surrendering all the possibilities that entails by entering a convent?

MARY ANNE MARKS: Yes, if one doesn’t see becoming a well-educated, intellectually alive nun as one of the possibilities.

LOPEZ: I don’t know about you, but I read the New York Times. A number of the op-ed columnists there, and a number of the news stories, tell me that the Catholic Church is anti-woman. And from other stories, about the various scandals, the Catholic Church also sounds like a dying, loser organization of sinners. Why would you choose to represent it in such a public, hard-to-miss way — in a religious habit?

MARKS: I feel privileged to represent the Catholic Church in a visible way, because it is an organization of sinners and sinners-turned-saints, emphatically alive, expanding, and responsive to the needs of the time, an organization that has been enormously effective in promoting the spiritual and material well-being of women and men throughout the 2,000 years of its existence.

From its earliest years, the Church’s doctrine of the equality of all humans as beloved children of God and its reverence for Mary as the spouse and mother of God elevated women to a status previously unheard of. In our own times, the Church’s unequivocal opposition to practices such as abortion and contraception, which harm women physically and psychologically, and threaten to render them victims of their own and others’ unchecked desires, makes the Church a lone voice above the chaos, promoting women’s dignity and happiness.

The cry that the Church is a “dying, loser organization of sinners” echoes down the centuries; it rang out in Christ’s day, it rang out in Luther’s day, and it rings out in ours. The second part always has and always will be too true. Kyrie eleison. The erroneousness of first part is suggested by the Church’s record of accomplishments and its longevity to this point, and by the new growth that people of my generation rejoice to see.” Read the long interview here.

Here is a video of Mary Anne Marks speech in Latin at her graduation from Harvard.

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Tangled Webs

Posted on August 25, 2010 by Susan Kehoe

Oh what a tangled web we weave,When first we practice to deceive! (Sir Walter Scott)                                                                                                               

The latest from the Truthiness files or why let facts get in the way of historical truth.  (H/T Thomas Peters AKA American Papist):

Just as Dan Brown capitalized on ignorance and prejudice to sell copies of his bestselling The Da Vinci Code novel, some historians have tried to sell gay marriage by claiming that the early Christian martyrs Sergius and Bacchus are an example of Church-sponsored same-sex marriage.

Seriously?

“Many of the world’s religions — including Christianity — supported same-sex unions, a reality obscured by modern-day shrill, conservative commentary.

“Christian Right Bigots Are Hiding the Truth — Early Christians Condoned Gay Marriage”

Consider this article and headline by Daniel Maguire on AlterNet:

With Judge Walker’s recent decision to declare same-sex marriage a “constitutional right”, gay-marriage proponents are in overdrive trying desperately to convince people on the fence that gay-marriage is the wave of the future – as well as the suppressed reality of the past.

Oh my.  It seems that this particular twisting of Christian history surfaced in 1994:

The claim that Saints Sergius and Bacchus represent an example of Church-sponsored same-sex marriage was first put forward in 1994 by John Boswell in his book Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe. Boswell’s claims have been completely debunked by David Woods, Robin Young, and Brent Shaw (to name the first three authors I found during a simple internet search).

In his post, Thomas Peters, cites three real historians who tear this alternative history to shreds. Robert Darling Young, does a particularly effective job. Boswell claims that there was an early Christian rite to bind two people of the same sex. Ms. Young says that may be true. Not only does such a rite exist in the Syrian Church, she participated in one! But it was not a marriage.

“This is a subject about which I have the good fortune to speak not merely as a scholar or an observer, but as a participant. Nine years ago I was joined in devout sisterhood to another woman, apparently in just such a ceremony as Boswell claims to elucidate in his book. The ceremony took place during a journey to some of the Syrian Christian communities of Turkey and the Middle East, and the other member of this same-sex union was my colleague Professor Susan Ashbrook Harvey of Brown University.”

Snip

The blessing of the Syrian Orthodox Church was a precious instance of our participation in the life of an ancient and noble Christian tradition. Although neither of us took the trouble to investigate the subject, each privately assumed that the ritual of that summer was some Christian descendant of an adoption ceremony used by the early church to solemnify a state-that of friendship-which comes highly recommended in the Christian tradition (“Henceforth I call you not servants . . . but I have called you friends.” [John15:15]). The whole article is worth a read (here).

The problem our culture’s fixation on sex and lust, eros, has all but removed the highest expression of love, from a Christian perspective, selfless and self sacrificing love, agape, from our understanding of what authentic love is. Fraternal, philio, love has all but been eradicated from our society. At least for men. The idea that two men can love each other as friends and not lovers is a lost concept. Friendship between men is confined to activities such as watching football together or playing golf.

Anyway the idea that the early Church sanctioned same sex marriage is absurd. But the same sex marriage radicals won’t let go. Anyone who dares to say that homosexual acts are sinful are labeled bigots. It is going to get rough.

Posted in Homosexual agenda, Marriage, Truthiness | 1 Comment

A Bishop vs A Politician

Posted on August 23, 2010 by Susan Kehoe

In the year 390, that is.

“There is a remarkable event that took place between the Emperor Theodosius  and  St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. What makes it remarkable is that it shows an ancient Bishop interacting with an ancient politician over the dignity of human life. In this case the politician was the Emperor and he had the power of life and death over Ambrose the Bishop. St. Ambrose knew he had to correct the Emperor but also knew this might endanger his life or freedom. Nevertheless he did it and wrote a personal letter of rebuke to the Emperor. Let’s look at this remarkable incident, what Bishop Ambrose did and what the outcome was.”

Ambrose barred him from the Eucharist. Excerpt:

“Theodosius, was mortified and went to Milan to seek solace from St. Ambrose. But Ambrose, fearing the Church was  just be used as a political prop or fig leaf left the city before Theodosius  arrived and in effect refused to meet with the Emperor.  This surely endangered Ambrose for it risked inflaming the Emperor’s infamous temper once more.

Ambrose then wrote  to the Emperor a private letter (now known as Letter 51). You can read the whole letter here:  http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/340951.htm The Letter is a respectful but clear call to public repentance by the Emperor and a refusal to admit him to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass or to celebrate it in his presence until such public repentance had occurred.”

Read More here.

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Saint of the Day

Posted on August 23, 2010 by Susan Kehoe

“The first canonized saint of the Western Hemisphere, Rose of Lima (1586-1617) might also be considered a type of the special vocation of contemplative-in-the-world. Inspired by the example of St. Catherine of Siena, Rose became a Dominican lay tertiary and devoted herself to works of active charity while living a life of extreme austerity. She longed to evangelize the Indians, not at all discouraged by the thought that they would probably kill her. St. Martin de Porres and St. John Masias were among her friends. She died at the age of 31, praying, “Lord, increase my sufferings, and with them increase your love in my heart.” Read more

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Saint of the Day

Posted on August 21, 2010 by Susan Kehoe

St. Pius X, Pope

Link here.

I forgot to post on St. Bernard yesterday read about him here.

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