Idaho Hicks In Austria...

I Forgot to Mention...

2010-05-20T02:11:00.003-06:00

I forgot to say that we made sure to pray for all of you and your intentions at every site we visited. You were definitely on our hearts and minds at every stop and at every place. We even talked about who we were praying for. It was such a gift to be able to carry you there in "spirit." Your presence with us was almost tangible. Thank you for the joy of praying for your intentions. May God's grace fill your hearts!

Pilgrimage to the Holy Shroud

2010-05-19T07:38:00.001-06:00

God blessed us with an opportunity of a lifetime last week. The ITI planned a pilgrimage to visit the Holy Shroud of Turin. We were able to work for the ITI as a way of defraying most of the cost of the trip. Debbie, Felicity, and Cody spent an entire Saturday cleaning out the attic of the castle that the ITI resides in. I am guessing that it has been several decades, at least, since it was last cleaned. It was nasty work.

We left Trumau Wednesday night (May 12 – the vigil of the Ascension) at 5:30 pm. The bus traveled all night. We stopped at a rest stop at 6am so we could brush our teeth and change clothes before we got to Turin. We got to Turin at 7am or so. They estimate there will be two million people see the Shroud in the two months it is displayed. The Shroud has been displayed to the public only five times (that includes this time) in the last 120 years! What a blessing that we were able to stand before the burial shroud of our Lord.

We wound our way through the Cathedral’s complex to get to the Shroud. About the last twenty minutes of the wait was in complete in silence. It was such a blessing to have the time to prepare ourselves for what we were about to see. We were allowed about five minutes in front of the Shroud. I can’t put words to what I experienced. The strongest was the presence of God. I was so grateful and humbled. After our time was up, we could go enter into the back of the cathedral to pray more before the Shroud. I could have stayed there a very long time. (We were not allowed to take pictures so I don’t have any of inside the church.)

Guard at the Cathedral at Turin

The Lee crew in front of the Cathedral. Zeke was asleep. Cody was ill and stayed home.

Zach and an Italian soldier.

It was a special privilege to see the Shroud on the Feast of the Ascension. There is evidence that the Shroud was used as an altar cloth. Some believe that the origin of the corporal (the piece of cloth placed on the altar where the gifts are placed) in the Latin Church and the antimension in the Eastern Church (and the epitaphion) came from the use of the Shroud as an altar cloth.

After we left the Church, we walked to another church for Mass. This church contained the relics of St. Don Bosco, St. Dominic Savio, and St. Maria Domenica Mazzarello. The walk was beautiful.

Narrow Italian street.

Roman ruins from 25 B.C.

Main Altar at St. Francis de Sales church.

Inside the main dome of St. Francis’.

Inside the dome over the main altar at St. Francis’.

Altar with relics of St. John Bosco.

St. John Bosco

Eating pizza on the steps of a church. It was really good, too. Not as good as the gelato that we had next!

We left Turin and drove up into the Italian mountains to the place where we would spend Thursday night. We were all excited to actually sleep in a bed and not in a bus seat. No one had been to the place we were staying. We were in for a wonderful surprise. We stayed at the pilgrimage site of Our Lady of Oropa. It is one of the oldest in Italy. It is a huge basilica nestled in the mountains. We were only a few hundred feet elevation from snow. It was gorgeous. The pictures just won’t do it justice.

Looking towards the basilica from the main entrance. You can’t even see the huge church from this angle.

The basilica from our room window.

The basilica from the middle courtyard.

View from the courtyard into the valley below.

Our Lady of Oropa.

We left Oropa first thing in the morning on Friday so we would have a little time in the city of Padua. What an amazing day. We saw St. Luke (the one who wrote the Gospel and Acts of the Apostles), St. Matthias (the one who replaced Judas Iscariot Acts 1:15-26), St. Anthony of Padua (his tomb and his incorrupt tongue, voice box, and lower jaw), and letters written by St. Maximillian Kolbe, St. Alphonsus Ligouri, and St. Vincent de Paul. I do not have any pictures from within St. Anthony’s basilica. They weren’t allowed. I will post a few of the others.

Tomb and relics of St. Matthias. We were there on his feast day.

Tomb of St. Luke

Basilica of St. Anthony of Padua.

The boys in a park across from the basilica.

We left Padua at 7pm on Friday evening and arrived back in Trumau at 2:30am. It was an intense, fully packed pilgrimage. It will take a while to meditate on all that we saw. We saw more saints in two days than all of the American saints combined, I think. It has such an impact on your faith and the reality of these great saints. There really were people who lived in specific places, and they really touched specific people.

Thank you! Thank you so much for the great gift of being over here. There would never be enough time in all eternity to express my gratitude for all that you have given us and allowed us to experience. We can only hope to share it with you.

Thomas Sunday

2010-04-12T13:59:00.002-06:00

Yesterday, the Eastern Church had the same reading as the Latin Church: John 20:19-31.

On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you." And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe." Eight days later, his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. The doors were shut, but Jesus came and stood among them, and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe." Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.

I have posted a couple of times how beautiful and insightful I find the various short hymns, generally called stichera, that are sung at various times during the Liturgy. However, more are sung at the various prayers of the Divine Office. I thought I would once again share some of these for your personal meditation. The following stichera are taken from vespers of last Saturday night for Thomas Sunday.

Even though the doors were closed, You came to your disciples O Christ, and Thomas, called the Twin, was not with them. Therefore, he did not believe what they told him. You did not deem him unworthy for his lack of faith, but in your goodness, You confirmed his faith by showing him your pure side and the wounds in your hands and feet. He touched them, and when he saw You, he confessed You to be neither an abstract God nor merely human; and he cried out: My Lord and my God, glory to you!

On the eighth day the Savior came to the doubting disciples. He granted them peace and said to Thomas: O Apostle, come and touch my hands which are pierced by nails. How wonderful is this doubt of Thomas! It brought the hearts of believers to the knowledge of God. Therefore, he cried out with fear: My Lord and my God, glory to You!

After your Resurrection, O Lord, You appeared in the midst of your disciples and granted them peace as they gathered together behind closed doors. And Thomas was convinced after seeing your hands and side; therefore, he confessed that You are Lord and God, and Savior of those who place their trust in You. O Lover of Mankind, glory to You!

Although the doors were closed, Jesus appeared to his disciples. He took away their fear and granted them peace. Then He called Thomas and said to him: Why did you doubt my Resurrection from the dead? Place your hand in my side; see my hands and feet. Through your lack of faith everyone will come to know of my passion and my Resurrection, and they will cry out with you: My Lord and my God, glory to you!

Manifesting the brightness of your divinity, You appeared even though the doors were closed, O Lord. Standing in the midst of your disciples, You uncovered your side and showed them the wounds of your hands and feet, delivering them from the sadness that had overcome them. You spoke to them clearly and said: As you see, my friends, I have assumed flesh; I am not pure spirit. You spoke to the disciple who had doubted and asked him to touch your wounds, saying: Explore my wounds and doubt no longer. The disciple touched You with his hand and discovered both your divinity and humanity; filled with fear, he cried out in faith: My Lord and my God, glory to You!

O marvelous wonder! The lack of faith gave birth to a certainty of faith; for Thomas said: Unless I see, I will not believe! Therefore, when he touched your side, he acknowledged that You were the Incarnate Son of God, and he knew that You truly suffered in the flesh; and thus he proclaimed your resurrection from the dead, saying: My Lord and my God, glory to You!

O marvelous wonder! For grass has touched the fire and was not burned. Thomas placed his hand into the fiery side of the Savior, and he was not consumed by touching Him. Truly, his soul was changed from doubt to faith, and he exclaimed from the depth of his spirit: You are my Master and my God who arose from the dead. O Lord, glory to You!

O marvelous wonder! John leaned on the bosom of the Word, and Thomas was made worthy to touch his side. The first discovered the depth of theology, and the other was privileged to announce the plan of salvation; for he clearly revealed the mystery of his Resurrection, saying: My Lord and my God, glory to You!

How great us your infinite compassion, O Lover of Mankind, for because of your long-suffering You were struck by your enemies; You were touched by an apostle and deeply pierced by those who denied You. How did You become incarnate? How were You crucified, O Sinless One? Teach us to cry out as Thomas: My L ord and my God, glory to You!

I pray O Lord that my doubt would be turned to faith as was Thomas’. Lord, I believe – help my unbelief. In your goodness, enter into my heart even though the door is closed. There, O Lord, show me your hands and your feet that I might fall to the ground as did Thomas and proclaim you my Lord and my God…

Χριστός ἀνέστη!! Ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη!!

2010-04-07T07:09:00.001-06:00

Deb, the three youngest kids, and I went to Bratislava, Slovakia on Great and Holy Thursday. We attended, with many from the ITI, the Chrism Divine Liturgy at the Ruthenian Byzantine Cathedral. The cathedral was very small. I am not sure it could hold a hundred people. It seemed to be a converted Latin Rite church.

At the Liturgy itself, the bishop consecrates the Holy Myron (Holy Chrism), consecrates new Antimensia, and washes the feet of priests.

The Antimension (Church Slavonic: Antimens) is similar to the Western corporal, though it serves a function similar to an altar stone. It is a piece of silk or linen which has an icon of the Deposition from the Cross depicted on it, and relics of a martyr sewn into it. Unlike the Western corporal, the Antimension is not removed from the Holy Table after the Eucharist is over, but is kept in the center of the Holy Table, covered by the Gospel Book. (from Wikipedia)

Here are some pictures of the Liturgy.

Here Bishop Peter Rusnák blesses the congregation with a trikerion in his left hand and a dikerion in the right. He blesses with both hands because he, as a bishop, has the fullness of Holy Orders. The candles represent the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity and Two Natures of Christ, respectively.

The Bishop is preparing to wash the feet of twelve of his priests. I nearly got the entire iconostasis into the picture. There is one more rank higher than is visible. You can see the large icons of Mary (on the left of the picture) and Jesus (obscured by the cross). You can see three doors. The main door (called the Royal Door; in the center) can only used during particular times in the Liturgy and then only by a bishop, priest, or deacon. The doors (closed) next to the icons of Jesus and Mary are called deacon doors. There are two more icons at that level. The one on the far left (as you look at the picture) is of St. Nicholas. I do not know what the icon is on the far right. The next row up has the Last Supper in the center and the twelve events from Christ’s life on either side. The next row up has Jesus in the center with Mary and John the Baptist (the Forerunner) worshipping Christ. The others are prophets, patriarchs, and apostles.

The bishop washing and kissing the feet of one of his priests.

This is a bishop that was martyred under the communists in the 1970s. I believe his name is Bishop Vasil Hopko.

Here is another martyr-bishop from under the communists. His name is Bishop Paul P, Gojdich, O.S.B.M.

I was not aware that in every communist country, I believe, the Greek Catholic Church was outlawed. Many, many Eastern Catholics were martyred under the brutal conditions of prisons or labor camps.

Holy Martyrs of the Eastern Catholic Church, pray for us!!

Byzantine Stichera

2010-03-30T05:01:00.001-06:00

Stichera (singular is sticheron) are short hymns that are sung, typically, between the strophes of Psalms during the Divine Liturgy and the Divine Office. They are a beautiful expression of the faith and contain tremendous insights and food for meditation. Today during Matins (or ὄρθρος, which is equivalent to Morning Prayer in the Latin Rite) there were several beautiful stichera that I wanted to share. I selected several from throughout the service. Please take the time to meditate on these beautiful words.

Behold, the Bridegroom is coming in the middle of the night. Blessed is the servant He shall find awake. But the one He shall find neglectful will not be worthy of Him. Beware, therefore, O my soul! Do not fall into deep slumber, lest you be delivered to death and the door of the kingdom be closed to you. Watch instead, and cry out: Holy, Holy, Holy are you, O God. Through the intercession of the Mother of God, have mercy on us.

How shall I enter the splendor of your saints, because of my unworthiness? If I dare to enter into your bridal chamber, my garment shall give me away; for I do not have a wedding garment, and the angels shall cast me out. Purify my soul, O Lord, and in your goodness, save me.

I see your bridal chamber completely engulfed with light, O my Savior, and I do not have a wedding garment to enter and enjoy your brightness; fill the garment of my soul with light, and save me, O Lord, save me.

O Bridegroom, whose grace surpasses all human beauty, You invite us to the spiritual feast in your palace. Strip me of the coarse garment of my sin, and make me a partaker of your Passion. Clothe me in the glorious adornment of your beauty. In your mercy, accept me as a luminous guest at the banquet in your kingdom.

Here are a few from Vespers. These struck me very deeply.

All the arrows of the Enemy have pierced my overburdened heart; it now lies in the tomb of laziness, hardened as the rock of the tomb. But You, O Savior, who by the wood of your Cross have given life to the captives in Hades, awaken me and give me life, that in fear I may glorify your divinity.

I have always loved the treasure of my deadly pleasures, and with the aid of the Evil One, without conscience, I have delighted in trivialities. I have disregarded my groaning spirit as another Lazarus, and I hunger for food from on high. Save me, O Word of God, from the threatening fire, that I may glorify your mercy and your love for humankind.

Clothed in the God-woven purple of freedom and in the fine linen of incorruption, you have mocked your own dignity, O my soul. You have sought pleasure and wealth in sin, looking down on your friends as the rich man on Lazarus the poor. That you may not be chastised with him, become poor in spirit and cry to the Lord who became poor for your sake: O Lord, who wore the purple of mockery before your crucifixion and who were stripped and crucified for my sake, grant me the robe of thy kingdom and deliver me from eternal shame.

We hope and pray that you would have a blessed holy week. May the grace poured out during this Great and Holy Week prepare your hearts for the joy of the glorious Resurrection!!

(The Icon is called Christ the Bridegroom.)

The Synaxis of the Holy Theotokos...

2009-12-26T04:34:00.002-07:00

"He who before the birth of the Morning Star was begotten of the Father, without a mother, became incarnate on earth of you, O mother of God, without a father. Wherefore a star announces to wise men that you have given birth without human seed, and the angels and shepherds glorify you, O Woman full of grace!"

What an amazing line: ...begotten of the Father, without a mother, became incarnate on earth of you, O mother of God, without a father...

The focus of this time of year is, of course, the birth of Christ. Although that was a miraculous and marvelous event, the most ineffable, extraordinary thing that we celebrate is what happened nine months before, viz., the Incarnation. It was then that the holy (as wholly other), transcendent, mighty God emptied himself to become man so that we might become divine. Let us really reflect on what the Incarnation means to mankind.

Frohe Weinachten!!

2009-12-24T15:06:00.006-07:00

"Your birth O Christ our God, has shed upon the world the light of knowledge for through it those who worship the stars have learned from from a star to worship You, the Sun of Justice,and to know You the Dawn from on High, Glory to You, O Lord" (from the Divine Liturgy of the Nativity)

Modern Day Martyrs...

2009-11-21T03:18:00.004-07:00

I have to share an experience that Deb and I had this last week. We listened to one of the professors at the ITI speak about his grandparents. He is from Romania. His grandparents were married in February of 1948. Four months later his grandfather was arrested by the government and held without any charges. His wife was pregnant and had a daughter in October of that year. He spent 16 years in prison. During that time, he was able to see his wife and daughter once after seven years of imprisonment. He was routinely tortured.

(Pictured Vasile Aftenie, Bishop and Martryr)

The backstory here is that the Greek Catholic churches* were outlawed in every Soviet-bloc country. The Greek Catholic priests were required to renounce the Greek Catholic church and join the Orthodox church or face arrest, imprisonment, torture, and death. There were six Greek Catholic bishops in Romania at that time. Every one of them died for their faith; many by torture! The grandfather of my friend escaped death. However, he is deaf in one ear from being beaten with with cloth tubes packed with sand (used so that it would leave no marks).

Each prisoner was given 150 grams of bread per day. That comes to 5.3 ounces (5 slices of bread per day). That was to sustain them under heavy labor conditions. There was such a hunger for the faith that these men would sacrifice part of their daily bread supply and make rosaries from small beads formed from their bread.

This gentlemen got out in 1964 because of pressure applied to the Romanian government by the American government concerning political prisoners. His daughter was 16.

He and his wife have been married now over 60 years. He was ordained once out of prison and has served the Romanian Greek Church since.

What has struck me so profoundly since I have been here and have interacted with Eastern Catholics is how these churches were DECIMATED during Communism. There were many places where all of the bishops and priests were taken away to never return. The Latin Church was left alone as a way of touting some form of religious freedom. However, these churches were under tremendous pressure from the KGB. You step out of line, you disappeared to never be seen again. The Orthodox churches were gutted earlier. Thus, many, many of the priests were KGB agents. The confessionals were bugged. Many, many good Christian people were murdered.

We don't have to look back to the distant past of the early church to find great persecution and martyrdom. There are many people alive today that witnessed the attempted eradication of the Greek Catholic Churches. These churches are still trying to figure out who they are in the world. They were driven so far underground that in some sense they are still emerging.

It is inspiring to hear the stories of these holy and brave men and women. I only pray that God would give me the grace to stand so strong in the face of that kind of persecution.

*What I mean by Greek Catholic Churches are those churches that are not of the Roman Catholic Church that are united with the Pope. These church have many different liturgical rites by which they express their faith. Examples are Byzantine, Melkite, and Maronite rites. The Romanian Greek Church is of the the Byzantine rite.

Here is a small essay on the history of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church:

The communist persecutions
On august 23, 1944, Romania was invaded by the Soviet Army and in March 6, 1945 the Communist Government was installed. One of the goals of the new government was to abolish the Greek-Catholic Church, considered dangerous for the communist plans. They started a campaign of disparagement of Holy Father, and the connections with Vatican were broken.

The government framed up that the Greek-Catholic Church "came back" in the Orthodox Church. They started to threaten the Greek-Catholic priests and bishops that they would be put in jail or killed if they didn't sign their "return" to the Orthodox Church. The communist prisons were full of priests, monks and lay people who didn't sign the "return" to the Orthodox Church. All the Bishops of the Greek-Catholic Church were put in prisons.

On the December 1, 1948, through a decree of the Great National Assembly, The Greek-Catholic Church was abolished because everybody "returned" to orthodoxy. All its possessions were took by the Orthodox Church. Today a very few of these possessions were given back.

The martyr bishops
The communist persecution killed seven Greek-Catholic Bishops. Six of them were bishops when they were arrested (October 1948): Valeriu Traian Frentiu, Iuliu Hossu, Alexandru Rusu, Ioan Balan, Ioan Suciu and Vasile Aftenie, and one of them was ordained bishop in prison: Tit Liviu Chinezu. All of them died in prison or in forced residences, after long periods of sufferings.

The first martyr was Vasile Aftenie (1899-1950), who was tortured in the basement of Ministry of Internal Affairs, and died there. In the prison of Sighetul Marmatiei died Valeriu Traian Frentiu (1875-1952), Ioan Suciu (1907-1953), Tit Liviu Chinezu (1904-1955). The bodies of those who died there were buried in a field, so that we don't know for sure where their graves are. Alexandru Rusu (1884-1963) died in the prison of Gherla.

Ioan Balan (1880-1959) and Iuliu Hossu (1885-1970) died, after prison and forced residence, in a hospital in Bucharest.

The Greek-Catholic Church started the process of canonization of these seven Bishops three years ago. They are the symbol of all the martyrs of the Greek-Catholic Church, and with the will of God they will be the first saints of the Greek-Catholic Church.

The Nativity Fast...

2009-11-15T06:09:00.003-07:00

In the Eastern Catholic Church, there is a 40-day preparation for the Nativity of Christ just as there is for Easter. It begins the day following the Feast of the Apostle Philip. The fast is sometimes referred to the St. Philip's fast accordingly. Thus, the Eastern Church enters into "Advent" as of today. What a special gift to begin the anticipation of the coming of the Son of God into the world! The Church in her wisdom gives these days to prepare, to anticipate, to purify ourselves to be more worthy to celebrate the birth of Christ.

I hope and pray that your Advent whether celebrated with the East or the West is one of great blessing and coming nearer to the One who comes to us!

I Love Italy

2009-11-10T11:16:00.001-07:00

A former student of the ITI was ordained last week. He is a Benedictine monk at the monastery in Norcia, Italy. They have a cool website. This is the monastery that Cody is interested in. There was a large contingent of professors and students from the ITI that attended the ordination. Cody and I were among them. It was a long but blessed weekend. It is about a 12-hour drive to Norcia from Trumau. I got the pleasure of driving in Italy once again. Italy is a beautiful country. We spent the first day driving, two days in Norcia, and the last day driving back. There was much to see in the little village of Norcia, the birthplace of St. Benedict and St. Scholastica. The region is famous for prosciutto and black truffle. There are at least ten shops in town that are dedicated to selling these delicacies. After the ordination, the monastery hosted a meal for all the guests. It was amazing!! We ate for 2-½ hours straight! We started with antipasta consisting of the famous prosciutto and even truffle smothered on toast. It was delicious. We then had two separate pasta courses, a meat course with lamb and two kinds of pork with potatoes, a dessert course, and a fruit course. I think we started with five forks at our place setting. They even had to bring out more forks! Of course, the wine flowed freely and was very good.

Sunday evening we were able to travel to Cascia which is only 18 Km (~10 miles) from Norcia. There we visited the shrines of two Blesseds (Sister Mary Teresa Fasce) and Simone Fidati. He was involved in an Eucharistic miracle that occurred in Cascia (which we saw).

On the way home, we were able to stop in Assisi and see the tomb of St. Francis and the Portiuncula. St. Francis’ tomb is a very holy place. I could have stayed there and prayed for days. The peace. Amazing. We then went to Santa Maria degli Angeli where the Portiuncula is housed. It is the church where St. Francis prayed and lived.

It was here that on 24 Feb., 1208, St. Francis of Assisi recognized his vocation; here was for the most part his permanent abode, after the Benedictines (of the Cluny Congregation from about 1200) had presented him (about 1211) with the little chapel Portiuncula, i.e. a little portion (of land); here also he died on Saturday, 3 October, 1226. Catholic Encyclopedia

It was very special to have Cody show me around a place that he loves. We were invited to pray terce with the monks in their private chapel. To be there with my son was a blessed moment.

I hope you enjoy the pictures! (click on the image to enlarge)

Famous fresco of St. Benedict holding the village of Norcia. That is St. Scholastica, his twin, on the other side of the Blessed Mother.

The basilica and monastery of St. Benedict on the left. The building on the right is the city hall.

Cody on front of statue of St. Benedict which is in the middle of the town square.

Narrow Italian street. Try driving a nine passenger van through these babies!

Inside the basilica of St. Rita

St. Rita

Basilica of St. Francis

The crew outside the basilica of St. Francis. Surprisingly all Americans except the baby (Austrian) and the woman on the far right, who is from Cape town, South Africa.

The Portiuncula

Pilgrimage to Loretto

2009-10-29T05:10:00.001-06:00

Every year the ITI begins the school year with a gala opening and a pilgrimage. The gala opening occurred on the 1oth of October. Cardinal Shönborn was the main celebrant at the Mass in the parish church. Both Zach and Cody served the Mass. Cody was the thurifer and Zach was the crozier bearer.

Following the Mass there was a big party with all of the required politicians etc welcoming the ITI. It was an enjoyable evening.

We undertook the pilgrimage to Loretto 10/26. We walked for about three hours and a half hours from Trumau to the Austrian village of Loretto. There is a basilica in Italy where the supposed house of the Holy Family’s (their house from Nazareth) is found. As Austrian gentlemen visited this basilica in the middle of the 17th century. He was so moved by the experience that he had a statue made and a replica of the house of Nazareth built in Austria. The place was aptly named Loretto. The weather was perfect. It was a great day to walk and pray. Zach, Eli, and I walked. The rest of the family was ill so they met us there.

I carried each and every one of you in my heart as I walked. I prayed for you and asked Gog that he would bless you for your support of our endeavors here.

Eli leading the pilgrims

The church of Loretto in the far distance. We had been walking about two hours at this point.

The main altar at the church in Loretto.

The statue at the Church of Loretto. Made in 1645.

I didn’t get a picture within the replica of the house. I was too busy praying… Afterward, all the pilgrims descended on a little restaurant outside of Loretto. We had a fantastic meal together as a community. It is good to be Catholic!!

Trumau

2009-10-16T03:33:00.011-06:00

We've been trying to get settled over the past couple weeks in the new apartment. It has been a lot like our favorite pastime - camping! We just got running water and a dishwater hooked up. We have been doing the dishes in the bathtub over the past two weeks. They just put up the cabinets in the kitchen when some of them, in another apartment, collapsed. So they took them down for fear of more falling. Fortunately, no one was hurt. It looks to be a flaw in the wall construction.

Before we arrived, we were very concerned over the size of the place. It is *really* small but is livable. Deb has been hard at
work making the place look like home.

We are living among Austrians now, whereas in Gaming we had little contact. Felicity, Cody, and I are enrolled in German classes. I am excited to be able to converse with the locals beyond simple phrases. Felicity received a note from an Austrian girl, written in German and English, wanting to show Felicity Trumau. What a neat gesture.

Below you'll find the Lee apartment virtual tour.

The entrance and landing.

Sorry for the shot of the toilet. Interesting that there is no sink in that room. You have to go clear to where the bathtub is to find the sink (or the kitchen.)

We altered the coat closet to be my office. It actually works quite nicely.

The kitchen. It is much bigger than the one we had in Gaming. You can see the cabinets are not on the wall. Turning 180 degrees...

You see the dining room and living room. I took the picture of the kitchen from where Eli is sitting, and this picture from the other end of the table.

Down the hall you find the "washroom". It has the sink, bathtub, washer, and dryer.

Zach, Eli, and Zeke's room.

Felicity and Cody's room. The furniture divides the room in half and acts as a wall so they have privacy. Not an optimal set up, but it is impossible to put all four boys in one room.

The Master Suite ;-). We were so happy that we could actually get the bed (king size), the dresser, and an armoire in the room and still be able to have some room to move.

We made it…

2009-10-01T02:56:00.001-06:00

We arrived in Austria on the 21st of September. We stayed in the small village of Gaming (where the ITI moved from) as there was no place for us in Trumau, yet. We spent three days in Gaming and then moved into the new digs in Trumau. As you can imagine, 900 sq. ft. is a bit cramped for seven people. We currently have a temporary kitchen that isn’t completely hooked up. Kitchens (stove, fridge, cabinets, sink, etc) do not come supplied with any apartment. The ITI has to provide those things for us. So, it is a bit like camping actually. We do have a small bit of grass in the backyard. I was pretty concerned whether the place would just be too small to live in. However, I think we can make it. It will take love and creativity, but we can do it with God’s grace.

We do not have an internet connection as of yet. I will post pictures of the place once things settle down a bit. Between trying to moving in and classes starting, there is not much time for anything else.

Thanks for your prayers and support. It means the world to us….

Zeke’s Trip to the Dentist

2009-09-14T10:11:00.001-06:00

We discovered that Zeke was having some troubles with his teeth while we were in Austria. When we got here, it was confirmed that he had decay in his front two teeth that required either pulling the teeth or drilling and filling them. Sigh…

Debbie called around to different pediatric dentists and received the same response: he would have to go to the hospital and be anesthetized. The procedure would cost about $3000. Gulp.

She kept calling and found Dr. Roy Rodgers in Boise. He was confident that Zeke could be treated in office. He gave Zeke a “dragon nose,” which is the nose piece for the nitrous oxide, to take home, play with, and get used to. We played with Zeke’s dragon nose over the last couple weeks in preparation for today. Of course, we were concerned that Zeke would freak out, and we would end up at the hospital. We are so grateful to Dr. Rogers. He and his nurse worked so hard to keep Zeke calm. In the end, Zeke was calm for the entire procedure. They were able to do everything they needed to do on his teeth. If we had to do this in Austria, it would have been a train wreck. The level of patient care within dentistry is very crude there. God was very good to the Lee family today!

We *highly* recommend Dr. Rogers if you ever have the need for a pediatric dentist. They were wonderful!!

The Grotto of St. Mary Magdalene

2009-08-20T11:45:00.001-06:00

Tradition has it that St. Mary Magdalene ended up in France after the diaspora of the disciples after the destruction of the Temple. Here is a website maintained by the Dominicans that guard the holy cave: http://saintebaume.dominicains.com/?lang=en. The history of the cave and the connection to the saint can be read here: http://saintebaume.dominicains.com/spip.php?article137.

The ITI went on a week-long pilgrimage through France. It was a wonderful trip with much sacrifice. We drove a van and spent two nights sleeping in the van and three nights driving until 3am. It was worth it, though. Here are some pictures of the grotto.

View from the bottom of the hill. You can see the facades of the buildings in the center of the bluff near the top.

A close-up of the grotto.

The view from the top.

Entrance into the cave.

The altar in the cave.

Retreat

2009-08-14T08:44:00.001-06:00

Debbie and I are putting on a retreat Saturday, August 22nd at Nazareth Retreat Center (4450 N. Five Mile Rd, Boise, ID 83713). The theme is: Jezu ufam tobie (Jesus, I trust in you). It begins at 9:00am and goes until 7:00pm. Sign-in is from 8:30am-9:00am. At the conclusion of the retreat, we hope to go to dinner together for fellowship. You can bring the family to the dinner (you are responsible for the cost).

There is no cost for the retreat. Lunch will not be provided so please bring a sack lunch. You should bring a Bible, pen, and journal. There are cold spots in the facility so dress accordingly.

If you plan on going, please email me at ShoelessMichael (at) gmail (dot) com. Please ask any questions in the comments or email. Thanks!!

Into the Deep

2009-08-11T09:35:00.001-06:00

After a year-long hiatus, the Into the Deep podcast produced by Brent Brown, Mike Englesby, and yours truly is back! We are going to do a thematic study of the Gospel of John similar to what I am currently doing at Nazareth. The podcast would be a good way to make up anything that was missed or to be able to review certain points for those attending the Bible study at Nazareth.

This series of shows will study: the major themes of the Gospel, word studies of important Johannine terms, and how to apply what has been learned to our lives.

Come join us!

You can get the show at sqpn.com or deepcast.org.

Feast of the Transfiguration

2009-08-06T17:59:00.001-06:00

It was three years ago on this day that we landed in Vienna exhausted, scared, and excited. This Feast always has had a place in my heart since arriving in Austria. The icon of the Transfiguration is one of my favorites.

This particular icon takes up an entire wall. Father Thomas Labanic (a graduate of the ITI) wrote it.

It captures my heart in that it shows the two aspects of my spiritual life and ministry that I am most grateful for, viz., that Elijah (on the left of Jesus) is standing on Mt. Carmel and Moses is standing on Mt. Sinai with the Torah. I love the Carmelite Order and its spirituality. St. Teresa of Jesus and St. Therese of the Child Jesus are particular spiritual mentors of mine. I make every effort to root my life in silence and contemplation.

In addition, I love the Scriptures (here signified by the Torah, the Law). It is such an honor and pleasure to study God’s word – to hear the voice of the Shepherd calling to me in the Holy Writ.

It is in the study of the Sacred Scriptures within the context of a life of contemplative prayer that Christ Jesus in his glory becomes manifest and known to me.

I hope and pray that God gives me the grace and the gifts to share these two aspects of my spiritual life with others…

St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars

2009-08-04T18:21:00.002-06:00

Today is the Feast day of St. John Marie Vianney, the Patron Saint of Diocesan priests. There is an expectation that at the end of the Year of the Priest that he will be named the Patron of all priests.

He was born near Lyon, France in 1786. He was not the brightest student mainly due to a lack of exposure to academics rather than being unintelligent. He did, however, struggle with his Latin studies. With the help of the Lord, he overcame these obstacles and became the parish priest in the small hamlet of Ars. The following is from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

The chief labor of the Curé d'Ars was the direction of souls. He had not been long at Ars when people began coming to him from other parishes, then from distant places, then from all parts of France, and finally from other countries. As early as 1835, his bishop forbade him to attend the annual retreats of the diocesan clergy because of "the souls awaiting him yonder". During the last ten years of his life, he spent from sixteen to eighteen hours a day in the confessional. His advice was sought by bishops, priests, religious, young men and women in doubt as to their vocation, sinners, persons in all sorts of difficulties and the sick. In 1855, the number of pilgrims had reached twenty thousand a year. The most distinguished persons visited Ars for the purpose of seeing the holy curé and hearing his daily instruction…His direction was characterized by common sense, remarkable insight, and supernatural knowledge. He would sometimes divine sins withheld in an imperfect confession. His instructions were simple in language, full of imagery drawn from daily life and country scenes, but breathing faith and that love of God which was his life principle and which he infused into his audience as much by his manner and appearance as by his words, for, at the last, his voice was almost inaudible.

The miracles recorded by his biographers are of three classes:

first, the obtaining of money for his charities and food for his orphans;

secondly, supernatural knowledge of the past and future;

thirdly, healing the sick, especially children.

The greatest miracle of all was his life. He practiced mortification from his early youth. and for forty years his food and sleep were insufficient, humanly speaking, to sustain life. And yet he labored incessantly, with unfailing humility, gentleness, patience, and cheerfulness, until he was more than seventy-three years old.

Otten, Susan Tracy. "St. Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 4 Aug. 2009 http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08326c.htm.

He was said to sleep only 2 hours a night and live on potatoes that he would cook as his meal but also to keep him warm. The devil attacked him continuously even setting his bed on fire.

We had the blessing of going to Ars to see this holy man. In that pilgrimage, we had gone to Lourdes, also. Ars was my favorite. It was a very holy place. I find myself drawn to this simple country priest.

Thought you might like some of the pictures we took:

A Chapel beside the church which contains the heart of the Saint.

St. John Vianney’s bed that the devil set on fire.

The Body of the Saint.

St. John Vianney, please pray for all priests and those considering the vocation. We need holy priests such as you to give us the sacraments, especially the Sacrament of Confession…

Eighteen Years…

2009-08-04T17:53:00.001-06:00

Yesterday, Deb and I celebrated our eighteenth wedding anniversary. I am always amazed at how fast time goes by. One thing is for sure, God has blessed me with a wonderful woman.

A good wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.
The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.
She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands.
She is like the ships of the merchant, she brings her food from afar.
She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and tasks for her maidens.
She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.
She girds her loins with strength and makes her arms strong.
She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night.
She puts her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle.
She opens her hand to the poor, and reaches out her hands to the needy.
She is not afraid of snow for her household, for all her household are clothed in scarlet.
She makes herself coverings; her clothing is fine linen and purple.
Her husband is known in the gates, when he sits among the elders of the land.
She makes linen garments and sells them; she delivers girdles to the merchant.
Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.
She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.
She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her:
"Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all."
Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.
Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates. Proverbs 30:10-31

Debbie certainly fits the above Scripture. Our home is blessed.

Graduation!

2009-07-30T13:54:00.002-06:00

I thought my first blog after the “Hey, I am back” blog should be about graduation. Three years ago, we sold nearly everything we had (house, car, possessions, etc.) to head off to Gaming, Austria to study theology. We were (and are) convinced that this was the Lord’s will for us. At the time, we felt that the reason we were going wasn’t simply to get a degree in theology but to become trained to teach at the collegiate level; specifically the seminary level. This goal demands that we stay in Austria a total of five years: three years to complete the STB-degree and another two years to complete the STL-degree. Once done with the STL, I can teach at the seminary level as I pursue a STD.

Anyway, after three years of sacrifice from myself, my family, and our benefactors, I graduated on May 16, 2009 with a Sacrae Theologiae Magister. I was really excited and blessed with the fact that I graduated Summa cum Laude. It was a way that I could honor the gift of the Lord calling us there, the gift of time and sacrifice my family had given me, and the gift of support from all of our benefactors.

It was a wonderful day. The main celebrant of the liturgy was he Right Reverend Mag. Gregor Henckel-Donnersmarck, O.Cist, Abbott of Heiligenkreuz. He was the person that read and gave us our diplomas.

As I reflect on the day, I am struck by the amazing grace that got us here, kept us here, and brought us this first conclusion. All of my doubt and anxiety was a waste of time. The Lord held us in the palm of his hand the entire time and provided for us at every turn. I often feel ashamed at my lack of trust when contrasted to his amazing faithfulness. It reminds me of a beautiful Scripture from Lamentations:

But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases,
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is thy faithfulness.
"The LORD is my portion," says my soul,
"therefore I will hope in him."
The LORD is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul that seeks him.
It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the LORD. Lamentations 3:21-26

Thank you, Lord for never letting us go and teaching us about your faithfulness and love. Thank you Debbie for standing by me sacrificing so much. Thank you Lee kids. You inspire me with your love, openness, and sacrifice. Thank you to all our supporters and benefactors that made this possible. May God bless you abundantly!!

Click on any picture to enlarge:

The graduation ceremony was held

in the Baroque Library at the Kartause.

Brother Basil, O.S.B (directing) and Father Benedict, O.S.B (looking on) directing

the boys choir that sang Gaudeamus Igitur (in Latin, of course ;-)).

You can see Zach and Eli in this picture.

Time to Catch Up

2009-07-30T12:57:00.002-06:00

I am shocked to see that I have not updated the blog since November!

Much has happened since that time. We went on a pilgrimage to Lourdes, celebrated Christmas, attended an international symposium on the mission of the Eastern Catholic Churches, I was accepted to pursue a Licentiate degree in theology at the ITI, wrote a thesis, finished the STM degree, graduated, and brought the entire family back to the U.S. for the summer. Whew!! We are going back in September so I can pursue the Licentiate degree (the one that will actually let me teach at the seminary or collegiate level).

I plan on posting pictures and commentary on all of these activities as well as keep everyone updated as to our current situation.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope and pray that when you stop by you will not only find out what is going on in our lives but that you will be edified in some way by the path the Lord has called us to follow….

All Saints Day 2008

2008-11-06T02:09:00.007-07:00

Had to post some pics:

Zach as
St. Charles Lwanga

Eli as
St. Gregory the Great

Last but not least:
Zeke as St. Padre Pio

Talk I gave in Boise this Summer

2008-11-06T02:06:00.002-07:00

I forgot to post a link to the talks I gave in Boise this summer. The title was:

That They Might Have Life and Have It Abundantly:

Spirituality and Theology in the Gospel of John for Today

You can listen to them and download the slides over at www.friendsofmikelee.org. The talks are a brief study of the Gospel of John that focuses on the principles of Christian living found therein.

End of Summer and the New Semester

2008-09-02T09:24:00.004-06:00

The end of the summer is here. I never cease to marvel at how fast time passes. It seems like yesterday we were arriving in Frankfurt anxious and excited. Now it is two years later, and I am entering the last year of the STM degree...

The summer concluded with a bang. I took a intensive Latin course the last three weeks of August. It was intense. Four hours-a-day, five days-a-week. I took the Latin proficiency test yesterday and passed. Whew....thanks be to God. Now on to the new semester tomorrow.

The last week of Latin we had a visitor from Boise. Mike Gaudette stopped by for a few days as he was vacationing over here. It was a real treat to see and visit with Mike again. We even got him to Vienna for a little sight seeing.

As I said, I start the new semester tomorrow. I have a nice full line-up of classes. The ITI surely doesn't want a person to be bored while they are here! :-) I am taking:

Greek (New Testament) - first semester of full year of Greek

Metaphysics II - reading Descartes, Hume, Hegel, Kant, and Heidegger

Christology - St. Thomas Aquinas on the Incarnation

Soteriology - St. Thomas Aquinas and others on salvation and redemption

Moral Theology: Law and Grace - St. Thomas Aquinas

Moral Theology: Virtue and Vice - St Thomas Aquinas

I hope you all had a fantastic summer of rest and renewal. Please continue to pray for us as we seek to do the Lord's will.

Oooops...

2008-08-19T00:08:00.008-06:00

I intended, yesterday, to post a picture of Felicity and somehow didn't. So here it is:

Deb and Felicity at a castle in Salzburg.

The castle in Salzburg.

The picture of the castle was taken from here;
this is Maria Plain.

The altar at Maria Plain. In the center is
a miraculous image of Our Lady.

Miraculous image of Our Lady at
Maria Plain in Salzburg.

Just to give you an idea about distance. The Wolfgang am See is two hours away to the WSW. Salzburg it three hours due west. Český Krumlov, Czech Republic is 2 hours away to the NNW.

It is amazing that treasures such as these are just a few minutes drive away...

YIKES!!

2008-08-18T10:27:00.009-06:00

I just realized it has been over two months since my last post! My time goes by so quickly. We are doing great. I am in the middle of a intensive Latin class that is devouring my every moment. I will be around to post every once-in-awhile. Sorry, that I am unable to post more. Thank you so much for your prayers and support!! Since I am here, I decided to throw in a couple of pictures.

Double click on an image to enlarge it...

Cody cutting onions

Deb and Zeke at Wolfgang am See

Wolfgang am See in the distance. Deb was sitting
just outside the Church you can see.

The boys in front of a suit of armor
in Český Krumlov, Czech Republic

The castle in Český Krumlov.

We were given a tremendous gift this summer. One of the Byzantine priests and his family were traveling back to Colorado for a month of the summer so they loaned us their van! We were able to see so many local sights over that month. Deb or I will try to post more pictures as we are able. Thank you so very much for allowing us, and our children, to have these once-in-a-lifetime experiences!! We love you!

I LEAVE TOMORROW...

2008-06-06T00:50:00.004-06:00

Here is the full "Mike Lee agenda".

If you are a glutton for punishment, you can go and listen to Brent, Mike, and I go through the whole spiel (download the mp3)!

Thanks for all your prayers and support!!

Teaching: That They May Have Life, and Have It Abundantly:
Spirituality and Theology in the Gospel of John for Today
June 10, 11, and 12
7pm-9pm
Our Lady of the Valley; 1122 W Linden St, Caldwell, ID
No cost - freewill donation.

We will dig deeply into the key themes and terms in the Gospel of John in order to deepen our relationship with the Blessed Trinity. Key themes and terms include: gift, glory, obedience, love, belief, "signs", kingship, and light to name a few. We will discover that the depth of the Gospel will draw us to know, live for, and love our Lord in a new and more profound manner. Please bring a Bible, pen, and paper. Hope to see you there!!

Make a Strike for Mike Bowl-a-thon!
Saturday, June14th at 1 pm
Meridian Bowling Lanes: 324 S Meridian Rd

Join Mike and crew as we catch up and take down some pins!
$15 minimum pledge to enter. Includes three games and shoe rental.
There will be prizes for highest scorer, most pledges collected, plus door prizes. Encourage your friends and family to join in for an afternoon of fun and friendly competition for Mike. Pledge sheets available for download here. See you there!

Teaching: That They May Have Life, and Have It Abundantly:
Spirituality and Theology in the Gospel of John for Today
June 17, 18, and 19
Morning Session 10am-12pm
or
Evening Session 7pm-9pm
Morning and evening sessions may be mixed
Nazareth Retreat Center; 4450 N. Five Mile Road, Boise
No cost - freewill donation.

We will dig deeply into the key themes and terms in the Gospel of John in order to deepen our relationship with the Blessed Trinity. Key themes and terms include: gift, glory, obedience, love, belief, "signs", kingship, and light to name a few. We will discover that the depth of the Gospel will draw us to know, live for, and love our Lord in a new and more profound manner. Please bring a Bible, pen, and paper. Hope to see you there!!

Farewell Fundraising Dinner with Silent Auction
Saturday, June 21st at 6:30 p.m.
Louie's Restaurant- 2500 E. Fairview Avenue, Meridian
$20 per person.

Say farewell to Mike as his trip concludes. Let's shower him with love and peace knowing another year of school is covered. Purchase dinner tickets at the teaching, bowl-a-thon, or by calling 658-4491.

To donate auction items call 658-4491 or email friendsofmikelee@gmail.com.

Amazing Experiences...

2008-05-10T03:44:00.002-06:00

Two finals down, three to go. I needed a study break and just had to share this...

We have lived in Europe for nearly two years now. Although, much of it is very secularized there are still pockets of deep, Catholic beauty and culture to be found. This beauty breaks forth every now and again in the most amazing ways. These experiences are tremendous gifts of the Lord often easily overlooked but so rich and wonderful if seen for what they really are. I had one of those experiences today.

There is perpetual Adoration at the Kartause Maria Thron; the church where the International Theological Institute and the Franciscan University Austrian Program worship. The time is split between the students of both institutions. My family has an hour-and-a-half of Adoration on Saturday morning. I was there with the Lord when I heard quite a commotion behind me. This is not unusual in that there are many tours that come through the church - often through the Adoration chapel. I was trying to ignore them but caught a atypical sight in my peripheral vision, so I had to look. I was surprised to see about 20 Cistercian monks genuflecting and passing through to another chapel that is above the Adoration chapel. One of our instructors, Dr. Michael Waldstein, has a son who is a Cistercian at the Stift Heiligenkreuz. (Here are a few photos I took when we visited.) This monastery has been in continuous service to the Church since the 12th Century. It is amazing to think that they have been chanting the Divine Office in the same place continuously for about 900 years! They just got a record deal to sing plainchant for Universal (see article here). I hear that they have already recorded the album and now are in the midst of mixing it.

Anyway, as they filed past I realized what might be happening...YES!!! They went up to the chapel to sing the Office!! So imagine, I am alone with the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament while listening to the Cistercian monks chant the Office in Latin! The acoustics of the chapel and the stairway where the chant proceeded down was magnificent. I sat there filled with the Presence of the Lord listening to the ancient praises being sung. I was overwhelmed with gratitude and wonder. Such a simple gift but so profound. It is amazing how the Lord is forever giving us little tokens of his love. It seems that we never have the time to pray. We must make it. When we do, God is never outdone in generosity. I will never forget those few minutes of chant and the gift of love that they were...

As a side-note, the cross with which the bishop blesses at the end of the video is the largest relic of the true Cross north of the Alps.

LOOK OUT BOISE, I AM COMING HOME!!

2008-05-03T10:29:00.002-06:00

I am so excited! I just bought my ticket to come home for a couple weeks this summer. With that said, I'd like to announce:

“That They May Have Life, and Have It Abundantly: Spirituality and Theology in the Gospel of John for Today.”

What: A three-day mission.

Who: Me! :-)

Where: Nazareth Retreat Center; 4450 N. Five Mile Road, Boise

When: June 17, 18, 19

Time: Morning Session 10:00am-12:00pm

Evening Session 7:00pm-9:00pm

Cost: No cost - freewill donation.

Please bring a Bible, pen, and paper.

Description: We will dig deeply into the key themes and terms in the Gospel of John in order to deepen our relationship with the Blessed Trinity. Key themes and terms include: gift, glory, obedience, love, belief, "signs", kingship, and light to name a few. We will discover that the depth of the Gospel will draw us to know, live for, and love our Lord in a new and more profound manner. I hope to see you there!!

Clarification: The retreat/mission consists of 3-sessions. The same presentations will be made in the morning session and the evening session. You can mix and match at will! :-)

Happy Feast of St. Mark!!

2008-04-25T02:42:00.002-06:00

Today is a day of great joy as we celebrate the Apostle Mark. Bishop Papais around 130 referred to St. Mark as the writer of the Gospel that bears his name. St. Ireneus writes in Adversus Haereses (~178-188): "after their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter."

One of my favorite verses in the Gospel is:

And in the morning, a great while before day, he [Jesus] rose and went out to a lonely place, and there he prayed.

What a beautiful insight into the prayer life of the Lord. He was exhausted after a day of so many pressing about him for healing, and yet, he rises before dawn so as to spend time with his Father.
Jesus' priorities should inform our own. Will we rise with him to watch for one hour??

Holy Spirit, please give us the gift of prayer and properly ordered priorities!

Pics...

2008-04-20T09:01:00.003-06:00

Here are a couple pictures of Zeke the Freak :-)...

If you want to see Zach's wound and trophy, click here. I did it this way for the squeamish among us. The first time Cody saw it he had to sit down! LOL! Need to toughen that boy up! :-). I don't know - the pictures of the "diaper-head" above make me a bit squeamish...

Comments...

2008-04-18T07:03:00.001-06:00

To those very few and hearty souls that leave a comment here: I am sorry I had to turn on the comment verification feature. I tried to make it as easy as possible to leave a comment (please comment!! please, I mean PULEEZE...is anyone there??? is this thing on???). However, there are starting to be spam comments left. Thus, the reason for turning verification.

Thanks!!

Zach II

2008-04-14T11:25:00.002-06:00

YAY!!! Zach came home today!! He is doing great! The doctor saw him laying on his stomach today watching a video. She was shocked that he could do that without pain. She concluded that he was ready to go!

It is such a blessing to have all of them home. Hard to think that just a little different position of his body as that stick went in and we could have lost him to internal bleeding.

We are just so grateful to God! Thanks for all your prayers. They reall did make a huge difference in his recovery and attitude. It was a graced time.

P.S. I'll post a picture of the "trophy" as soon as I can find it... :-)

Zach...

2008-04-13T01:47:00.004-06:00

As most of you probably know, my son Zach fell onto a stalk of a plant on Thursday driving about 3" of it (it was about 3/4" in diameter) into his abdomen. It went in right beside his belly button. We rushed him to the hospital where he had to have the it surgically removed. He is now doing great! God is so good. If the stalk would have gone in at a different angle, it would have punctured many internal organs, and he could have easily bled to death internally. Thank God it didn't. He will be in the hospital clear until this Wednesday barring any complications. There seems to be no infection at the wound site. Zach is an amazing kid. He did not cry through this whole thing. He has never once complained about anything always allowing them to do whatever they need to do with pluck and a smile. He is my hero...

I did ask for prayers about the insurance. There were questions whether we actually had any and whether we might have to pay for all of this. Thanks be to God that we got it straightened out and our insurance will cover it! Whew...

Please continue to pray that there would be no complications for Zach. As I said, everything looks fantastic at the moment.

Please pray for Deb and I, also. She is staying at the hospital (I spell her as best I can, but she is sleeping there) with Zeke. You can imagine what a maniacal, walking 14 month-old brings to the whole hospital experience! :-) Zeke is sick with a ear infection and sore throat so Deb is getting little sleep and chasing him all over. I am trying to finish up the semester with looming finals and four major papers. Let's just say Zach's timing could have been better! :-)

Thanks for your prayers, love, and support!! We continue to pray for all of you.

Summer Session...

2008-04-04T11:16:00.004-06:00

I have recently finalized my summer activities as far as the ITI is concerned. It is plenty! :-) First, I have to write a thesis in order to be awarded the degree. It must be at least 60 pages. At this point, I am intending to write it on the notion of obedience in the New Testament, especially focusing on St. John and St. Paul. It is a fascinating subject when connecting the relationship of obedience between the Father and the Son, the Son and his disciples, and between disciples. I am very excited to do this as I feel the Lord calling to focus on some kind of Scriptural specialization.

Second, because of the interest in Scriptural studies, I will begin an intensive (three hours a day/four or five days a week) Hebrew class starting later in the summer (so I can focus on the thesis in the beginning of the summer). Then in the middle of August, I will begin an intensive Latin course. It will cover an entire year of Latin in three weeks (four hours a day/five days a week). This will allow me to continue the Hebrew during the school year and to begin Greek.

CHRIST IS RISEN!!!

2008-03-23T04:44:00.003-06:00

INDEED, HE IS RISEN!!

Alleluia!! May the Risen Christ bring healing, joy, love, and life to you and your family. We do not follow a philosophical idea or a fanciful myth. We follow and love a living, resurrected Lord who is the Almighty! The tomb is empty! Rejoice!!

Lenten Talk...

2008-03-03T02:42:00.001-07:00

I hope you have seen this in the newsletter but if not:

I will be giving a Lenten talk over Skype. It should be real interesting :-)

Lent: The Season of Temptation and Conversion

Where: St. Paul's Student Center,

Boise State Campus,
1915 University Dr.

Date: Friday, March 7th

Time: 7:00 pm

I hope to see you there!

1st Steps

2008-02-18T04:04:00.007-07:00

Bright 1 year olds 1st steps?

Or Terrible Two's Demon Baby?

We think it's a cute little fart who is charming the entire household with his 1st steps. What do you think??????

Z Squared - Happy Birthday!!!!!!!

2008-02-18T02:20:00.007-07:00

Wow! Can you believe it, we now have an 8 year old in the house. Yes, the crazy guy Z-man, Zach-Attack Lee just turned 8 years old. I swear it was just yesterday when I was celebrating Zach's birth with all of you at Holy Apostles and now its 8 years later. Crazy!!!! If that blew my mind this did even more. Our little man Zeke 3 days later turned (Drum Roll Please!) a big 1 years old. Our little Austrian Baby is already a year old. I just can't believe it. We celebrated the big festivities with the 1st annual Z-Squared Birthday Bash, Zeke and Zack's Awesome Birthday Adventures.

As you can see we had a wild crew over for a foot slapping time, as we aired "Happy Feet" and then threw them all into a sugar commas with Felicity's Vanilla Chocolate Tower Cakes (Don't you love those parents that get your kids all sugared up and then send them home to you?) It was a fun time filled with lots of laughter and sugar. What more could you want. We even ended with the Macarana done by "Alvin and the Chipmunks". I bet you wish you could have come to this amazing event. Hee Hee Hee.

LOOK AT THIS CUTE
FACE!!!!!!!

I can have my...
CAKE,
And eat it....
TOO!

LENT...

2008-02-10T11:36:00.000-07:00

New Semester Starts Tomorrow...

2008-01-22T13:03:00.000-07:00

Oh my gosh, I can't believe that the semester starts tomorrow. It is time to get back in the saddle and hit the books once again. I have a fantastic line of classes this semester:

Latin - second semester of the intensive Latin class. We should finish the grammar part of the language this semester and begin extensive reading.

Creator and Creation - Studying the acts and economy of God. This will rely primarily on St. Thomas Aquinas especially the Summa Theologiae First Part questions 14-26, 44-49, 103-104 along with other texts of St. Thomas.

Mystery of the Trinity - basically a combination of two classes. We will extensively cover the teaching of Scripture, the Church Fathers (from St. Ignatius of Antioch to Tertullian to St. Athanasius and others), and the Summa First Part questions 27-43. I am very excited about this one.

Human Acts and the Final End - focused on what the end of our life and and how is it that we come to that end. It is our acting that directs towards or away from our end. We are studying the Summa Second Part of the First Part questions 1-21.

The Gospel of John - Intensive look at the Gospel of John.

Spousal Meaning of the Body - This is a study of Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body. The instructor, Dr. Waldstein, recently translated and published the work in English.

As you can see, I have a full schedule - 26 credits nearly all directly from St. Thomas. Please pray for me as I try to drink from the fire hose that is the Truth of the Catholic faith!

The Website for Biblia Clerus Resource...

2008-01-15T00:16:00.000-07:00

I had a reader point out, on my other blog, that the url to the Biblia Clerus leads to a page that is unavailable (find the blog here). I checked the link. The link is the right one, but the page does seem to be down at the moment. Please keep trying. Hopefully, they will have it up soon.

The Four Senses - the Literal Sense

2008-01-07T15:46:00.001-07:00

In a previous blog (found here), I gave a brief overview of the four senses of Scripture. My intent is to encourage people to read and study the Scriptures by utilizing the four senses so that they may hear God speaking to them and, of course, to deepen our knowledge of Revelation.

Today, I want to examine the literal sense in more detail. The Catechism defines the literal sense thusly:

116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal."

St. Thomas defines the literal sense as

[the] first signification whereby words signifies things belongs to the first sense, the historical or literal. (STh I q1. a10 )

Let me explain. St. Thomas makes the division between the literal and spiritual senses by what exactly is signifying something else. The literal sense is that where the words signify things. This is common usage. When we speak or write, we use words to signify some thing. The spiritual sense, however, is that where things signify other things. St. Thomas states that God, since he is the author of Holy Scripture, can signify what he means not only with words (as we do) but also with the things themselves; indicating the literal and spiritual senses, respectively.

The Catechism makes this clear when it says that the "literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture". This is where exegesis and commentaries come in. It is clear that the sacred writers didn't write in English or with a 21^st mind-set. In addition, this is God's word expressed in human words by authentic human authors. Therefore, we must discover the true intention of the sacred author in order to discover the intention of the Holy Spirit.

To search out the intention of the sacred writers, attention should be given, among other things, to "literary forms." For truth is set forth and expressed differently in texts which are variously historical, prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse. The interpreter must investigate what meaning the sacred writer intended to express and actually expressed in particular circumstances by using contemporary literary forms in accordance with the situation of his own time and culture. For the correct understanding of what the sacred author wanted to assert, due attention must be paid to the customary and characteristic styles of feeling, speaking and narrating which prevailed at the time of the sacred writer, and to the patterns men normally employed at that period in their everyday dealings with one another. (Dei Verbum #12)

The best explanation I've heard is that of a "knock, knock joke". If you were sitting with a friend and they turned to you and said, "Knock, knock". You would naturally reply, "Who's there?" If on the other hand your friend says "Knock" waits for two minutes and says "Knock" again, you wouldn't know what they are trying to do. The reason is that you know the convention of starting a 'knock, knock-joke'. When someone uses those particular words in a particular manner you already know the "form" of the joke and can respond accordingly with the expectation that you will be hearing a joke once you have said "Who's there?" We must learn through historical research what these conventions were that the sacred writers used so we can understand what they are trying to communicate whether that be history, a parable, a proverb, etc. Pope Benedict XVI in the Foreword to his book Jesus of Nazareth states that the Historical-Critical method is "an indispensable dimensions of exegetical work. For it is the very essence of biblical faith to be about real historical events." However, this does not mean that only those with degrees in Scripture scholarship should read the Bible, or that biblical exegesis is exhausted by the Historical-Critical Method (as is plainly stated by Pope Benedict XVI in the same Foreword to Jesus of Nazareth). We must, however, rely on experts to help us. There is a lot of good work out there and a bunch of bad. One criteria I use is to "ask" the commentary I am using its opinion of miracles. If the author(s) rejects miracles or tries to explain them away, then I know to take it with a grain of salt. Another even better criteria is to ascertain the position of the author(s) towards the Magisterium. If the Church's authority is rejected, then the commentary must be used very carefully. Protestant or Jewish commentaries can be valuable if one realizes their limitations.

Now, we must become students of the Scripture not simply relying on others to tell us what the sacred text means. We must study so as to come to the meaning of the Scriptures ourselves. Now I am not suggesting that we do this unaided. We need the work of experts to supplement our own study, but their work should not substitute for our own! This book, The New Joy of Discovery in Bible Study will be a huge help. It is not a commentary. It is a book that teaches one how to analyze a text and discover what the author is intending. We typically read things so fast that we over-read much of the details and keys that help us understand the Biblical text. This book gives the tools to do such an analysis. Next, one must immerse themselves in the Scriptures reading them and praying them everyday. A key to understanding the Scriptures is to have a intimate relationship with the Triune God (conversely, reading and praying the Scriptures helps bring about this intimacy). The then Cardinal Ratzinger gives us great insight into that fact in his book Behold the Pierced One:

Only by entering into Jesus' solitude, only by participating in what is most personal in him, his communication with the Father, can one see what this most personal reality is; only thus can one penetrate to his identity. This is the only way to understand him and to grasp what "following Jesus" means. The Christian confession is not a neutral proposition; it is prayer, only yielding its meaning within prayer. (pg. 19)

Jesus prayed in the words of Scripture an that Scripture became flesh in him, became the actual Passion of this Righteous One; and that he thus inserted his death into the word of God, in which he lived and which lived in him declaring itself in him. (p. 24)

Since the center of the person of Jesus is prayer, it is essential to participate in his prayer if we are to know and understand him. (p. 25)

To know him we must be in a certain way like him. To know the Scriptures requires knowing him since Christ the Word is the principle, subject, and author of Scripture.

OK, back to the literal sense. St. Thomas identifies four divisions of the literal sense: historical, etiological, the analogy of faith, and metaphorical (or parabolic). (STh I q1.a10.ad2) It is called historical when anything is simply related. This would be the case in much of the Gospels as they are simply relating what happened. That does not mean, however, that the Gospels are a simple reporting of a historical timeline. The Catechism tells us that the Gospel writers

126§3 ...in writing the four Gospels, selected certain of the many elements which had been handed on, either orally or already in written form; others they synthesized or explained with an eye to the situation of the churches, the while sustaining the form of preaching, but always in such a fashion that they have told us the honest truth about Jesus.

The key here being that "they have told us the honest truth about Jesus". It is etiological when the cause is assigned, "as when Our Lord gave the reason why Moses allowed the putting away of wives - namely, because of the hardness of men's hearts (cf. Mt 19:8)" (STh I q1.a10.ad2). It is the analogy of faith when the truth of one text is shown not to contradict the truth of another (cf. CCC #114). Finally, the metaphorical (or parabolical sense)

is contained in the literal, for by the words things are signified properly and figuratively. Nor is the figure itself, but that which is figured, the literal sense. When Scripture speaks of God's arm, the literal sense is not that God has such a member, but only what is signified by this power, namely, operative power. Hence is is plain that nothing false can ever underlie the literal sense of Holy Scripture. (St. Thomas STh I q1.a10.ad3)

Analyzing and determining the literal sense of a Scripture is arduous work. It takes time to wrestle with the text, read the commentaries, look at word meanings, and pray. It is the work of love, and it does bear abundant fruit. I would suggest beginning in the New Testament in one of the Gospels. Oh, one last resource. I have found the Synopsis of the Four Gospels edited by Kurt Aland a tremendous help. He lines up the four Gospels according to subject side by side so one can compare the Gospels easily to one another.

A commenter pointed out that Mark Shea wrote a book concerning the four senses (follow the link. You'll have to scroll down a bit to find it). It is called Making Senses Out of Scripture: Reading the Bible as the First Christians Did. I have not read it, but I am sure it is excellent.

Next time, we'll take a look at the Spiritual senses of Scripture.

EPIPHANY!!

2008-01-03T06:05:00.000-07:00

We just received a visit from the wise men! In Gaming, (and maybe the rest of Austria) there is a tradition where the wise man come to each house and write their initials and the year above the door. We were fortunate enough to be home today when they visited.

The Four Senses of Scripture

2008-01-02T09:51:00.001-07:00

There have been several different situations that have converged to make me think a blog on this may be helpful. The Catechism of the Catholic Church #133 states:

The Church "forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful. . . to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ, by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.

We all want the Lord to speak to us, to encourage us, to tell us that he loves us. He does. He speaks to us through the Scriptures:

Let them remember that prayer should accompany the reading of Sacred Scripture, so that God and man may talk together; for "we speak to Him when we pray; we hear Him when we read the divine saying." (The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum #25 - quoting St. Ambrose.)

The same theme is repeated earlier in Dei Verbum:

For in the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven meets His children with great love and speaks with them; and the force and power in the word of God is so great that it stands as the support and energy of the Church, the strength of faith for her sons, the food of the soul, the pure and everlasting source of spiritual life. (#21, emphasis mine)

Thus, the place that we must turn when seeking the Lord's voice is the Sacred Scriptures approaching them in an attitude of prayer, docility, and careful listening. We must keep in mind what the Scriptures tells us about listening to the Lord's voice:

And he [God] said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before Jehovah. And, behold, Jehovah passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before Jehovah; but Jehovah was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but Jehovah was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but Jehovah was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entrance of the cave... 1 Kings 19:11-13a

This "still small voice" can only be heard through perseverance, silence, and listening. We don't hear God with our ears; we hear him with our heart. Listening to God requires faith and a sensitivity to the Spirit that must be cultivated through prayer. It also demands docility to what God wants to say not necessarily what we want to hear. I know in my own life that there were many times I claimed that the Lord wasn't speaking to me. The fact was he was telling me what I needed to hear rather than what I wanted to hear. I just didn't want to hear. There have been, however, a multitude of times where he has deeply consoled me with the exact words I needed to hear through the Scriptures, other spiritual books, homilies, or loved ones. The Lord has even spoken directly to my heart but never to my ears. We learn to discern to hear the lord's voice in other places through hearing his voice in the Scriptures.

It is clear, then, that we must steep ourselves in the Holy Writ, but how to start? There are many resources available to study the Scriptures. However, it can be difficult to find a good Catholic commentaries (the Ignatius Study Bibles and the Navarre Bible are excellent, although no commentary is complete). In these next blogs, I would like to discuss the Four Senses of Scripture as one means of penetrating the Biblical text. The Sacred Scriptures are not just for a few elite linguists to understand. The Lord intended it for all. St. Thomas indicates it thusly:

It is thus that the sacred text not only adapts itself to man's various intelligence, so that each one marvels to finds his thoughts expressed in the words of Holy Writ...(St. Thomas Aquinas On the Power of God question 4 article 1)

It is also befitting Holy Scripture which is proposed to all without distinction of persons - to the wise and to the unwise I am a debtor (Rom 1:14) - that spiritual truths be expounded by means of figures taken from corporeal things, in order that thereby even the simple who are unable by themselves to grasp intellectual things may be able to understand it. (St. Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae I question 1 article 9.

All of us can understand the Scriptures. We first need to pray for the assistance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit and then roll up our sleeves and dig in! The four senses help us in this regard.

The four senses can be divided into the literal and spiritual sense. The literal sense can be defined as 'what the words themselves signify', whereas the spiritual sense is the 'things themselves signifying other things'. (cf. St. Thomas Summa I q1. a10) The spiritual sense can then be divided into three: allegorical (or typical), moral (or tropological), and anagogical. For a simple definition of each nothing is better than the Catechism.

The senses of Scripture
115 According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church.
116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal."
117 The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God's plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.
1. The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ's victory and also of Christian Baptism.
2. The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written "for our instruction".
3. The anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, "leading"). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.
118 A medieval couplet summarizes the significance of the four senses:

The Letter speaks of deeds; Allegory to faith;
The Moral how to act; Anagogy our destiny.
119 "It is the task of exegetes to work, according to these rules, towards a better understanding and explanation of the meaning of Sacred Scripture in order that their research may help the Church to form a firmer judgement. For, of course, all that has been said about the manner of interpreting Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgement of the Church which exercises the divinely conferred commission and ministry of watching over and interpreting the Word of God."

But I would not believe in the Gospel, had not the authority of the Catholic Church already moved me.

Next time, we'll define the literal sense in more detail, examine the four different literal senses, and see examples for them. One of the important things here is not to be afraid or intimidated. Seek the assistance of the Holy Spirit and dive in!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FELICITY!!

2008-01-02T06:09:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that my little girl is as tall as her mom and now 14 as of 12/30!! Time surely flies by. She is a tremendous blessing in our lives. She is an excellent student and such a help with the baby. She is a fantastic cook, also! These are precious times...

The Lee "Bookends" (for the time being anyway ;-))

The Demonstration of the 14 year-old "Eye Roll". She has it perfected as you can see... :-)

Daddy's Little Princess...

We love you Felicity!! We are so proud of the young woman you have become!

The Kartause Kids' Production of Dickens' A Christmas Carol...

2008-01-02T03:48:00.000-07:00

We had the pleasure of attending a production of Dickens' A Christmas Carol on New Year's Eve performed by the children of the Kartause community. Felicity, Cody, and Zach all participated. It was amazing how well everyone of the kids performed. It was superb!! Felicity was Bob Cratchit's wife; Cody was Fezziwig and the man seeking charity for the poor; and Zach was Tiny Tim. Please enjoy the photos and the video of Cody's dancing debut!!

The Cast of Lees

Tiny Tim and Ebenezer (James Thompson)

The Lovely Mrs. Cratchit.

Pilgrimage to Lisieux...

2007-12-28T07:36:00.000-07:00

I finally had the time to get the pictures from our pilgrimage to Lisieux uploaded with captions. Please check it out here: http://picasaweb.google.com/ShoelessMichael/PilgrimageToLisieux. It was an amazing trip. As I was posting the pictures, I was trying to think of what impacted me the most about the trip. It is not easy to put these kinds of experiences into words - even for me!! ;-)

Two things immediately come to my mind:
1) It is the reality of the Saint. We hear so many lofty stories about these people that they take on an almost mythical character. Her reality impressed me more than I thought it would. To see where she said confession, to see where she sat as her family attended Mass really brought home that she was just like us, which made her that much more accessible for me.

2) Her closeness and presence while we were there. St. Therese's presence was palpable. You sensed her eagerness to assist you in getting closer to God. You sensed deep, abiding love. So many prayers were answered as she obtained the graces we so desperately needed.

Please know that we carried everyone of you with us in our hearts. We prayed for you and asked that St. Therese would seek God on your behalf.

I will never forget this trip. It was a time to come, once again, in to close contact with my Carmelite brothers and sisters. It was a time of grace...

FINALS ARE OVER!! FINALS ARE OVER!!!!

2007-12-20T12:04:00.000-07:00

There is NO better feeling in the world than walking out of that last final knowing that you are free for a few weeks. WHEW! I am glad it is over. Now it is time to try and catch up here. :-) I will be posting some of the pictures of our Lisieux Pilgrimage over the next few days and some fun stuff of the family. Here is some nice pictures of the snowy Kartuase and the kids for a start.

THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH FOR YOUR LOVE, PRAYER, AND SUPPORT! I COULDN'T DO IT WITHOUT YOU!

The Kartause in Winter. THe crane is there as they are remodeling the restaurant.

Ezekiel Thomas

14 on December 30th.

Killing a kid in the same town St. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. :-)

In front of the Cathedral that St. Therese attended as a child (as a teaser ;-))

Standing on these steps, the kids were looking upon the tombs of St. Therese's parents (who have been beatified).

The Basilica of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, Lisieux, France.

HAPPY FEAST DAY!!

2007-12-14T08:26:00.002-07:00

HAPPY FEAST DAY!! Today is the memorial of the "Mystical Doctor": St. John of the Cross. He was a Discalced Carmelite who assisted St. Teresa of Avila in her reforms of the Order. He is a great saint known most for his writing about the spiritual life, especially about the "dark night of the soul", which in my opinion is completely misunderstood by many.

You can find his major works
here. I think an excellent book that speaks of his teaching as a way of an introduction is Father Dubay's Fire Within, which also treats St. Teresa of Avila's teaching.

He is considered one of the greatest Spanish poets of all time. Here is his Living Flame of Love:

1. O living flame of love
that tenderly wounds my soul
in its deepest center! Since
now you are not oppressive,
now consummate! if it be your will:
tear through the veil of this sweet encounter!

2. O sweet cautery,
O delightful wound!
O gentle hand! O delicate touch
that tastes of eternal life
and pays every debt!
In killing you changed death to life.

3. O lamps of fire!
in whose splendors
the deep caverns of feeling,
once obscure and blind,
now give forth, so rarely, so exquisitely,
both warmth and light to their Beloved.

4. How gently and lovingly
you wake in my heart,
where in secret you dwell alone;
and in your sweet breathing,
filled with good and glory,
how tenderly you swell my heart with love.

I found where they have this particular poem and commentary. The Rodriguez and Kavanaugh translation. Check it out!

EXCELLENT RESOURCE!!

2007-12-13T03:31:00.000-07:00

I am surfacing from studying for finals to take a quick minute to tell you about this new amazing resource from the Congregation for the Clergy. It is absolutely amazing. You can download the entire site as a tool for Bible study. It has a bunch of features: multiple versions of the English translation, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. They cross-reference individual verses to writings of the Church Fathers, St. Thomas Aquinas, the Catechism, and others. The downloaded materials include the entire Canon Law, Catechism of the Catholic Church, etc. If you can read Latin, there is the entire Summa, Commentary on the Sentences (St. Thomas), Denzinger, and others. It can be used by people of all levels. I am sure they will be adding other resources as time goes on. If you study Scripture, this is a must. The price can't be beat, either....free! Click on the image to go to the website.

I would please ask for your prayers as I finish out the semester. Lots of finals and difficult ones at that. Thank you so much for your prayers and support. It means so much to us. Once finals are over, we have a bunch of really neat things to share with you so keep your eye out!

SNOW DAY!!!!!!!

2007-11-15T13:44:00.000-07:00

Snow Day!!!!

Snow Day!!!!

Snow Day!!!!

SHOOT! I'm in home school.

But don't get me wrong I will play in this snow, no matter what! No matter what my parents say. No matter what my teacher says. No matter what! I will play in the snow. Nothing can stop me!!!!!!

What's this? A letter ! Wow, a free trip to the Bahamas! Life can be sooooo Cruel!!!

The Feast of St. Martin of Tours

2007-11-11T10:45:00.000-07:00

So tonight we celebrated the Feast of St. Martin of Tours. St. Martin was the saint Zach chose to dress up as on All Saints Day, since he was a young soldier (with a sword!!!!) He had nothing but weapons and clothing and one evening out in the cold rain saw a beggar who was almost naked, so he drew his sword and cut his coat in two and gave half of it to the beggar. A very honorable young man from Hungry, who gave to the least of his brother. That evening he received a vision of Christ dressed in the garment he had given to the poor beggar. "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me." Matthew 25:35-36 St. Martin went on to become one of the most celebrated Bishops of the 4th century. He died in 397.

What a fitting evening is was to take our home-aide lanterns out into the cold, bitter, rainy night and process around the church courtyard to honor St. Martin with all the Kartause Children. We processed singing to St. Martin in German and then went before the church altar to offer our lives once again to our Lord in honor of St. Martin. Then we went into an upper room to celebrate with hot chocolate, cider, and cookies. What a wonderful feast day celebrating a young mans life in service of our Lord.

So as you can see we have left our lights of St. Martin burning on our front steps for you. We just want you all to know that our home is always your home. You are always welcome here. There will always be a warm meal and a friendly face to greet you. So come on over!!!

2007-11-04T03:52:00.000-07:00

I realized that the post below was likely very confusing. It is hard to describe the Proofs of God in a few short sentences, but I didn't want a five page blog either (as I am sure you didn't). There is an excellent treatment of these arguments at Dr. Peter Kreeft's website. He is a professor of Philosophy at Boston College and brilliant scholar/teacher. You can find them here. Go thou and check it out!

One Less Atheist in the World...

2007-11-03T08:17:00.001-06:00

Found this interview with Antony Flew, via The Insight Scoop Blog. Mr. Flew was a life long atheist thinker who now has come to belief in God. Not the Christian God, mind you. He considers himself a Deist. In his view of God, God created the world and let it go to its own devices. Like a the classic watchmaker analogy. God made the world, wound it up, and then let it go.

Mr. Flew cites two decisive points for his "conversion". Interesting that both points fold into the classic argument for God from design:

There were two factors in particular that were decisive. One was my growing empathy with the insight of Einstein and other noted scientists that there had to be an Intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical Universe. The second was my own insight that the integrated complexity of life itself – which is far more complex than the physical Universe – can only be explained in terms of an Intelligent Source. I believe that the origin of life and reproduction simply cannot be explained from a biological standpoint despite numerous efforts to do so. With every passing year, the more that was discovered about the richness and inherent intelligence of life, the less it seemed likely that a chemical soup could magically generate the genetic code. The difference between life and non-life, it became apparent to me, was ontological and not chemical. (emphasis mine)

Thus, Mr. Flew finally recognizes the validity of one of the arguments for the existence of God that St. Thomas used in the Summa:

The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God. (STh I.2.3)

The last line of the quote from Mr. Flew I found interesting. He is saying, I believe, that he recognized that the difference between living things and non-living things wasn't simply a different chemical composition or arrangement of atoms, but the difference lies in that the living thing has something about its being that causes it to be alive. In other words, a soul. In Aristotelian terms, Mr. Flew recognized that a being (especially one that is alive - it is easiest to see there) has a unity about the thing and something else that makes it a certain thing as different from just a pile of parts. This principle of unity of a thing that individuates it is called the form of the thing. Thus, humans aren't merely an arrangement of molecules but a being standing in itself in distinction of other things. Our soul is our form. It is the principle that individuates matter into an individual thing of a certain sort. To accept that beings are composites of matter and form is a giant leap to accepting God because then there are logical consequences that make God necessary. Aristotle covered these arguments in the Physics and Metaphysics.

The interview continues with the interviewer asking him about the scientific data that supports the existence of God (which Mr. Flew claims convinced him). He then comments to the question of atheists being behind the curve on scientific evidence supporting God's existence:

Yes indeed. I would add that Dawkins is selective to the point of dishonesty when he cites the views of scientists on the philosophical implications of the scientific data.
Two noted philosophers, one an agnostic (Anthony Kenny) and the other an atheist (Nagel), recently pointed out that Dawkins has failed to address three major issues that ground the rational case for God. As it happens, these are the very same issues that had driven me to accept the existence of a God: the laws of nature, life with its teleological organization and the existence of the Universe. (emphasis mine)

Once again, Mr. Flew cites issues, that drove him to accept the existence of God, that are the basis for the arguments asserting God's existence from the time of Aristotle on. St. Thomas takes them up in the question from the Summa that is linked to above. The "laws of nature" and "life with its teleological (ordered to the end) organization" are answered in the argument from the Summa cited above (the so-called 5th way). The "existence of the Universe" is answered in the 2nd way where St. Thomas proves the existence of the First Efficient Cause. The First Efficient Cause argument basically states that there must be a cause of all existence that is in itself uncaused. It is because a thing cannot cause itself. Thus, it must be caused by another. This cannot go onto infinity in ordered causes, however, or there would never be the effect because there would not be a first cause. God is this First Efficient Cause of all being Who is not caused.

He wraps up by stating :

I accept the God of Aristotle who shares all the attributes you cite. Like Lewis I believe that God is a person but not the sort of person with whom you can have a talk. It is the ultimate being, the Creator of the Universe.

As Jesus said to the lawyer, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." (Mk 12:34); he would say the same to Mr. Flew. The God of Aristotle is the God of St. Thomas. Once Mr. Flew discovers how St. Thomas corrects and expands (via Divine Revelation) Aristotle's understanding he will be ready. Furthermore, if he carefully reflects on what it means to be person, he will realize that a essential aspect of a person to transcend himself to another. That in the very what it means to be person is to be self communicating, the highest form of that communication being love. When he realizes this, Mr. Flew will know that God as Person will be essentially self communicating, and since God's essence is his existence, God's very being will be to self communicate. We see this in the complete self communication between the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity. Thus, we can have that talk with God, Mr. Flew. He came in human form so he might speak to us face-to-face in the Person of Jesus Christ.

All Souls Day...

2007-11-02T08:27:00.001-06:00

As most know, today we pray for all the souls that have departed this world for the next, especially those that are not Canonized Saints because we don't know their eternal disposition.

The Liturgy of the Hours celebrates the Office of the Dead today. As I prayed for those souls that have gone before, I began to think of my own death. Death is an evil. We were never meant to die. Death is a consequence of Original Sin. We are eternal creatures and deep down we know it. That is why death seems like such an evil. We are supposed to live eternally, and we face this experience that seems as though it will annihilate us. We sense that at the point of death we cease to exist - to be.

Some of the early Greek philosophers suggested that the human (rational) soul was eternal in a certain respect. Aristotle in De Anima thought that it was only the intellect that was eternal. Since the intellect only knows something through the passive intellect that is not eternal, our eternal soul then must not know anything.

We know through Christian Revelation that we are eternal beings. We die because of the Fall. However, the Father in his infinite love sent his Son to destroy death (the eternal death of being separated from God) by dying and rising again for the forgiveness of our sins. Now we know definitively through faith that we can live forever in the Beatific Vision. This eternal live is lived seeing God for who he is and being completely united to him in charity.

As I said, death is frightening and disturbing. I found great consolation in the writings of St. Ignatius of Antioch and wanted to share. He was the third Bishop of Antioch and lived on the late first and early second century (~50~110). He survived the Domitian persecutions but was called to martyrdom under Trajan. Trajan condemned him in Antioch. During the very long and arduous journey to Rome to die (he called the soldiers guarding him "ten leopards, even a company of soldiers, who only grow worse when they are kindly treated." (Letter to Romans)), he wrote to seven different Churches to exhort and teach them. The Letters were to the Magnesisans, Trallians, Ephesians, Philadelphians, Smyrnaeans, Romans, and to the Bishop of Smyrna St. Polycarp (who was martyred later). I would recommend reading every one of them. They are short and contain a lot of great teaching. St. Ignatius was the first to use the term "catholic " in reference to the Church and the name 'Christian' in a positive manner.
Anyway, in his letter to the Romans he is asking them not to save him from martyrdom. He wanted to be with his Lord:

I am writing all the churches to let it be known that I will gladly die for God if only you do not stand in my way. I plead with you: show me no untimely kindness. Let me be food for the wild beasts, for they are my way to God. I am God's wheat and shall be ground by their teeth so that I may become Christ's pure bread. Pray to Christ for me that the animals will be the means of making me a sacrificial victim for God.

No earthly pleasures, no kingdoms of this world can benefit me in any way. I prefer death in Christ Jesus to power over the farthest limits of the earth. He who died in the place of us is the one object of my quest. He who rose for our sakes is my one desire. The time for my birth is close at hand. Forgive me, my brothers. Do not stand in the way of my birth to real life; do not wish me stillborn. My desire is to belong to God. Do not, then, hand me back to the world. Do not try to tempt me with material things. Let me attain pure light. Only on my arrival there can I be fully a human being. Give me the privilege of imitating the passion of my God. If you have him in your heart, you will understand what I wish. You will sympathize with me because you will know what urges me on.

The prince of this world is determined to lay hold of me and to undermine my will which is intent on God. Let none of you here help him; instead show yourselves on my side, which is also God's side. Do not talk about Jesus Christ as long as you love this world. Do not harbor envious thoughts. And supposing I should see you, if then I should beg you to intervene on my behalf, do not believe what I say. Believe instead what I am now writing to you. For though I am alive as I write to you, still my real desire is to die. My love of this life has been crucified, and there is no yearning in me for any earthly thing. Rather within me is the living water which says deep inside me: "Come to the Father." I no longer take pleasure in perishable food or in the delights of this world. I want only God's bread, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, formed of the seed of David, and for drink I crave his blood, which is love that cannot perish.

I am no longer willing to live a merely human life, and you can bring about my wish if you will. Please, then, do me this favor, so that you in turn may meet with equal kindness. Put briefly, this is my request: believe what I am saying to you. Jesus Christ will make it clear to you that I am saying the truth. Only truth can come from the mouth by which the Father has truly spoken. Pray for me that I may obtain my desire. I have not written to you as a mere man would, but as one who knows the mind of God. If I am condemned to suffer, I will take it that you wish me well. If my case is postponed, I can only think you wish me harm. (Taken from the Liturgy of the Hours: St. Ignatius' Memorial; October 17th)

They wished him well. As soon as St. Ignatius arrived in Rome, he was fed to the lions in the Flavian Amphitheater...

What an amazing perspective! I so often cling to this life like it is the only one that is possible. I completely forget the admonition of Jesus: "For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it." (Mark 8:35) This life is but a shadow of the one that God has in store for us. Our true life, the one that was always intended for us, is found in the Beatific Vision. Let us allow, then, St. Ignatius' words and attitude to penetrate us deeply so that we live this life, not in fear of its end, but in hope for the true beginning of our life; to see God, to be united to him, that is our life. Let us on this day, where we pray for the dead, let go of the fear of death. Then we can begin to live our eternal life now and say with St. Paul: "'O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?' The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (I Corinthians 15:55-57)

Ahem...Is this thing still on??

2007-10-25T05:50:00.000-06:00

I have finally surfaced, gasping for air, at the ITI's fall 10-day break. I made it here only by the grace of God. Of course, the break isn't really a break. It is just a break from classes so you can write all the papers assigned. I just finished a paper on St. Thomas' proof that God's essence is his being. It is in the Prima pars of the Summa Theologiae, Question 3, Article 4. For those of you unfamiliar with the citation of St. Thomas' works. The first letters designate the work, in this case STh (for Summa Theologiae). Next, the part of the Summa is designated. There is the First Part (prima pars), the Second Part of the First Part (pars secunda prima pars) Second Part (secunda pars), the Second Part of the Second part (pars secunda secunda pars) and the Third Part (tertia pars). These are designated by Roman numerals e.g., STh I-II is the Second Part of the First Part of the Summa. Then, the questions are numbered, and then the articles. So, to cite the text above, one would write STh I.3.4. This proof relates to the proofs of God in STh I.2.3. It is only in STh I.3.3 and and STh I.3.4, cited above, that the proofs of God are complete.

Finished a Latin exam working through passive case and the genitive case (possessive). I think I have more trouble remembering English grammar than I do Latin grammar! I think the last time I studied grammar was like 30 years ago! Scary....

Over the break I will be finishing up a summer course, writing a paper on the Christology of St. Ignatius of Antioch, and starting to think about papers on the habit of faith as understood through faith's act and object and exploring the centrality and implications of the understanding of Church as a communion.

I also plan to have several International Wrestling Championships with my boys, take a long walk with my wife, and take my daughter to coffee. I am looking forward to the next week!

Thank you all for your prayer support and financial support. There is no way we could do this without you. We are blessed by your friendship and love...

Just to Make You Smile

2007-10-16T14:24:00.000-06:00

They can make you madder than anyone on the earth. Those darn kids. For instance last night Eli and Zach-Attack decided to make a water slide out of the bathroom and then to cover their tracks they dried up the pond they made in the bathroom with every bath towel we own. Ever seen an entire family drip dry. It ain't a pretty sight. Yet they bring more love, more joy, move laughter, and more smiles than we would ever have the chance to experience without them. Aren't kids just great!!!

I hope these bring a smile to your face today. Have a great day!!!!!

Austria has mutated me - Aghhh!

2007-10-16T13:22:00.001-06:00

Over this past year something terrible has happened. I caught Austrian Fever. The first symptoms started with my face turning a odd shade of Green, and I got a hankering for pizza. Kawabunga Dude! My mom says my room is beginning to smell like a sewer.

GO NINJA, GO NINJA, GO NINJA!!!!!!

Then I began to feel faint. Everything got dark and started to spin. Agggghhhhh! Everything is getting out of controlllllll. Help meeeeeeeeeeee!

Howdy Partner, I am Buffalo Bill Cody the meanest, rootinest, tooootinest, man in the Austrian Alps. I will be wrangling wild noch schenekas ( for you American type folks - that's a naked snail or slug in German!) We growem big, long, and red in this here country. You can follow their trails for miles, with the slime they leave in their wakes. I wish I could shake this horrible head ache off like a fly at a cow pie eating contest.
My head it hurts sooooo bad...........
Argh, Matie! I be sending you down to Davie Jones locker all ye land lovers out there. All those who are scared to cross the seven seas and won't come visit the Lee family - They be missing ye Scurby Dogs!!!! Ye should be walkin the plank with my cutlass at yer back.
My stomach is aching.l.. Ye Rum must ave been bad!
I fear it be the dreaded curse of thee head hunters.
Argh! I be shrinking - I be Shrinking
I BE SHRINKING!!! ARGH!

We've gone International

2007-10-15T14:46:00.000-06:00

For my birthday Mike and I took a trip to Vienna by train. It was such a great day out. About two weeks later we were blessed once again with another trip to Vienna as a whole family with the ITI. While there we went to an open air international street market, filled with an array of unknown smells, colors, and items. It was fascinating and we loved it. While going through the market I decided what a great home school teaching moment it could be. So we picked out the craziest, wackiest fruits that we had never seen before and brought them back home with us. Then we went to work at finding out where they come from in the world and did a geography class/taste testing party and here are our results.

Our Top Winners Are (Drum Roll Please!):
#1 - The Passion Fruit from South Africa - With its tart tropical flair and its gushy, frog-egg like insides.

#2 - The Cherinoya from Spain - With its lumpy, green exterior and its cool, sweet creamy filling of a smooth tropical custard.

#3 - The Rambutan from Malaysia and Sumatra -With its hairy, scary, horrifying exterior but a interior with a smooth, refreshing white interior much like a Litchi from China.

Our Top Losers of the Bunch:
#1- The Dragon Fruit or Pitaya from Vietnam - With its magenta/blood red flesh and thousands of tiny black seeds it rated pretty low tasting like our old granny's perfume, but it rated high on the humor scale when Mike shot that nasty red flesh clear across the table.

#2 - The Jack Fruit from India -One of our most exciting entries, one of these bad boys can weigh in at 100 lbs and it grows on a tree branch. It also can permanently ruin the knife you use to cut it, due to a latex build up. If we wanted shoot it or make the next new innovative undergarment with it we would have been in business. But its rubbery, stretchy, yellow flesh and giant seeds got the thumbs down at our house.

#3 - The Physalis or mangosteen from S.E. Asia tops out our losers with its slimy, snot like flesh that permanently stains your body for weeks. Yikes, makes you want to try this one doesn't it.

We also tried the Java Apple from Thailand, which was like a watery, no flavored apple, the prickly pear or Indian fig from the Mexico, with its daunting stickers, red flesh and tons of seeds, it turned out to not be a favorite also. We also had a Mango from Malaysia and India, which is still one of our families favorite fruits. Then there were our last entries fresh figs from Greece with their crunchy seeded middles, that we loved. We had a great time tasting, peeling, smelling, and touching all these great fruits from all over and are looking forward to our next culinary, geographic class filled with fun, laughter, and a really big mess to clean up the next morning.

Ugh....con't.

2007-09-19T01:09:00.000-06:00

Thanks everyone for the prayers! I am surviving. I have a Latin exam on Thursday and the Canon Law final on Friday. After that, things will slow a bit and give me the opportunity to complete the summer courses. I couldn't do it without your prayers and support. I am eternally grateful....

Ugh....

2007-09-05T13:31:00.000-06:00

I beg your pardon as I take a hiatus from the blog. I had to register for 24 credits for this semester. I found out today that the Congregation for Catholic Education (part of the Holy See) is requiring a class on Canon Law in order to graduate. So lucky me was forced to enroll in another class for the semester. That is now 27 credits. Oh, and the summer classes did not get finished over the summer. Thus, I still have the finals to complete in those courses. Thus, I am working on a grand total of 39 credits this semester. The Canon Law class will be done in 3 weeks (very intensive) and the summer courses will be done by the end of September; then it will be back to "normal" chaos. :-)

I sure would appreciate your prayers as I try desperately to keep my head above water...

Podcast on Contemplation....

2007-08-28T15:46:00.000-06:00

Fr. Thomas Dubay, who wrote The Fire Within and Prayer Primer: Igniting the Fire Within,among others, has presented a podcast on contemplation on EWTN. They only leave these special podcasts up for a month and you don't want to miss this one!!!

Father Dubay has written and spoken extensively on contemplation. He has studied and taught, especially, about the great Carmelite Doctors: St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross.

Here is a quote from Pope John Paul II that I hope will motivate you...

Is it not one of the "signs of the times" that in today's world, despite widespread secularization, there is a widespread demand for spirituality, a demand which expresses itself in large part as a renewed need for prayer? Other religions, which are now widely present in ancient Christian lands, offer their own responses to this need, and sometimes they do so in appealing ways. But we who have received the grace of believing in Christ, the revealer of the Father and the Saviour of the world, have a duty to show to what depths the relationship with Christ can lead.

The great mystical tradition of the Church of both East and West has much to say in this regard. It shows how prayer can progress, as a genuine dialogue of love, to the point of rendering the person wholly possessed by the divine Beloved, vibrating at the Spirit's touch, resting filially within the Father's heart. This is the lived experience of Christ's promise: "He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him" (Jn 14:21). It is a journey totally sustained by grace, which nonetheless demands an intense spiritual commitment and is no stranger to painful purifications (the "dark night"). But it leads, in various possible ways, to the ineffable joy experienced by the mystics as "nuptial union". How can we forget here, among the many shining examples, the teachings of Saint John of the Cross and Saint Teresa of Avila?

Yes, dear brothers and sisters, our Christian communities must become genuine "schools" of prayer, where the meeting with Christ is expressed not just in imploring help but also in thanksgiving, praise, adoration, contemplation, listening and ardent devotion, until the heart truly "falls in love". Intense prayer, yes, but it does not distract us from our commitment to history: by opening our heart to the love of God it also opens it to the love of our brothers and sisters, and makes us capable of shaping history according to God's plan. Novo Millennio Ineunte #33

UPDATE: EWTN has taken the podcast off of their website. You can find links to download it from the Into the Deep site in the comment box of this post. Thanks to Brent for putting them up!

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta... A bit more...

2007-08-25T09:13:00.001-06:00

I am reading a paper by a German theologian named Father Nobert Hoffmann. The title of the paper is: Atonement and the Ontological Coherence Between the Trinity and the Cross. Therein, he makes this statement that really strikes to heart of the issue of the 'dark night of the soul':

"The absence of the beloved, if it becomes privation and suffering, can be experienced as the painful mode of the beloved's most intense presence."

Don't be too quick in rushing past this quote. It takes time, silence, and prayer to break it open. We typically don't think of another's presence in this way, and, certainly, this type of God's presence requires a deep faith because of the tendency for doubt and despair.

It seems that God asks all of those who love him to bear this type of 'presence' at differing intensities and durations. In fact, this seems to be the primary mode of experiencing God's presence within the Church Militant. It is important that we are able to recognize this type of presence as such so that we can bear it with faith and joy. There are other times when God withdraws his tangible presence for different purposes such as the consequence of serious sin.

May we think differently so that we, like Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, can learn to love the darkness...the holy darkness of faith...

Two Weeks from Today!!!!!

2007-08-25T03:39:00.000-06:00

I am stoked! Two weeks from today the Holy Father will be in Mariazell, Austria, which is about 40 km from here. We have tickets and the entire ITI will be going. I am sure we will be a long ways away, but it will still be a very special pilgrimage at the start of the new school year.

Speaking of start of school year, I must warn my vast audience ;-) that I will not be blogging much over the next few weeks. I am finishing up the three summer courses. Unfortunately, they are going to impinge on the start of the fall semester. Whew....finishing three classes as I start six more makes my head swim! I think I have my work cut our for me.

Oh, here is my fall class schedule:

Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason)
Existence and Attributes of God (St. Thomas' Summa)
Scripture and Its Interpretation
Patrology I (Study of Early Church Fathers)
Latin I
The Church in the Modern World

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta...

2007-08-25T03:37:00.000-06:00

Please immediately go and read this article from Time on Mother Teresa. You'll have to bear up with the writer of the article and the psychologist they interviewed that simply don't get it.

The gist of the article is that a book is being published that contains personal correspondence between Mother Teresa and her spiritual directors over the years. These letters bring to light the fact that Mother Teresa suffered tremendous spiritual darkness throughout her entire life except for a couple of brief episodes. She felt completely abandoned by Christ for the majority of her life and deeply suffered, to the point of agony, because of that fact. What she models for us is what true love is: it isn't about feelings or what we get out of it. No, true love is a choice to prefer the good of the other to our own good to the point of complete sacrifice. She lived that out exteriorly and interiorly.

I think that as these letters are studied and discerned she will be one day known as one of the greatest saints in history - nearly to the place of a St. Francis of Assisi. She shows us how to love and to suffer in love and to suffer for love.

I have to admit that I fear that kind of holy darkness; goes to show how mature my relationship is with Christ (NOT MUCH). I pray that the Lord would strengthen me so I could love just a bit like she did. Furthermore, I pray that he would release from the fear and give me the courage to enter into the darkness of faith in love, confidence, and perseverance.

Don't listen to the voices that will try to shout that that proves there is no God since one who was supposedly so close to him felt abandoned by him. Her longing, her hunger, her thirst (Psalm 63), her love, her sacrifice, and her perseverance show that he was oh so close pouring his grace upon her - or she NEVER could have done it. She showed us the suffering Christ exteriorly, but also the suffering Christ in an interior fashion due to the fact that Christ experienced and suffered the separation of God from the entirety of mankind's sin he took upon himself.

She is my hero....

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta - ora pro nobis...

The Mountain of Temptation (con't)

2007-08-21T01:36:00.000-06:00

As a quick reminder, all references, unless otherwise stated, are from Jesus of Nazareth...

In the previous installment, we studied Jesus' baptism in order to understand the Mountain of Temptation better. (The previous blogs are here and here.)

Following the baptism, the Gospel of Mark tells us that "the Spirit immediately drove him into the wilderness" (Mk 1:12) to be tempted. All of Jesus' temptations strike at the heart of his mission and what is truly important in human life. Ratzinger:

At the heart of all temptations...is the act of pushing God aside because we perceive him as secondary, if not actually superfluous and annoying, in comparison with all the apparently far more urgent matters that fill our lives. p. 28

He continues:

Moral posturing is part and parcel of temptation. It does not directly invite us to do evil...it pretends to show us a better way, where we finally abandon our illusions and throw ourselves into the work of actually making the world a better place...It claims, moreover to speak for true realism: What's real is what is right there in front of us - power and bread...God is the issue: Is he real, reality itself or isn't he? Is he good, or do we have to invent the good ourselves?...What must the Savior of the world do or not do? p. 28-29

All the temptations of Jesus come down to this: the bread, the pinnacle of the temple, and the high mountain are are temptations to use wealth and power to bring about a "kingdom" that makes sense to us but denies the primacy of God.

The devil approaches Jesus on this mountain to cause him to compromise his mission (and his very self) as the Messiah and the Suffering Servant by choosing the way of a political messiah by ruling through power and wealth. Ratzinger relates that this choice, between a worldly messiah (who rules through power and bread) and the true, "other-worldly" Messiah (who rules through the self-emptying and suffering of the Cross), was offered to the crowd in front of Pilate. Jesus, the Son of the Father, on one side with Barabbas, which means the "son of the father", on the other (cf. p.41). The one Messiah that rules through taking upon himself the sins of the world in humble surrender and sacrifice and the other a pseudo-messianic insurrectionist that rules through the sword and hatred.

Who will we choose? What kind of Savior did we expect? Couldn't have Jesus fed the world? Isn't that the most important thing? Isn't "justice" the one and only thing that Jesus came to bring? We all know who we chose. We crucified the Holy One of Israel and celebrated the one who brings us power and bread.

The tempter is not so crude as to suggest to us directly that we should worship the devil. He merely suggests that we opt for the reasonable decision, that we choose to give priority to a planned and thoroughly organized world, where God may have his place as a private concern but must not interfere in our essential purposes. (emphasis mine) p. 41

Thus, the Mountain of Temptation is where we too must decide whom we will choose. How often do we pick the stable, sensible way! How often do we choose to "rule" by power rather than by love! How often do we push aside God for what is easy and expedient! We speak of "justice" all the while rejecting the One who is Just. Case in point: the concern of the first world Church for feeding the poor, healing the sick, and solidarity. These are fine things in themselves, but when is the last time that Evangelization was seriously spoken of in the context of justice? Jesus, Himself, did not heal everyone in any particular town but moved on to preach the coming kingdom! The sick of Capernaum were searching for him. Jesus responded to Peter's plea:

"Every one is searching for you." And he [Jesus] said to them, "Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also; for that is why I came out." Mk 1:37-38

Our position must be one of docility and obedience just as was Jesus'. We must do what he asks of us, which may go against everything we hold by worldly "common sense".

The Mountain of Temptation asks each of us the question, "Do you trust God?" Do we trust God to provide our daily bread and the bread of the world. Do we trust God to protect us? Do we require from God a proof of his Divinity? Who will we choose: God or ourselves? Our ways or his ways?

The way off this mountain is to trust God completely; that what he says is true because he says it. It is the path of loving, self-sacrifice. It is the path that seeks to give oneself to God first and foremost before undertaking the work that God calls us to. It is the narrow path leading to life through self-emptying, forgiveness of those that hurt us, and love for our enemies. It is the path of union with God and communion with our neighbor.

Saturday in Vienna...

2007-08-15T07:05:00.000-06:00

Last Saturday we had the wonderful blessing of going to Vienna. Our next door neighbor if the Student Life Director here for Franciscan and gives tours of Vienna to the FUS students. They offered to take us on the tour. The trains have a special deal that we all could ride to Vienna and back for €28. That is cheaper than the gas to get there. Once there, we toured Old Vienna near the Hapsburg. It was incredible. We went to an outdoor market that every kind of fruit and spice imaginable and then some. We were able to visit several churches. The highlight was the Archdiocesan cathedral - St. Stephen's. There was a place on the outside of the church was there was an etching of the number "05" right into the stone. It was the place where the Austrian resistance would meet to exchange information. Also, the history of the Moorish invasions and the threat that was to the Austrians was palpable. Anyway, it was a fantastic day. Here are some pictures...

This is the main entrance to St. Stephens.

This is the main tower of St. Stephen's. We weren't sure why the church was so dirty. I've heard it has to do with the type of rock they used.

The side of St. Stephen's.

This is St. John Capistrano killing a Turk. He preached a crusade to save Christian Europe in the 15th Century.

Some of the many horse carriages willing to take you around Vienna.

Inside St. Stephen's. Sorry, it is dark in there!

St. Stephen's side altar.

Zach's favorite place in Vienna! ;-) We laughed about this forever, and, yes, there was Mozart coming from the toilet! (The sign says, "Opera toilet with music.")

Mozart.

The boys standing in the Swiss gate. The chapel for the Vienna boys choir is through the gate and to the right.

St. Michael's church.

Side altar at St. Michael's.

St. Augustine's church. Most of the Hapsburg family were married here. Many of the deceased Hapsburgs have hearts interred here.

It was an exhausting day but SO amazing to see the history. Vienna is a fantastic city. I hope we can get back and explore some more!

The Mountain of Temptation

2007-08-08T14:50:00.001-06:00

Whooops. I made a terrible blogger's error. I assumed that people would have read the post prior (and related) to this one explaining this series I am doing. Bad Blogger!! I apologize. The references below are all from Ratzinger's book Jesus of Nazareth. See this blog to understand what I am attempting here. Again, sorry for any confusion.

Before we begin the ascent of the Mountain of Temptation it is important to remember where Jesus is immediately coming from, viz., his baptism. It was a moment of tremendous importance for Jesus' life. He had just spent the prior 30 or so years in quiet, humble obedience to Mary and Joseph as he "increased in wisdom and in stature , and in favor with God and man" (Luke 2:52). Now he has been called to his public ministry: at once the Anointed One (Messiah) and ultimately the Suffering Servant. His entrance into public life is an entrance into the life of the world. We have to keep in mind that nothing in Jesus' life was accidental; it was a completely intentional life. Jesus willed his life in complete submission to his Father's will. So often life happens to us and we react to life rather than respond. We are scattered and dull; thus, so much escapes us. Not Jesus, however. He was drawn by the Father's will to the Jordan where John the Baptist was baptizing there for the forgiveness of sins. John was the "voice crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight" (Matthew 3:3). John was baptizing at the Jordan one day when the unthinkable happened; He - the One who would baptize with water and Spirit came to be baptized!!

John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." Matthew 3:14-17

Ratzinger tells us that the word "righteousness" here is to mean: "an unrestricted Yes to God's will and an obedient acceptance of his yoke" (p. 17). He continues on to make a very important point. This act was Jesus, already, identifying himself with sinners by taking their sins upon himself and then into the waters of the Jordan thereby anticipating the Cross as the Suffering servant:

Jesus loaded the burden of all mankind's guilt upon his shoulders; he bore it down into the depths of the Jordan. He inaugurated his public activity by stepping into the place of sinners. His inaugural gesture is an anticipation of the Cross (p.18)

The Old Testament Scriptures tell us this about the Suffering Servant (there are four Suffering Servant songs. Isaiah 42:1-7; 49:1-6; 50:4-9; 52:13-53:12):

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all...Yet it was the will of the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief; when he makes himself an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand; he shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous; and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out his soul to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. Isaiah 53:5-6, 10-12

Thus, we see in Jesus first public action an embracing of the Father's will in its fullness: the Messiah, the Anointed One, the King will rule through the depths of self-emptying love which takes on Itself the entirety of human sin and misery. An understanding of Jesus' baptism, where he is the Anointed Messiah and takes upon himself our sin, is crucial in understanding the Mountain of Temptation. Ratzinger states:

The conclusion of the baptismal scene tells us that Jesus has received this true "anointing", that he is the Anointed One - that at that moment kingly and priestly dignity were formally bestowed on him for all time in the presence of Israel." p. 26

What can we see in this that relates to our own life? First, that when we are baptized we are baptized into the death of the Lord, and, as we come up from the waters, we come up into his Resurrected Life. We, too, anticipate our Crosses in life as we are plunged into the baptismal waters that at once bring death and give life (Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church #1227). Thus, we must accept and even embrace the Cross; for Christianity ceases to exist without the Cross. Second, we are anointed as "little Christ's". The term "Christian" primarily means "anointed". Hence, we share in the Christ's Messianic mission to go and preach the Good News (Gospel) to the world. We are anointed by the Holy Spirit to go forth in power and charity into the world. Third, if we share in the anointing we must also share in the other aspect of the Messiah - the suffering servant. The suffering and sacrifice that is constitutive to charity we must not shrink from but embrace it as he did. We do this only through the power of God imparted to us through the grace received by our anointing. It is love and obedience to the end, the royal road that Jesus showed us, that will please the Father and bring about the Reign of God. Last, we must lay down our pride and allow God to call us to where he might. It didn't make sense that Jesus, the Perfect One, should be baptized - even to John. Jesus obeyed and so must we. All too often we ignore the promptings of the Holy Spirit because it does not fit into our perceptions of what God should or shouldn't call us to. We must be open and willing to follow Christ wherever, whenever, and however he calls...

Next time, we will ascend the Mountain of Temptation and see that Jesus' temptations are ordered to his mission as Messiah, and if it is the case for him, then it is the case for us.

Happy Feast of the Transfiguration!!

2007-08-06T06:18:00.000-06:00

It is hard to imagine that it has been a year! Yep, that is right. We arrived in Gaming exactly one year ago today. Time can go by so fast and so slow over the same magnitude of time. There have been days that seem they might never end and so many that have flown by.

Today, we can certainly say with Peter that it is good to be here. I am constantly amazed at the gifts the Lord gives us. It is a day to be grateful - in the present, for the blessings of being in Gaming; and deep in the past, where Christ Jesus revealed his glory to Peter, James, and John on the mountain and even more for the revealing of himself on the Cross.

God is so good to us that on the day we remember the Transfiguration of the Lord we get to see him Transubstantiated before us in the Holy Mass and, in fact, get to receive him so that we might be in union with him.

Upside-down world...

2007-08-03T03:49:00.001-06:00

While I was in Meridian, I gave a talk titled Prepare the Way of the Lord; Make Straight His Paths (See here). You can download or listen to the talk in its entirety at www.friendsofmikelee.org. The slides I used are available there for download in .pdf format, also. The thesis of this talk was that Jesus came to turn values, ethics, and human existence upside-down. In other words, he did not come to preach a loftier ethic than the Old Law or to liberate us from "religion". He came to call us to a new life (John 10:10) that is so radical that is requires us not only to think differently (the Greek μετανοειτε - metanoeo that is typically rendered "repent" is better rendered "to think differently" from Mark 1:15 - "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel.") but to have a different being - one that is indwelt by the Holy Spirit through the Sacramental character of Baptism and Confirmation (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) # 1121). In other words, what Jesus calls us to, as the model of our holiness (cf. CCC # 459), demands a completely new existence whereby we receive internal and external helps from God himself. One only has to read the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 to see what this new existence entails. It reaches its pinnacle in the Cross. There, Jesus shows us what it means to be the most human. We, because of our love of God and through obedience, give our life through suffering (which is primarily the emptying of self of self: desires, opinions, and the desire to be independent of God) for the sake of the other - even so far as to give it for our enemy as Jesus did (Matthew 5:43-48; Luke 6:27-36; John 15:13; Romans 5:6-11). This giving of self must always be in accord with the Father's will. Jesus had an appointed hour. We must always carefully discern what God is calling us to. The giving of self in sacrifice to God is more than we can ever do unaided. We need the Holy Spirit to do the work in us.

With that preface, I want to return to the notion of thinking differently. Prior to the Fall, man was as he should be: his passions were under the control of his will, his will under the control of his intellect, and his intellect perfectly submitted to God. This is the way God intended man to be when he created him in his image and likeness. After the Fall, man was turned "upside-down" in his nature. Thus, the passions ruled man as they overpowered his weakened will and darkened intellect. Furthermore, man withdrew his submission to God in a vain attempt to be independent of him. Man's passions drove him to seek pleasure, comfort, revenge, and advantage. These sinful inclinations became a normal part of everyday human desires and considered "good". The Decalogue was given to contradict these worldly notions with the truth about our human nature, and how we are to relate to one another because of the dignity of that nature. Jesus came, not to destroy, but to fulfill the Old Law. Romano Guardini relates the disparity between our inclinations and the New Covenant well:

“Healthy common sense says that wealth is blessing; blessing the fullness of possessions; blessing, happiness and pleasure and fame. Our natural reaction to the Sermon on the Mount is one of distaste, and it is better to face the distaste and openly try to overcome it, than to unthinkingly accept Jesus’ words as pious platitudes. That is the last thing they are. They come from heaven, but they shake, palpably, the foundations of earth.” – Romano Guardini The Lord

The Revelation on the Sermon on the Mount does indeed shake the foundations of the earth. We must be very careful with our "healthy common sense". It can quickly lead us to oppose God in a way that puts us in eternal danger. Case in point: the High Priest Caiphas. He was charged with leading Israel's spiritual life. Along comes this enigma in the person of Jesus Christ, but rather that being open to the work of God, Caiphas could only see his own interests and "what-made-sense-to-him". His hardness of heart formulated in "what-we've-always-done"-type attitude brought him to this terrible place:

When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Laz'arus, come out."
The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with bandages, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go." Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him; but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council, and said, "What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on thus, every one will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation." But one of them, Ca'iaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing at all; you do not understand that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish." He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. So from that day on they took counsel how to put him to death. John 11:43-53

Caiphas has the miracles of the Messiah that the Old Testament reveals put right in front of his face. So much so that they were concerned that "everyone would believe in him" if they didn't so something. Why can't they see? Why can't they perceive that since the miracles of the Messiah are performed by Jesus that he is the Messiah?? Yet, rather than rejoice at the presence of God's Messiah, they plot to kill him. They can't think differently!! They cannot bring themselves to see because it might cost them their position, their comfort, and their pride, and it would certainly cause them to reconsider who the Messiah is (not the political figure that was expected). This isn't just simple ignorance. This is a willed ignorance that refuses to see because of the demands of seeing. Their pride and selfishness blinded them.

My question is this: How often are we exactly like Caiphas? How often do we willfully turn away from Jesus because his message demands too much from us? We want pleasure! We want wealth! We want power! We want ease and comfort! We certainly don't want what God demands of us - that "losing oneself is the way to life" (Ratzinger). That just doesn't make sense to us. So we reject the only Way (Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life - John 14:6) to that which we seek. We, like Caiphas, are willing to commit grave evil to the point of killing the Son of God - the Messenger/Revealer of the Father to protect our interests!! All of this hides under the masquerade of "common sense". We live with one foot in the world and one in the Kingdom. We want the benefits of God like peace, prosperity, eternal life, joy, and wholeness, but we want to retain our own independence: living for pleasure and wealth and ease. How can we expect to live like that when the Son of God, who came for our salvation, consummated his life on the Cross?? He showed us the Royal Road. It leads to Golgotha; to the Cross; to victory in defeat; to life through death.

We must make a choice. Will we choose the Son of God and live? (of course, that involves ALL of the demands of love, but also the promise of eternal beatitude if we follow him), or will we choose our self and our selfish ways desperately trying to be independent of God knowing that that our true independence is impossible?

We must imitate the Blessed Mother who "kept all these things in her heart" (Luke 2:51b). She didn't reject any of the amazing and demanding things that God sent her way. They were confusing, and great, and scary, and exciting, and went against common sense. However, she had already given her allegiance and obedience to the Father in perfect trust. Thus, this trust and faith carried her through her lack of understanding to God's perfect will for her. We must approach God with the faith and trust that allows us to think differently so that we might embrace God's will for us that always brings abundant life (John 10:10). Risk the fact that what God has said is true; that we will actually be "blessed" if we love, serve, and sacrifice.

It is here in this upside-down world of God's love that we discover who we are. We discover that we are children of the Father who desires that we spend eternity inserted, united, and partaking of his divine life. We come to taste and share in that life now to the extent that we live upside-down today...

Prepare the Way of the Lord, Make Straight His Paths...

2007-08-01T03:05:00.000-06:00

While I was in Meridian this last July, I had the pleasure and honor of giving a talk at Holy Apostles Catholic Church. The Topic was "Prepare the Way of the Lord, Make Straight His Paths". I based the talk on four texts: the Sacred Scriptures (of course :-)), Josef (Pope Benedict XVI) Ratzinger's Jesus of Nazareth, Msgr. Romano Guardini's The Lord, and Fr. Jean d'Elbée's I Believe in Love. The talk, in its entirety, can be downloaded at www.friendsofmikelee.org. Furthermore, you will find there the slides that I used during the talk in .pdf format for downloading.

I hope and pray that somehow the Holy Spirit might somehow minister to you, challenge you, and encourage you through it.

Clarification...

2007-07-29T01:01:00.000-06:00

I was talking to someone during my trip home about the studies I am doing at the ITI and what possibilities it opens up for the future. I realized they had a common misconception about the ITI and thought I would try to clear it up here.

The ITI, as currently structured, gives Pontifical degrees in theology. These degrees are not awarded by the ITI but by the Vatican itself. The ITI does have a specialization that only really affects the Licentiate degree in theology (STL). The Pontifical "Masters" (STM) degree does not have that specialization. In fact, both the STM and the STL are degrees in theology first, and marriage and family second. Thus, when I graduate, I will not be a moral theologian that can only deal with issues concerning marriage and family. In other words, I am not relegated to be a high powered Marriage prep person or limited to subjects such as the Theology of the Body (although that is a very interesting subject!)

I am much more interested in Dogmatic or Systematic Theology. Since the degrees at the ITI are primarily a training in the full breadth of theology, I will not be limited to a certain aspect of theology. My hope is to get a doctorate in Dogmatic or Systematic theology. This will enable me to teach a broad expanse of theological topics.

Anyway, I offer this in hopes of clarifying where I am headed. :-)

The Mountain of the Lord...

2007-07-28T13:52:00.001-06:00

As I have done in the past, I am cross-posting these reflections from the "Into the Deep" blog.

I have spent the summer studying Josef Ratzinger's (Pope Benedict XVI) book Jesus of Nazareth (New York: Doubleday, 2007) . I am quite sure that there are many, many excellent blogs out there commenting on this text. I, with a lot of coercion from certain individuals, will add my voice to the chorus. I hope not to just tell you what the text says - you can read that for yourself. What I hope to do is to take selections of the text that strike me and reflect upon them. These reflections might concern theological or spiritual topics depending on what facet I extract. All this is done on hopes of getting folks to read the book themselves so as to reflect and meditate on Jesus, through the discussions in the book, in their own lives.

Thus, I will be skipping all over the place within the book according to my fancy. The first set of reflections comes from close to the end of the book. Chapter 9 is titled Two Milestones on Jesus' Way: Peter's Confession and the Transfiguration. Within the section on the Transfiguration, Ratzinger discusses an idea that he has spoken of earlier in the book, viz., the importance of the symbol of the mountain throughout the Gospels. He lists seven different "mountains" that Jesus experienced throughout his earthly life.

The Mountain of Temptation
The Mountain of His Great Preaching
The Mountain of His Prayer
The Mountain of the Transfiguration
The Mountain of His Agony
The Mountain of the Cross
The Mountain of the Risen Lord

Jesus Himself told us that we must pick up our cross, deny ourselves, and follow him daily (Luke 9:23). Thus, we must journey to each of these mountains in order to live the life of Jesus - "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me." (Galatians 2:20) Over the next few weeks, I will take each of the "mountains" and reflect on its importance in Jesus' life and what it means for ours.

In general, the mountain serves throughout the Scriptures, but especially in the Gospels, as a place of the exceptional closeness of God. Ratzinger states:

The mountain is the place of ascent - not only outward, but also inward ascent; it is a liberation from the burden of everyday life, a breathing in of the pure air of creation; it offers a view of the broad expanse of creation and its beauty; it gives one an inner peak to stand on and an intuitive sense of the Creator.

The mountaintop is a place of vision. We can see for long distances across many obstacles that block our view from the valley floor. We need a vision. It gives us a vector to travel on; a direction to our life. A vector designates magnitude and direction. The vision that God gives us from the mountaintop typically has these attributes; we get a real sense of where he is calling us along with a sense of the price that must be paid. Of course, these don't come in fine detail. God paints these scenes with a broad brush but with enough detail we can begin the journey with enthusiasm and anticipation. It is essential to inscribe these times of vision on our hearts for there will come a time in the valley where we will walk by the darkness of faith and the remembrance of the mountaintop will be the manna that feeds us in the wilderness.

We cannot choose the time for the mountaintop nor bring it about. We can only wait in vigil as the disciples, along with the Blessed Mother, waited in the Cenacle (upper room) for the coming of the promised Paraclete (Cf. Acts 1:14). Rest assured, God has a vision for you. He is anxious to share what that is. As he says in Jeremiah:

For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. (29:11)

However, we must be available to the Lord and willing in order to share in it. We must be taking the time for prayer so that we are available to the Lord when he desires to take us there. Moreover, we must have a deep conviction and attitude of surrender. The Lord likes nothing more than to have permission from us to do to us as he pleases. It demonstrates a deep faith and trust within the disciple. It is in this disposition of trust and faith that God can lead us to where he is calling us. One thing we must always keep in mind (we will discuss this more when we discuss the "Mountain of the Transfiguration") is that the mountain always leads to the valley where the Cross awaits. All trails off the mountain lead to the self-sacrificing love as expressed through redemptive suffering. If Jesus could only bring salvation tot he world through the suffering of the Cross, then we can't expect to serve him in any capacity that doesn't lead directly through where he has been. As we journey from mountain to mountain, the one feature that we will always find is the Passion. Let us not be discouraged by the ubiquitous presence of the Cross but take comfort and consolation in the fact that we are being treated as the Son was, and, if we share in the death of the Son, we will share, also, in his eternal life.

Thus, let us strap on our hiking boots and clothe ourselves in a deep confidence and trust in God. Let us allow him to lead us through these mountains as we allow him to conform us to the image of his Son. Then we can say with St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians:

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

THANK YOU!!

2007-07-24T03:30:00.000-06:00

Got back to home after quite a marathon: missed flight (not my fault) and lost luggage. Travel is always an adventure!

The trip back to Idaho was such a blessing! It was so good to see friends and family. Words cannot express the depths of gratitude I feel to all who participated in the activities and in supporting us. The generosity and support of the people of Holy Apostles is amazing!! I am so grateful to be able to touch base with so many. Please know that we are praying for all of you.

I am equally grateful to be back with my family and to the place that God has so much in store for us. Funny, I felt more comfortable in a place where I couldn't understand the language than in the place where I could.

I want to thank the "Friends of Mike Lee" committee that put the whole week together: Carol and Brent Brown, Kurt and Edwina Barats, and Bob and Connie Mortensen. A special thanks to Tricia Hendrickson for the hike to the Cross and the music for praise in the park. Also, thanks to all the musicians that showed up to play at the park. Thanks for your gifts!! Thanks to Father Len and Holy Apostles Church for letting come and speak on Monday night. I hope to have the recording available to download soon. Last but not least, to all of the "Friends of Mike Lee" that have blessed us with their prayers, time, and money. May God bless all of you abundantly with his love and mercy. I only hope that we can give as much to the Universal Church as you have given us!!

We love you!

Schedule of events...

2007-07-06T04:39:00.001-06:00

Here is the announcements from friendsofmikelee.org

Mike is coming to town!

Thanks to a generous donation of a round trip ticket, Mike is able to come spend a week with his supporters! Please feel free to come join Mike at any or all of these events!

Fundraising Barbeque
Saturday, July 14th 6 p.m.
In honor of Austria's lack of beef, come eat a burger for Mike. Event location is 4190 Columbine Street in Boise. Donations are gratefully accepted. Please RSVP by July 12th to 658-4491.

Teaching by Mike
Monday, July 16th 7 p.m.
Come listen to Mike on Monday evening as he presents "Prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight." Holy Apostles Dining Room

Hike for Mike
Thursday, July 19th 7 p.m.
Join us as we hike up to Table Rock for a short prayer service. Meet at 7p.m. in the parking lot behind the Bishop's House off Penitentiary Road. Please bring a water bottle and wear comfortable shoes to hike. Non-walkers welcome, contact Tricia at 440-3639 for carpool arrangements.

Praise in the Park
Friday, July 20th 7 p.m.
Everyone come as you are to worship God and bid farewell to Mike. This praise and worship event will be held at Guerber Park at 2200 Hill Road in Eagle. An interactive water feature is available for the kids, so dress them accordingly. If you are a musician that would like to accompany, please contact Tricia at 440-3639.

Happy 4th!!

2007-07-04T10:14:00.000-06:00

It is always an amazing thing to celebrate a holiday such as this here. Rained like the dickens all day, but we were able to put together a BBQ under an awning. All the Europeans were bugging us to have a party. Let's see there were: Brits, Irish, Scottish, Romanians, Luxembourgers, Polish, and Austrians there today. In fact, there were many more Brits that any other nationality. I had to tease them about us kickin' their &#@^%*&%&* out of America. :-) They wore their red, white, and blue today. It was a blast even without the fireworks.

God Bless America!

LOOK OUT - I AM COMING HOME!!

2007-06-29T04:32:00.000-06:00

Yep, you heard it right. I am coming home for a week or so. Unfortunately, it is only me. It is really hard to leave the family at home. I wouldn't have even come except...I am not bashful - The reason I am coming home is to raise funds for the next school year (and subsequent ones, I hope). In the past, I would be embarrassed to even say that, and, although I don't necessarily like it, the Lord's will for me is to attend the ITI which requires that I do this. No matter what, it is a joy to do God's will...

Anyway, I am really excited to have the opportunity to give a talk while I am there. The title is "Make Straight the Paths of the Lord". I will present it at Holy Apostles on Monday night, July 16th, @ 7:00 pm in the Dining Room. I will be using the Pope's new book, Jesus of Nazareth, Guardini's, The Lord, and the Carmelite Doctors (in honor of the 16th being the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel) as the sources and foundation for it. The talk will focus on seeing Jesus, and his message, as it really is and the radical response to which it invites us. All of this in the context of and with the aim of freeing us, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to "make straight the paths of the Lord" directly to the core of our life and our being.

There is also a dinner on Saturday where you can come, eat, and visit. I am not sure of the details to be honest. Check out the HA bulletin. I believe it will be in there, or check back here and I will try to get all the details.

We are doing newsletters again. Shorter and hopefully more frequent. The newsletters are up at another site called "The Friends of Mike Lee Family" at www.friendsofmikelee.org. It is run by a wonderful group of folks that are coordinating fundraising and support for us. THANKS FOTMLF!! You guys are the hands and feet of Christ to my family. AND thanks to all of you who pray for us and support us in any way. We simply couldn't do this without you!

I hope to see you in a couple weeks....I will be the guy sitting in air conditioning, with a beefsteak in one hand, and a Pacific Northwest Microbrew in the other!!

The Documentary Theory or the Graf-Welhausen Theory (Part 4)...

2007-06-23T11:38:00.001-06:00

In this, the final installment, I treat of the arguments against the GWDT and conclude with some reflections of my own. Here are the previous installments: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

The GWDT has been the dominant paradigm of Pentateuchal studies since Wellhausen published Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher A.T.s. in 1889.[1] There have been many opponents to the GWDT due to its highly subjective and artificial structure and from the conclusions that follow. Wellhausen proposed that the religion of Israel in its early forms was animistic and polytheistic[2]. It was not until much later with the final redactions of the Pentateuch and the preaching of the prophets that an ethical monotheism developed. As one can see, this reduces the history of early Judaism to nothing more than a “projection into the unknown and distant past of conditions prevailing in late ages”[3]. There are serious technical and philosophical problems with the GWDT that bring its correspondence with truth into question. In what follows, evidence undermining the GWDT will be presented.

A difficulty with the GWDT and its modern counterparts is the completely artificial character of its authorship spread over many centuries. Segal writes;

“Hebrew Literature, or any other literature all the world over, cannot show another example of the production of a literary work by such a succession of recurring amalgamations and such a succession of compilers and redactors centuries apart, all working by the same method, as attributed by the Theory to the formation of the Pentateuch[4].

Furthermore, reducing the entire Pentateuch into source fragments and traditions spread over a great deal of time reduces it to mere nonsense. There is an obvious unity that goes beyond simply a cut and paste-type of literature model. This is Revelation. Therefore, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts in a particularly unique way. There is an added component of the inspiration by the Holy Spirit that must be taken into account.

As stated above, the GWDT stands or falls on whether the first division of sources according to the naming of God. The problem arises when a particular divine name is found within a section that is purported to belong to a different source. Segal points out that in many instances in the Pentateuch the name used does not correspond with the appropriate source rendering the division by the names unreliable at best[5]. Furthermore, he demonstrates that in the Historical books (e.g., Judges, Samuel, Kings) of the Old Testament there are many examples of both YHWH and Elohim being used in such a manner that they can’t possibly be from different sources. Thus, other ancient Hebrew writers used the terms seemingly interchangeably in cases that cannot be ascribed to separate sources. Again, if the terms are used elsewhere interchangeably, how can they be used a criterion of division? Segal attributes the difference in usage to the purpose of variety in expression. Parallels exist in Ex 18 and 2 Sam 16 between “Jethro” and “the father-in-law” and “David” and “the king”, respectively[6].

Segal extends the use of literary variation to explain the main examples the adherents of the GWDT forward as examples of style and vocabulary differences which indicate separate sources[7]. First, the words and styles listed in Table 1 (here) are of the same dialect across the different sources. This is important because the GWDT uses particular words to assign a passage to a particular source. However, there is absolutely no proof that these lists are anything else but false, imposed criteria. How can one confidently state that a given word is always used by one source and not the other if any word could be used by any source? Isn’t it much more likely that the author is varying usage? He continues by analyzing pairs of synonyms that are used to differentiate sources. Thus, the pairs of words such as the use of Sinai and Horeb, for example, Segal explains that Horeb is used to indicate a wider area in which Sinai is a part. Sinai is used for the mountain itself. Concerning stylistic changes, Segal states;

The fact is that as soon as there is a change in subject matter in the Pentateuch, there is immediately also a change of vocabulary and style. The difference of style cannot therefore be attributed to a change of document[8].

This makes perfect sense. When anyone writes the “voice” or style of writing changes with the subject of what is being written. Certainly, I would use a different tone when laying down the law to my children, when comforting them, or teaching them about God. If one took the entire corpus of an individual and applied the GWDT, there would be many sources indicated due to stylistic differences between the subject matter that that one person wrote about.

Lastly, Segal calls the gradation set up by the criterion of ideology “nothing more than a hasty generalization in the hackneyed evolutionary method, unsupported by facts”[9]. There are anthropomorphic and anthropopathic elements in Scripture and other ancient texts that is known to be of much later writing, e.g., Daniel and the late Aggadah of the Talmud, respectively.

Evidence that questions the conclusion of the GWDT concerning Mosaic authorship comes from the Scriptures themselves. There are several allusions to Mosaic authorship in the Old Testament; moreover, there is even more convincing evidence supplied in the New Testament[10]. The Jews, apostles, and even the Lord himself attributed the authorship of the Pentateuch to Moses. Christ even states that Moses wrote of him in Jn 5:45-47[11]. This is not to suggest that Moses wrote every single word of the entire Pentateuch. It does suggest, however, that Moses wrote at least some portion of it.

In sum, any theory to be valid must forward reasonable hypotheses that are based on fact that can withstand strident analysis of its conclusions. It should be obvious from this brief survey of the development and conclusions of the GWDT that it is fundamentally flawed and should be abandoned. Under the scrutiny of modern archeology, philology, and reason, the GWDT collapses. I am not an Old Testament scholar such that I can propose an alternate theory. However, I can say that I am not against the use of modern biblical criticism in Scripture study. I do not hold to a rigid Mosaic authorship that doesn’t allow for any other additions or redactor's involvement in the development of the text. My main concern with this essay is to reveal the weaknesses in the GWDT so that the near Magisterial status that it currently enjoys will be shattered by studies, such as Segal’s, that have been around for decades. There needs to be a fresh start free from the uncritically accepted philosophical presuppositions that undergird the GWDT, and the vestiges of the long term acceptance of it.

The GWDT did not come into being in a vacuum. There was a particular scientific, philosophical, and theological milieu that facilitated its development. It is important to understand the intellectual environment of the time just as in an analogous manner we must understand the cultural milieu surrounding the composition of the Scriptures in order to understand them properly. There is always a danger to bring uncritically accepted philosophical presuppositions to a text which colors our ability to see things clearly. They are most dangerous when one does not admit to the bias and thinks that they are the truly objective ones. This type of intellectual pride and blindness poses a grave danger to honest intellectual investigation. Thus, one must maintain humility before the text and the truth such that one is ever ready to modify or even abandon one’s position when clear data is presented to the contrary. Biblical criticism in all its forms is not undesirable. However, it violates its own objective of better understanding of the Scriptures when it loses the search for truth for the maintenance of a certain theory. That, in my opinion, is exactly is what has happened with the GWDT. It flowed from a rationalistic, agnostic mindset that was imbued the fashionable philosophical formulation of the day, namely, Hegelian Idealism. Wellhausen “frankly admitted that his interpretation of this history was deeply influenced by the Hegelian concepts of Vatke”[12]. The Hegelian notion of everything progressing from thesis over to antithesis finally to a new synthesis deeply underlies the GWDT. There is always progress – evolution from the more primitive to the more advanced. Thus, the Jewish religion must have been more primitive early on and developed into something more advanced over time. In this notion of the ‘evolution’ of history and man, it follows that the sophisticated theology and ‘spiritual’ writing of the P editor came much later than the crude anthropomorphisms of the J editor, although the premises are not true as shown in this essay. This means that the Pentateuch does not describe the beginning, the foundation of the faith of the Jews but the final result of a particular development of religion. In my opinion, that conclusion is to be rejected. Thus, the GWDT has a certain error within its foundation, viz., the inexorable progress to the ideal.

There seems to be a strong undercurrent of post-Enlightenment rationalism that infects Scriptural exegesis. In fact, I was reading a statement by a current exegete (I cannot remember who, I just remember the comment) who stated that to be an effective exegete one must be a “functional atheist”. This is in direct contradistinction to the teaching of the Church. Certainly, the Church affirms that the human authors were true authors[13]. Thus, we must use all the proper techniques possible to ascertain their intention since their assertion is the assertion of the Holy Spirit[14]. I understand the concern of encouraging a certain fundamentalism that leans towards a literal interpretation that the sacred authors took dictation from God. However, we must pay special attention to the following concept:

But since Sacred Scripture is inspired, there is another and no less important principle of correct interpretation, without which Scripture would remain a dead letter. Sacred Scripture must be read and interpreted in the light of the same Spirit by whom it was written[15] (emphasis mine).

There is a place for and deep need for reason informed by faith. In my opinion, the fact that these texts have the Holy Spirit as their author should be foremost in one’s mind as they are approached. An attitude of deep prayer, intimacy with Christ Jesus, and docility to the Holy Spirit must be the mark of the Scriptural exegete prior to any intellectual acumen. This will be the interior ‘environment’ from which deep insight will flow.

[1]Segal, 1.

[2] Robert and Feuillet, 85.

[3]Segal, 2.

[4]Segal, 4.

[5]Segal, 10.

[6] Ibid, 14

[7] Ibid 14-19

[8] Segal 19

[9] Ibid

[10] Robert and Feuillet, 94.

[11] “Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; it is Moses who accuses you, on whom you set your hope. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” Jn 5:45-47.

[12] Robert and Feuillet, 85

[13]Dei Verbum, 11.

[14] Ibid.

[15]Catechism of the Catholic Church. United States Catholic Conference, Inc. - Liberia Editrice Vaticana, 1997, #111.

Thanks be to God!!

2007-06-19T00:18:00.000-06:00

It looks like we will finally have health insurance and for only €79/month for the whole family!! We have to wait (and pay) for 6 months before we are insured, but what a gift! Now, I can begin to breathe easier with four rambunctious boys (yep even Zeke - he is a madman!)

The insurance covers everything from doctors, dentists, and optometrists. I hope we can get Cody and Felicity into braces for free!! Anyway, thank you for your prayers and support!

Books...

2007-06-09T23:57:00.000-06:00

I thought I would begin to post the different books that I am reading for different classes. I know it is tough sometimes to find an appropriate book that is orthodox and a wonderful read. Here are a few of gems:

This a must read about Jesus. Focused in the Gospels themselves, Guardini gives wonderful reflections on the Lord! It has a real contemplative feel to it.

Of course, everyone should read the book by the Holy Father. It is not too technical for the popular reader. It is more 'technical' than Guardini's book, however. The Holy Father spends more time doing exegetical work especially philology (word studies). It is a fantastic book to counterbalance all the garbage people see on the Heresy (History) Channel about the Gospels.

The Synopsis of the Four Gospels is a must for anyone trying to understand the Gospels more deeply. It puts all four Gospels side-by-side in columns so you can directly compare what each of them says. It is really amazing!

Spiritual reading of this sort is always the compliment to prayer. One must know about Jesus (so we can enter into the Truth) as one knows Jesus through prayer. It has to be both. Without the knowledge we easily fall into misconceptions, and you can't love what you do not know. If we do not know him in prayer, then the faith becomes a philosophy of living rather than an encounter with a person (cf. Deus Caritas Est #1).

The Documentary Theory or the Graf-Welhausen Theory (Part 3)...

2007-06-09T05:59:00.000-06:00

In Part 1 and Part 2, I briefly described the history and exegetical landscape that led to the formulation of the GWDT. I will offer a sketch of the GWDT in this installment.

Having given a very brief survey of the historical and intellectual development upon which the GWDT was founded, the major premises and conclusions of the GWDT will be presented. The conclusions of the GWDT have far reaching ramifications. This is not simply about the literary development and formation of the Pentateuch as one historical text among many. The development of the entire religion and history of the Hebrew people is at stake. For if the dating of the Pentateuch is quite late, around 500 BC according to the GWDT, then the Pentateuch is a development of Judaism rather than its foundation. Are the Josiac reforms of the seventh century really a so-called pious fraud, as Wellhausen claims[1]? Is the Pentateuch really a compilation of a multitude of unrelated sources that were shaped into a story by countless, faceless redactors? What impact does that have on our notions of the inspiration of Scripture? The GWDT along with other types of criticism are looking to answer important questions about the text such as ‘who is the author?’, ‘what is the date of composition?’, and ‘how is one to explicate the various styles etc. that occur within the Pentateuch?’ to name a few. The Theory consists in the identification of different sources based on several broad categories: the use of different names for God, stylistic and vocabulary differences, and repetitions and doublets. The first and foundational criterion for the GWDT is based on the observation that different names are used for God as discovered by Witter and Astruc[2]. One of the sources exclusively used YHWH (J) when referring to God and the other Elohim (E) until the revelation of the name YHWH to Moses in Exodus 3:14[3]. Obviously, this criterion was only useful for Genesis. When the two sources were separated, it was observed that there were stylistic and vocabulary differences between the E and J and even within the E itself[4]. Based on these criteria, the Elohist was subsequently divided into two sources: the Elohist source and the Priestly (P) source. Due to the fact that Deuteronomy was so different stylistically, this was considered a separate source and named the Deuteronomist. This produced the basic and well known source divisions of J, E, P, and D of the GWDT. The figure below illustrates one conception of the interrelation of the sources.

Figure 1. The Scheme of Pentateuchal Sources Over Time[5]. One can see the obvious complexity of the sources as they are being redacted over a great number of centuries. Stylistic and vocabulary usage are a major, albeit secondary, criteria by which the sources are identified. Once the separation between J and E was made, it was noticed that there were obvious differences in style and word usage between J and E, as stated above. This allowed the exegetes to divide the rest of the Pentateuch according the J, E, P, and D model by correlating these differences with the sources delineated in Genesis. The figure below summarizes the major stylistic and vocabulary differences.

Yahwist (J)	Elohist (E)	Priestly (P)	Deuteronomist (D)
God is Yahweh	God is Elohim	God is Elohim	God is Yahweh
God walks and talks with us	God speaks in dreams, etc.	Cultic approach to God	Moralistic approach
Stress on blessing	Stress on fear of the Lord	Stress on law obeyed	Stress on Mosaic obedience
Earthy speech about God	Refined speech about God	Majestic speech about God	Speech recalling God’s work
Stresses the leaders	Stresses the prophetic	Stresses the cultic	Stresses fidelity to Jerusalem
Narrative and stories	Narrative and warnings	Dry lists and schemata	Long homiletic speeches
Stress on Judah	Stress on Northern Israel	Stress on Judah	Stress on whole land of Israel
Uses term “Sinai”	Uses term “Horeb”
Calls natives “Canaanites”	Calls natives “Amorites”
		Uses genealogy lists	Loves military imagery
			Has many fixed phrases

Table 1. Stylistic and Vocabulary Differences Between Pentateuchal Sources[6].

Furthermore, Table 1 above illustrates the so-called Criterion of Ideology. This criterion uses speech about God i.e., whether it is anthropomorphic or anthropopathic, to further delineate the sources. In other words, speaking about God in a lofty, spiritual way indicates a later, more developed theology such as P; whereas, more anthropomorphic or anthropopathic language is indicative of a different, earlier, and more crude source J. This is a striking example of the Hegelian model of progress that underlies the GWDT. Lastly, one can find multiple examples of doublets and repetitions throughout the Pentateuch. The GWDT considered these textual features to again indicate separate sources[7]. Examples include two stories of creation (Gn 1 and Gn 2), two stories of the flood (Gn 7, 7:31), Abraham sends Hagar away twice (Gn 16 and 21), and the Decalogue being given twice (Ex 20 and Dt 5). In sum, the GWDT is founded upon a characteristic of the Biblical text wherein one finds two different names used for God. These are considered to be different sources. When exegetes separated the passages using the names of God as their criteria, they were able to identify other criteria (style and vocabulary, doublets and repetitions, and the criterion of ideology) within the primary division that allowed them to resolve the rest of the Pentateuch into its putative sources. One quickly notices how subjective and artificial the entire structure of the GWDT is. There are no objective criteria to assess stylistic variations with any certitude. Furthermore, the entire system relies completely on the first division being true for if J and E are not actually different sources then the entire apparatus collapses.

Next time we will forward arguments against the GWDT...
-----------------------------------------------

[1] http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Deuteronomy - The so-called "Pious Fraud is Wellhausen's hypothesis that there was a "prophet" that wrote Deuteronomy who was interested in reforming Jewish worship especially relegating it to Jerusalem. This unknown prophet wrote Deuteronomy and hid it within the Temple where he knew that it would be found. Hilkiah the high priest found the law and brought it to king Josiah. The discovery of the law led to a great period of reform (cf. 2 Samuel 22-23). Deuteronomy, then, would have been written in about 622 BC.

[2] Boadt, L., Reading the Old Testament: an Introduction, New York: Paulist Press, 1984, pg. 93; Weiser, 77.

[3] Segal, M.H., The Documentary Theory in the Composition of the Pentateuch, pg. 3.

[4] Boadt, 93.

[5] Reproduced from Boadt, 94.

[6] Reproduced from Boadt, 97.

[7] Robert and Feuillet, 75.

Lee Altar Servers....The Next Generation...

2007-06-09T03:35:00.000-06:00

(click on image to enlarge)

Zach served Mass for the first time today. He looks so tiny in that cassock and surplice. It was a blessed day!!

HAPPY FEAST DAY!!

2007-06-07T05:23:00.000-06:00

Oh...er....that's right...American Catholics can't be bothered to go to Mass another day in addition to Sunday...sorry! ;-)

Anyway, today it the Solemnity of Corpus Christi (Body and Blood of Christ). It is a national holiday and holy day of obligation in Austria. We celebrated Mass outside in a park and then participated in a Eucharistic Procession through town back to the Church. The Cross led the way, followed by the fire dept., brass band, then children dropping flower petals before the Monstrance. There are a lot of pictures here. I hope you enjoy!!

Click on images to enlarge.

Outside Altar

Lining up...

Monstrance

Front of procession

Just aft of the picture above

Monstrance

Inside the village church

It was marvelous! (I have a few more pictures of the church I will post at a later date.)

Da boy done got big and fat! (not like his Dad, though ;-))

2007-06-06T05:00:00.000-06:00

If Jesus came today...

2007-06-03T08:56:00.001-06:00

We have all thought about what it would be like if Jesus came today.

I think there are many right now who think he would come with the 1962 Missal in one hand, a sword in the other, while solely speaking Latin.

There are others that think he would come as a woman or Buddha or a goddess telling us all the religions are exactly the same.

The next bunch thinks he would come only to the poor and would never even look at the rich at all. In fact, he would condemn them with fire and hell.

Some think that he will come pat them on the head, tell them that he loves them, and tells them to keep doing what they are doing 'cause they are a "good person".

How long could I go on here?? My point is this: It is our tendency, whoever we are, to read our concerns, likes, dislikes, and our very self into a false portrait of Jesus. He was completely free with a divine freedom. Jesus wasn't concerned about expectations and didn't fulfill them. He didn't care what people thought of him, nor did he try to please anyone on this earth. His one and only concern was to do the Father's will to the point of calling it his food:

Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work. Jn 4:34

The Father, completely sovereign, does whatever he pleases. More often than not, the move of God is a scandal by doing exactly opposite of what we think he ought to do:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Is 55:8-9

The way we can worship in the Spirit and truth is to know Jesus, the Truth, as he is rather than as we want him. Then, and only then, can we move toward a deeper relationship with him.

On this most Solemn Feast of the Holy Trinity, let us pray for the grace to set aside ourselves so that we might receive him in fullness. In his day, the ones who missed him were the ones who couldn't see past their preconceived notions. Let us embrace him as he is: Lord, Master, Brother, Lover, Eternal Priest, and King...

The Documentary Theory or the Graf-Welhausen Theory (Part 2)...

2007-06-02T05:15:00.001-06:00

In this part of coming to understand the Documentary Theory, we continue briefly tracing its historical background. It important to have this knowledge because it gives us the context to help evaluate whether the GWDT is valid or not.

The Reformation was the event that shook the Christian world to its core. It is interesting that Robert and Feuillet don’t even mention the Reformation[1] (even though they are obviously Catholic writers), and Harrison (a Protestant) briefly mentions the Reformation by discussing the position of the main reformers in relation to the Old Testament[2]. He makes a single comment that in this writer’s opinion is extremely important. He says,

The importance of the Reformation for Biblical criticism lay not so much in concern for the historical or literary processes involved in the formulation of the Biblical canon as in a continued insistence upon the primacy of the simple grammatical meaning of the text in its own right, independent of any interpretation by ecclesiastical authority[3].

In my opinion, Harrison drastically underestimates (and misunderstands or misrepresents) the true impact of the Protestant Reformation upon Biblical criticism and exegesis. He doesn’t mention that for fifteen centuries of Church history Biblical interpretation did rely on ecclesiastical authority just as the Lord Jesus Christ intended it. In contrast to Harrison and Robert and Feuillet, I believe the Protestant Reformation was the crucial event in modern Biblical scholarship and formation of the GWDT because it was Luther’s rejection of the authority of the Ecumenical Councils in Leipzig in 1519[4] and his rejection of the Magisterium’s role in Scriptural interpretation[5] in An Open Letter to The Christian Nobility of the German Nation Concerning the Reform of the Christian Estate that set the stage for the Enlightenment. The rejection of the Magisterium as sole interpreter of Scripture[6] and the personal interpretation that follows from that position completely changed the landscape of Biblical exegesis. The protection that the Magisterium affords would have ensured a more measured approach to Biblical criticism. Many may disagree and state that it was exactly the fact that exegesis could be separated from ecclesial authority that led to many advances. True, the advances may have come much more quickly. However, the damage done is still being felt as so many have had their faith in the Scriptures destroyed by modern exegesis. Once one divides exegesis from the authority of the Church, exegesis will move into error and a plenitude of hypotheses. Nevertheless, the Reformation did occur and, although there were definitely many positive developments in Scripture studies, there were many grave difficulties that can be referred back to the Reformation as a cause and principle.

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw more developed approaches to Pentateuchal criticism in the latter part of the period which began with much confusion and wild speculations where Pentateuchal criticism was concerned[7]. Hobbes (+1679), a Deistic philosopher, and Spinoza, a Jewish philosopher, used internal evidence from the text to deny Mosaic authorship[8]. Spinoza is considered one of the fathers of modern Biblical criticism[9].

The GWDT started to take shape in the early 18^th century when Witter in 1711 was the first to forward the usage of the different names of God, doublets and stylistic considerations to support the hypothesis that Moses compiled the Pentateuch from earlier traditions[10]. Jean Astruc, a French physician, used the same criteria to argue for different sources in Genesis[11] (what the particular the criteria that comprises the GWDT will be discussed later). Astruc divided Genesis into columns that corresponded to the usage of different names for God in Genesis (YHWH and Elohim)[12]. This was the age of the Enlightenment when, partially due to the seemingly endless religious conflicts, reason become the one measure of the truth with a concomitant rejection of external authority especially ecclesial authority[13]. The rationalism that characterized the Enlightenment affected approaches to Biblical criticism. This meant that the Scriptures should be subject to exactly the same principles of study as any other text. Furthermore, the rejection of authority enshrined in the Enlightenment spilled over to the approach to Biblical criticism. There was “the feeling that such as investigation should be able to be pursued independently of ecclesiastical authority, religious dogmas, or church traditions of any sort”[14]. Eichhorn applied these principles when he took up Astruc’s work but rather than attempting to maintain Mosaic authorship, as did Astruc, he rejected Mosaic authorship[15]. Furthermore, Eichhorn included additional criteria such as differences in literary style and vocabulary as means to distinguish the sources[16]. There was an ensuing flurry of activity as many others expanded the beginning work of Astruc.

This activity led to a number of different hypotheses concerning Pentateuchal source criticism: Early Documentary Hypothesis, Fragmentary Hypothesis, Supplementary Hypothesis, and the New Documentary hypothesis[17]. The Early Documentary Hypothesis was held by Astruc, Eichhorn, and others. They restricted their theories to Genesis. It posited that the ‘author’ of Genesis simply put together a series of ‘documents’ that made up the book. A closer scrutiny of the Pentateuch suggested much smaller independent fragments that were places alongside each other without any internal connection which led to the Fragmentary Hypothesis forwarded by Vater among others. Ewald posited the Supplementary Hypothesis in which there exists a homogenous Elohist basic document as a core which is supplemented by “Yahwist passages”. The New Documentary Hypothesis (referred to in this paper as the GWDT) found its primordial and decisive formulation via von Graf and Wellhausen in the late 19^th century. They combined parts of the Early Documentary Hypothesis and the Supplementary Hypothesis with additional ideas about further sources. Thus, rather than just the two sources posited earlier (Elohist (E) and Yahwist (J)), a Priestly (P) and Deuteronomist (D) were posited. Weiser summarizes Wellhausen’s contributions to the formulation of the GWDT thusly:

[Wellhausen] proved by means of comparison with the information in the rest of the Old Testament that the historical place of the ‘Mosaic law’ (P) is not at the beginning, but at the end of the development of the Old Testament religion, and that the Yahwist source must be considered to be the oldest document in the Pentateuch[18].

The dating of the different sources according to Wellhausen is J ninth century, E eighth century, D seventh century, and P fifth century. The GWDT continued to be developed over time by other exegetes.

In summary, there have always been certain questions concerning the author, date of composition, and other aspects of the Pentateuch and the Scriptures as a whole. The questions and challenges are remarkably similar across the centuries. Moreover, I find it especially interesting that the main challengers and their answers that veer farthest from the traditional understandings of the Pentateuch come from individuals (for the most part) that are outside of what would be considered orthodox Catholicism. Much of the criticism flowed from an underlying willful rejection of Church authority and focused on individual, rationalistic philosophical presuppositions. One wonders how this may have colored their conclusions.

Next time, we'll dig into the GWDT itself...

[1] Ibid.

[2] Harrison, 9.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Bedouelle, Guy. The History of the Church. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, Inc., 2003, pg. 98.

[5] Luther, Martin. An Open Letter to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Concerning the Reform of the Christian Estate, 1520. April 8, 2007, .

[6] Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, # 12. “For all of what has been said about the way of interpreting Scripture is subject finally to the judgment of the Church, which carries out the divine commission and ministry of guarding and interpreting the word of God.”

[7] Robert and Feuillet, 81.

[8] Harrison, 9-10.

[9] Livingstone 544.

[10] Robert and Feuillet, 82; Weiser, The Old Testament: Its Formation and Development, New York: Association Press, 1961, pg. 75.

[11] Weiser, 75.

[12] Harrison ,13; Astruc actually divided Genesis into four columns of text using other criteria in addition to the names designating God.

[13] Livingstone, 191.

[14] Harrison, 13.

[15] Weiser, 75.

[16] Harrison, 14.

[17] Weiser, 75-77.

[18] Weiser, 77.

The Documentary Theory or the Graf-Welhausen Theory (Part 1)...

2007-05-28T17:10:00.000-06:00

I am doing a little cross-posting of this particular series of blogs between here and the Into the Deep blog. Yeah. Yeah. I'm lazy :-P (I hope you enjoy...)

ADDENDUM: I realized that I used names for the theory that most people might not be familiar with (I wasn't). You might know it under a type of source criticism or, more likely, as the JEPD Theory. Yep, this is the one where there are different sources for the books of the Pentateuch commonly known as the Yahwist (J), Elohist (E), Priestly (E), and Deuteronomic (D) editors. I hope that helps bring it to your mind as we discuss it.

I am always reluctant to post anything directly from the classes that I am taking at the ITI mainly due to the fact that one class does not an expert make :). It takes a heckuva lot more than one class to really get a grasp of the subject and to understand the subject that one writes about. The blogosphere is packed full of people going off half-cocked about which they know just enough to be dangerous. In some ways, this next series of posts falls into that category. I am not an Old Testament scholar in any way, shape, or form. However, I feel the importance of the subject is such that, at the minimum, I should pass on the information. Of course, I won't be able to help adding some commentary and thoughts of my own along the way. :-) Since I am not an Old Testament scholar, I will not be able to forward an alternative theory from my own work. I will, however, present an alternative from someone who is a scholar. My intention is not to solve the problem as much as cast substantial doubt on the theory as such. Furthermore, I want to explore and attempt some analysis of the philosophical underpinnings of the theory. I think a critical reflection on these philosophical foundations will help us understand how the theory developed and hopefully will shed light on the philosophical presuppositions we have about Scripture. We all have them. NO ONE IS COMPLETELY OBJECTIVE. Thus, we must identify and understand them so that we can be as objective as possible. (I DO NOT hold that to be objective one must set aside faith. In fact, I firmly believe that theism (specifically the fullness of Catholic orthodoxy) is the only true, objective position since it is the one that corresponds with reality. I'll have more to say on this later...). So let's jump in!

Anyone that has studied the Old Testament seriously, in any manner whether in the parish or in academia, has been exposed to the Graf-Wellhausen Documentary Theory (from now on known as the GWDT). Most material, especially used in “popular” Bible studies, treats the GWDT as unassailable fact[1]. Most importantly, the introduction to the Pentateuch in the English translation of the New American Bible treats the GWDT as simple fact[2]. The presence of the GWDT in the “official” American Catholic Scripture translation raises it to the near magisterial level in the minds of most English speaking Catholics. It is interesting that the author(s) of the Navarre Commentary and The Consuming Fire readily admit that there is no physical or archaeological evidence whatsoever to corroborate the GWDT, and yet it is still treated as fact[3]. Even a brief perusal of the literature concerning Old Testament scholarship would make manifest the serious questions with regards to whether the GWDT has any correlation with the truth of the matter. Therefore, it is my intent within these several blogs to give the historical background of Old Testament scholarship, especially surrounding the formation of the GWDT, the major criteria on which it is founded, an alternate explanation concerning those criteria, an alternate view of Pentateuchal authorship and development, and, finally, I will offer some closing thoughts in the way of a summary focusing especially on the philosophical mindset whereby the GWDT came into existence and by which it has been propagated for nearly two centuries.

Old Testament criticism has been a feature of Christianity from its very beginnings. The Church Fathers understood the necessity to establish the text and to determine its meaning because the primordial Church found herself defending, not only her teaching, but the Jewish Scriptures from whence she was born and that she fulfilled[4]. Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch was questioned already in the mid-second century by Ptolemy[5]. Ptolemy concluded that the books of the Pentateuch were compiled by Moses from sources that came from God and other Elders. The heretic Marcion (+160) posed the greatest early challenge to the Old Testament[6]. He rejected the entire Old Testament as describing a lesser evil god[7] that was “weak, unjust, lacking in prescience, and essentially fickle”[8]. This was the first of a long line of Scriptural critics who read their ideology into the Scriptures by using subjective criteria[9]. The first example of altering the traditional date of composition due to an anti-supernatural bias is attributed to Porphyry (+303)[10]. He asserted that Daniel did not write the Book of Daniel because Porphyry did not believe Daniel could predict the future in such minute detail. Thus, he believed that it was written during the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-163 B.C.)[11] because it was contemporary with the events described in Daniel[12]. This isn’t to suggest that all Biblical criticism is somehow bad. St. Jerome used philology to discover the literal sense of Old Testament passages[13]. (It is interesting to note that the individuals mentioned so far , except for St. Jerome, were not Christians! Ptolemy was a gnostic heretic. Porphyry was a Greek pagan. In fact, Porphyry was vehemently anti-Catholic. Marcion was one of the worst early heretics.)

The middle ages saw a shift of attention from primarily an apologetic stance to searching the Scriptures for and commenting on allusions to the Church using allegorisms[14]. There were isolated occurrences of individuals calling into question the unity, and/or Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch throughout the Middle Ages. According to Robert and Feuillet, the movement of biblical criticism began with Ibn Ezra in the mid-twelfth century when in his commentary on the Pentateuch he called into question several aspect of the Biblical texts due to their apparent contradictions e.g., the iron bed of the Og the King of Bashan[15]. Ibn Ezra and Bishop Tostatus of Avila (15^th Century) agree that Moses couldn’t have known about the iron bed since he was Og’s contemporary; thus, Moses couldn’t have written that particular passage[16]. In addition, Bishop Tostatus (as with others) believed that Moses obviously couldn’t have written about his own death.

Next time, well continue with the Protestant Reformation and should get through the positing of the GWDT...

[1] The Navarre Bible: Pentateuch, Princeton, NJ: Scepter Publishers, Inc. 1997, 19-21.; Duggan, Michael, The Consuming Fire, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991, pg. 58.

[2] The New American Bible: The Pentateuch, Washington, D.C.: The Confraternity if Christian Doctrine, 1970

[3] Duggan, 58; The author does state in a parenthetical sentence. “We must admit, however, that archaeologists have not discovered written sources of the Pentateuch. Thus we have only a hypothetical model constructed by scholars to explain the formation of the Pentateuch (Duggan,59, emphasis mine).” However, the author never mentions any of the serious disagreements or concerns about the GWDT.

[4] Robert, A. and Feuillet, A., Introduction to the Old Testament, New York: Desclee Co., 1968, pg. 79.

[5] Harrison, R.K., Introduction to the Old Testament, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc. 1969, pg. 4.

[6] Ibid

[7] Livingstone, E.A., Oxford Concise Dictionary of the Christian Church, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, pg. 360.

[8] Harrison, 4.

[9] Ibid

[10] Livingstone, 459.

[11] Harrison, 6.

[12] I note that the introductory note to the NAB dates Daniel to the same time for the essentially the same exact reasons as Porphry does.

[13] Robert and Feuillet, 80.

[14] Ibid

[15] Robert and Feuillet, 81; Dt 3:5 “(For only Og the king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Reph'aim; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbah of the Ammonites? Nine cubits was its length, and four cubits its breadth, according to the common cubit.)”.

[16] Ibid.

Quick breath...

2007-05-23T04:50:00.000-06:00

Sorry about the silence on the blog. I just got out from under finals last Wednesday, Thursday was graduation (all day), then Friday we started a conference on the Theology of the Body that ran through the weekend, and Deb got stung or bitten by something on Monday that made her whole face swell up - so bad that she was barely recognizable. She is doing better after they put her on steroids and some other medications. So here it is Wednesday and summer school starts tomorrow....

I have to admit I am not sure that I am ready to start again! I am taking Ancient Political Theory (using Aristotle's The Politics), The Synoptic Gospels (using Guardini's The Lord as a text in addition to the Scriptures), and Philosophical Anthropology (using Aristotle's De Anima). In addition, I hope to squeeze in an intensive German class. So....the summer might be a tad busy!

We are doing well, although with watching everyone leave for the summer, we are a bit homesick.

Hopefully, the blog will not be neglected quite so bad.

Oh, I just remembered something. Today Debbie went to pick up our visas for another year. It is amazing to consider that last year it was not possible for the family to get visas. Here we are picking up another year's visa..and it looks like we might get the opportunity to get health insurance...Praise be to God!!

Little Eliot, ora pro nobis...

2007-05-13T09:43:00.000-06:00

Here is a video that you must see. It is another illustration of the sanctity of life, and how God uses the weakest to manifest his love and glory. (Make sure you have tissues near by.) Watching Eliot beings such a deep sense of gratitude for the children I have, and that God always gives us what we can handle. When we walk with him, everything becomes a window to his infinite love and grace...

Good news and light blogging ahead..

2007-05-04T00:57:00.000-06:00

First the good news. Deb and I are going to be putting on a retreat each semester for the Franciscan University of Steubenville students!! We are very excited. It will be a real honor to work with Father Dave and the new chaplain (Father Brad is his name, I think). We met with the activities coordinator and a couple of Sisters yesterday to get some general structures worked out. The tentative date for the retreat is September 7-9, 2007. Please keep us in your prayers.

The other news is that I am in the middle of finals. I have four: Metaphysics. Logic II, Mysterium Salutis II, and the Pentateuch (I have a 10 page paper due in this class, also). So as you can imagine blogging will be quite light around here - not like there is much going on anyway :-). In the meantime, please go check out my other blog and podcast at Deepcast.org. Mike and Brent always have good things to say.

Last, I finally got my summer schedule figured out. Man, is it going to be busy! I am taking three classes: Ancient Political Theory, Synoptic Gospels, and Philosophical Anthropology. In addition, I hope to take at least one and maybe two intensive German courses, but we'll see. I just might be too old for this ;-).

Bronc O. Buster...

2007-04-28T03:01:00.000-06:00

Or should that be Mutt O. Buster? He has got his eyes in the middle, toes turned out, and spurrin' the hair off that mutt. (If you look close, you can see that he has little cowboy booties on :-))

GREAT NEWS!!!

2007-04-20T13:00:00.000-06:00

The podcast that Brent Brown, Mike Englesby, and I produce was just picked up by an international podcast network called the Star Quest Production Network (SQPN). Six out of the top ten shows listed on PodcastAlley in the Religion category are SQPN affiliates. Don't ask me why they picked us up! Lapse of judgment, I think. ;-)

Please check out the Into the Deep our podcast either at: Into the Deep SQPN or our blog at Deepcast.org where you can download the shows, also.

THANKS BRENT, MIKE, FATHER RODERICK, GREG WILLITS, AND THE WHOLE SQPN FAMILY!!