'Conscience' controversial topic

Retired Monsignor Paul Byrnes, former pastor at St. Michael Catholic Church in Frostburg, Maryland, caused quite a stir in our third-week "Why Catholic" session Thursday this week.

Father Byrnes revealed his pride in being one of the 72 Baltimore diocesan priests who signed a letter of dissent in response to Pope Paul VI's decision in 1968 to uphold the traditional Catholc Church's teaching against contraception. The priests then published the letter with their signatures in a full-page space in the Balitmore Sun newspaper, he said. In the ad, he said, the priests instructed their parishioners who had been practicing contraception, whom they had advised to follow their consciences and contracept if their consciences told them to do so, to continue to contracept.

Current Baltimore Achbishop Edwin F. O'Brien presents a concise history of this saga (another that can be attributed to the workings of Vatican II) in his September 4, 2008, column in the Catholic Reivew titled "How the Cafeteria Opened." Bishop O'Brien writes his column to mark the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI's encyclical "Humanae Vitae."

Father Byrnes' presentation was all about "conscience" being innately infallible, an undeniable force from within that must be obeyed, regardless of the circumstances, motivations or consequences and regardless of authority from any civil or moral law.

His presentation was quite controversial. His viewpoint is considered authoritatively to be heretical. Read more about it in my posts from October 23 and October 24.

Freedom and salvation: God's greatest gifts

Freedom is a gift from God, as is salvation. How we employ our freedom in action or choose to accept our salvation is our prerogative: That's free will.

In our second session in this thrid year in the "Why Chatolic?" series, Monsignor Thomas Bevan at St. Patrick Church in Cumberland, Maryland, discussed with us the topic of "Freedom and Responsiblity of Human Acts." Father Bevan opened his presentation with a quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1745: "Freedom characterizes properly human acts. It makes the human being responsible for acts of which he is the voluntary agent. His deliberate acts properly belong to him." Summary: Freedom = Choice + Ownership = Responsibility.

Father Bevan stressed the words "properly" and "voluntary" and made the point that the difference between freedom and license is human responsibility. Summary: Freedom - Ownership = Choice - Responsibility = License (aka Chaos).

It is in exercising Freedom -- in thoughtfully considering the constraints and assuming responsibility for our actions, in properly utilizing our free will (with respect given to limitations) to make right decisions and purposeful choices -- where we acknowledge God's grace (and the beauty of other people) in our lives and accept His generous offer of salvation for our flawed human souls.

It's simple: 1) Think before you act. 2) Have proper motives in mind. 3) Abide by the rules and laws -- those formed by the courts of the land and those handed down by God from heaven. 4) Act with consequences in mind -- like preserving or destroying your precious salvation. 5) Offer the results for the glory of God, especially when you suffer, to supplement Christ's redeeming grace for the salvation of the world and of those around us.

When we are baptized in the Holy Spirit, slavation is infused into our souls: God writes there that name known only to Him and to us (Rev 2:17). From that time on, we make choices that either take us closer to Him, or divert us from our goal (joining God in heaven), or remove us eternally from God's saving grace and condemn us never to see His face.

Salvation is assured for those of us who accept it and take efforts to treasure and defend it. Salvation can be lost, however, sometimes temporarily (as in the case of a sinner who flounders but ultimately repents) or irretrievably (as in the case of a sinner who rejects God or defies His commands to the end of his mortal life).

Salvation is not earned or bought; and it's not relative to an individual's lifestyle or station in a community. God gave us Ten Commandments. Jesus gave us a list of Beatitudes. The Kingdom of God has been proclaimed clearly and ultimately, definitively and infinitely. It will not be revised. And it will not be reversed. There's one Messiah. He will be our Judge.

Are you ready? Jesus says in Matthew 22:1-14 that the kindgdom of God is like a wedding feast. Those who have received the invitaiton (baptism in the Holy Spirit) may choose not to come; or worse, they may revile or violate the Host. Those who know not the invitation (Christ's saving grace) will be extended the opportunity to enter into the feast. Whoever chooses to come, though, to God's great celebration of salvation must be ready to recognize, greet and honor the Host. Do you keep your invitation current and handy? Do you prepare daily for the time of the feast to arrive? Love God. Love neighbor. Choose wisely. Act conscienably.

by Nancy E. Thoerig 10-20-08

Do you ponder Heaven?

"There, helpless, wholly at His mercy, resting at His pulsing heart, I could care for nothing in the world other than pure love."

Do you ponder Heaven -- what you think that it might be, what you've experienced that you feel it could be, what you've set your heart to hope that it will be?

Our group of about 20 middle-aged Catholic men and women who are participating in the third-year "Why Catholic?" series session at St. Patrick in Cumberland, Maryland, were posed that question Thursday morning. Asked to think a bit and jot some notes, we then gathered into small groups to discuss the topic and comprise a summary view to present to the larger group.

I shed gentle tears then just thinking upon heaven. My first note to myself was "to sing with the angels in adoration, 'Holy, Holy, Holy.'" Next thoughts were: "To see the face of God; perpetual consolation; beauty, peace, harmony, unconditional love; not having to think, judge, be judged; freedom just to be, just to love purely."

Just considering that I could have the chance finally to see His face in Heaven and to be so favored as to praise and please God with the angels and saints fills my heart now with anticipation so that soul-felt tears well up, brim over and spill down....

I recall a decisive moment as I lay, I think, between life and death following my second very complicated heart surgery two and a half years ago: I believe that right then, I grasped an understanding of the power of the type of selfless love alluded to by the saints; and I think I engaged in a rare chance then to sample an inkling of the glory the saints share with the angels in the all-consuming embrace of God's love in Heaven. My thoughts were immersed in that place at that time in love for family, friends, caretakers and God; and I begged Him that I should live. I likewise surrendered to His will for my life -- or if it be that I should die.

I know now that grave suffering in conjunction with the promise of death (or life) drew me utterly into God's great consolation. There, helpless, wholly at His mercy, resting at His pulsing heart, I could care for nothing in the world other than pure love. And I believe that He gently and persistently urged me over time to prepare for that day when I could choose between life and death -- real and ethereal.

In the couple of years leading up to this surgery, I felt an interior conversion nudging me to mature in my faith, to seek deeper and higher understandings of the practical as well as poetic, profound and mystical aspects of my Catholic faith. I set about seeking a spiritual director to advise me.

A regular visitor to the National Shrine Grotto of Lourdes in Emmitsuburg, Maryland, I happened one day there in 2004 to pick up a flyer about a coming weekend retreat by Father Jack Lombardi to be held at the Mount Saint Mary's Seminary. I signed up and went.

Father Jack impressed me as a truly holy priest, a regular guy aiming to be a saint, a flawed human being striving to detach from the vanities that tether his spirit, someone seeking to be Christ-like and free just to love God and love neighbor. In the month after, I asked Father Jack to be my spiritual director.

As such, and confessor, too, Father Jack generously shared his knowledge and insights with me, listening intently and guiding me expertly to probe the depths of my desires for harmony and life and God and eternity. Reading books on the spiritual life and Bible passages that he suggested, to fit my circumstances or wonderings, effected revelations for me: I began to let go to accept and surrender to the workings of God around me in renewed ways.

More pious poeple and wholesome opportunities came into my life, providing balance for sometimes more confounding situations: Familiar comforts and attachments, matters of livelihood, status and identity, were being stripped from my life. I wondered at times what more God could take (or permit to be taken) from me. As I sought to know Him better, I felt He was challenging my fortitude, testing my perseverance, distilling my spirit -- fortifying my faith. Then the surgery became imminent.

It was Father Jack, ultimately, who responded to the quiet call of my still spirit on April 23, 2006, one week after the surgery, and came to pray at my bedside and bring Christ to me in the Eucharist. That unsolicited yet deeply desired gesture of his was so selfless and generous and profound to me: My spirit responded, and my will awakened.

So as I lay after our visit in solitary silence conversing with God, nestled at His breast, consumed with love for Him and for all His creation, I asked to live.

Total recovery took nearly two years; and I am left now nearly blind as a complication of the surgery. In time, physical agony progressed to difficulty, and difficulty gave way to inconvenience, and inconvenience became mostly a memory; and my vivid spiritual awareness of the nearness of God likewise receded and waned, 'til now sometimes I fear I'll lose touch with the hard-earned reality of that awful and awesome experience.

Reality it was. I believe I experienced Heaven.

by Nancy E. Thoerig 10-12-08