Sharing the Gospel at Religious Education

I have been teaching religious education this year.  Specifically I am teaching a combined class of older (beyond 3rd grade) students who have not been catechized.  Half of my 8 students were baptized Catholic as infants and are preparing for First Communion.  The other Half are either unbaptized or were baptized Protestant and are planning to enter the Church at Easter.  We call the second group RCIC, although I have now learned that RCIC doesn't exist.  RCIA - Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults is the only model for people over the age of reason (beyond 6 or 7 years old) to systematically enter the Church.  So what I am really teaching is RCIA adapted for youth. 

It isn't an easy task, and I am prone to complain a little because I have a broad age range, and varied backgrounds. Also, I am actually teaching two groups, but the needs are exactly the same between the RCIA students and the First Communion students.  Education is never perfect. 

My RCIA students are getting ready for the Rite of Election this week.  This is the point in the process where their sponsors declare that they are prepared to enter the Church, and the catechumans declare that they intend to be received into the Church.  The Bishop then declares them to be the Elect - those called by God.

I haven't taught them nearly as much as I would like.  Worse, I am realizing that whatever I have taught them, I have missed the most important part.  Not that I have ignored it, but that in all their questions and my long explanations I haven't testified clearly to the one thing that matters most. 

The Gospel - God Love for us.  I've talked about it, but have I really evangelized? 

Today's News - Tiger Woods (Really about Addiction and Recovery)

Addiction is UGLY and Vicious and is a very nasty disease in what ever form it takes.  Ultimately addiction will take everything an addict has away.  Dignity, pride, family, self-respect, career, money are likely to be lost along the way, and finally addiction takes our lives.  I've watched hundred of men and women try to recover from addictions to get their families back.  I myself have tried to recover because I don't want to lose my family.  In nearly every single case, the real progress did not materialize until the addict - me in my own case - surrenders the family, the spouse, the marriage and along with it the career and the bank account.  Once we realize that addiction has us in a death grip, and that family or no family, job or no job, our only hope is sobriety, then (and very often only then) we can really begin recovery.

Being an addict doesn't remove one from being responsible for their actions.  Tiger Woods was right to apologize without excuse for the double life he had been leading, if for no other reason that it is only by acknowledging that our problems originate with ourselves and are self-inflicted that addicts can begin to recover.  The fact that the media and the salivating public, not to mention scorned wives and sponsors, will accept no waffling is actually secondary to the addict's recovery. 

In my experience, when an addict faces such a situation where a humble and heartfelt apology is the only option it is difficult even for the addict to figure out how honest, genuine, humble and heartfelt the apology really is.  Untangling the desire we have to really change, and our true contrition for the damage we have caused from our need to regain our standing and restore our pride is near impossible.  Those experience in recovery will say "look for the changes."  These are changes that are difficult to discern through the lens of the media, unless of course Woods get's caught by the tabloids behaving badly.

The one observation on the press conference that I will make is that Woods hasn't decided to rush back into golf.  This may possibly be a decision that shows Woods is taking his own recovery seriously enough to acknowledge that being back in front of the public and back on tour is likely to end in disaster.  It has happened magnificently to other golfers with alcoholism, most notably John Daly.  Plenty of other celebrities and media personalities have suffered from repeated relapses and public downward spirals as they have resumed their careers.  So often you see the celebs doing the "30 day spin dry" and going back on tour, or back to the movie set.  The collapses are predictable to those of use who are fortunate enough to struggle through our sobriety without the pressure of multimillion dollar contracts, a small industry of support entourage depending on us, and the spotlight of the media and the paparazzi.

If I was able to be a friend to Tiger Woods, or if I saw him at a meeting I'd share with them the experience that I share with any other addict or alcoholic.  "Getting my wife and family back won't keep me sober, but if I'm not sober I'll never get them back and I'll be useless to them and everyone else.  Having my career back didn't keep me sober, and without sobriety I couldn't keep my career.  When  just staying sober became the best that I could hope for, I surrendered and fully conceded to myself that I was powerless over my addiction and everything else."  As a recovering addict all I get is today, and the chance to stay sober for the next 24 hours.  Anything beyond that is something to be grateful for. 

So I don't know the motivation for Woods making what appears to be the smart decision and staying away from golf indefinitely.  It could have been his sponsors and the PGA looking out for Tiger's best interest (and their long term investment) but I think that is unlikely.  It may have been a calculated move to try to restore his image.  I hope however, that the decision was largely Tiger Woods listening to the addicts who have gotten some time in recovery telling him to slow down. 

Recovery must come First.  Golf may or may not ever be part of Tiger Woods life.  From what I've seen in 12 step meetings Sex addiction is real and is probably at least as challenging as any substance based addiction to recover from.   One thing I've heard from sex addict is that the first 'drink' can happen without even a second thought.  Because the addiction revolves around lust and fantasy, there is no need to log on, or go to a dealer to get loaded.  I've heard stories of relapses that start with a look at a stoplight, or a commercial during the evening news.  Going back into the environment where he practiced his addiction might be something that Tiger Woods chooses to not ever do.  All addicts talk about being out of town, having success and extra cash, and staying in motel rooms as situations they often find prone to relapse and full of 'triggers.'

What ever the case, I wish Tiger Woods the best as he starts out on the road to recovery.

Lent Book Recomendation - Priest Block 25487

Priestblock 25487 by Jean Bernard is the auto-biographical account of Fr. Jean Bernard a Priest from Luxembourg who was arrested and imprisoned by Nazi Germans at Dachau from January 1941 until August 1942.  The book is an incredibly lucid and detailed account of his 20 months of imprisonment, torture and deprivation.   Fr. Bernard leaves us a great gift with his observation and insight into the psyches and the spiritual lives that he and his fellow Priests led while subject some of the most brutal treatment that humanity can provide. 

This story goes to the heart of what being a Christian means.  He Accepts the unacceptable and thanking God while being beaten, starved and worked to death.  He watches as some resist to the point of insanity and others lose not only Christian virtue but seemingly all humanity.  He himself fails in virtue and in action, but wills himself to chose his humiliation rather than lose the battle for his mind and soul. 

This example helps me to be more willing to chose a little suffering voluntarily, joyfully relying on God' grace to help me.  And truthfully I need God's grace to even make it through on afternoon without a snack.  Each of the 70 times a day I reach for the crackers, or pretzels, or raisins, or chips it is only by asking for God's grace that I can manage even such a pathetic mortification.   Thinking of the experiences of Fr. Bernard watching his friends, fellow Priests, die of starvation and infection without medical care amid stench and filth helps me to ask Jesus for enough love to bear some little suffering

How This Catholic Hacks Bible Study - Suggestions Welcome

When I finished my last post I realized as I was writing that I didn't have a good answer for the natural follow-up questions. "What 'hermeneutics' and framework do I use for understanding the Bible now?" At first I had to start thinking because I don't use anything consciously which is probably very similar to most Protestants. We are seldom as conscious as we should be about what we are bringing into the experience ourselves.

One official source you might find helpful that I haven't read yet "The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church" Presented by the Pontifical Biblical Commission to Pope John Paul II on April 23, 1993.

I haven't adopted or bought into any particular formal or rigid methodology or system. I have developed a 'critical-mass' of knowledge about basic history, types of literature, Jewish customs etc. and that helps. I have also become used to thinking about the four 'senses' of scripture that the Catholic Church has traditionally used From the CCC:Part I, Chapter I, Section 2, Article 3 Sacred Scripture

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."83

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.84
• 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".85
• 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.86

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.87

I sometimes formally think about a particular Hermeneutic - particularly Typology as practiced by Scott Hahn (although he didn't invent it) which falls I think under the allegorical sense category. I won't pretend to be able to use it well, much less teach about it, but the essential idea is to use 'type' to relate events. So taking from St. Paul's example in Romans you could say he was using typology when comparing Jesus to Adam. It is a traditional Catholic application of typology that calls Christ the New Adam. Adam the first Man was directly created and put into the world by God, Jesus was the Son of God and his human nature was directly created by God. They are of the same 'type.'

Just doing a little internet research for this post and I am well reminded of my amateur status.  It is readily apparent that one could spend several years seriously studying just the topic of hermeneutics.


Advice
A few things that evolved for me over time.  The Catechism came out, so for the first time in my lifetime I had a easy place to go to get a firm answer rather than someone's opinion or misinformation about what the Church teaches.  Before that I had discovered the Catholic Encyclopedia and the Fathers of the Church all of these resources are now available online at New Advent.  I learned about concordances (huge indexes of every word in the Bible and every verse they occur in) and topical concordances, and scripture commentaries.  Now, these resources are available online.  Key points in my approach and my advice:

• Know you Catholic Faith - Until I had read the CCC and had that available as a reference it was much more frustrating, especially when Protestant commentaries are so much more readily available and Catholic commentaries are too often not very Catholic.  If I know my Faith well, I can recognize when an interpretation is justifying a false doctrine.  If I want to investigate it and evaluate the merits for myself I feel free to do so, but I keep in mind what the Church teaches.  I am willing to seriously question the Church and my Faith - but I'm going to do it fully understanding the Church's position and giving it a fair hearing.
• Read the Black Parts First - I look at what the words actually say, I'm not a 'literalist' but I don't want to discount what the text actually says!  If I'm going to 'interpret' or ignore what the words actually say, I want to acknowledge why I am doing that and I want to be doing it because it gets to the larger and more central meaning that the text is pointing towards.
  
• Context - I always read in context when trying to understand  a passage.  I definitely don't try to understand just one or two verses in isolation.  I look at that passage in context of at least the immediate Chapters, if not the whole book.  The Bible isn't written as PowerPoint slides, very, very few verses are 'stand alone' bullet points.
• Connections - What is the place of that book in history, whats going on and how does this text connect to the History  What is the culture and the audience.  Then use that information judiciously to deepen my understanding what I'm reading.  I don't agree with the taking an "Historical-Critical" method that starts at the same place I do, but then uses the 'connections' in a relativist approach to convince myself that what the author is writing about no longer applies to our culture.
• Reason -  I try to think about what the author or text is trying to accomplish.  What is the main message.  Particularly in the Gospels and the NT in general.  I consider that the NT was not written as a Catechism.  Every book was written for a reason.  Also, they didn't have word processor, photocopies or typesetting - every word and verse is important.  And, they didn't include redundant information - things that everyone already new were not spelled out, that would have been a waste of papyrus.  (BTW - just going through the Chronology - Paul spent 18 months his first visit to Corinth!  We can assume he explained a lot of things much more fully in that time that what got written in two short letters.)
• Compare - I compare the meaning I'm deriving with other parts of the Bible.  So what I'm getting out of 1 Corinthians gets compared to the other Pauline Epistles, and the Gospel.  
• Hermeneutic of Fulfillment - I read with the idea in mind that the OT and NT are not 'discontinuous'  but integral - The OT is fulfilled in the NT and the NT completes the OT.  Particularly for St. Paul I consciously try to read the NT in light of the OT.  St. Paul constantly refers back to the OT.
  
• Fancy Stuff - Allegorical, Anagogical (I think of that as mystical) and Moral senses.  I'm no expert here, and whether I'm actually reading a commentary or not, I'm probably copying or rethinking something I've heard or read before.  In particular these would apply more to books I've been avoiding more or less, Danial, Amos, Revelation for example.
• Greek / Hebrew - Lately I've been doing a little research on key verses looking up the original Greek and Hebrew.  What I've been finding is more a tendency to want to move away from tying to make meaning precise and more a desire to realize that God is bigger than any word or sentence - whether in Greed, Hebrew, Latin or English.  So I guess I'm reacting against the Protestant methodology there.
• Consult References - I'm a learn by doing guy.  For the past few years I've been trying to apply what I already know until I get bored with that and then going to commentaries and other outside sources.  I have a strong preference for the Fathers of the Church.

Just to be clear, this isn't a pattern I had worked out in advance, it is how I meta-cognate on what I have actually been doing.  I've been working my way through the Pauline Epistles for some time and I'll write about how I've been approaching that and what I think I'm learning.   I also think I'll do a separate post about my favorite Bible research resources on the Internet and the books I've either used and want to buy.

Spanning the Protestant / Catholic Divide - Part III - From Confused Catholic to Competency - My Story

intro: I have been interested in improving communication and reducing confusion between Protestants and Catholics for some time. My pet theory is that we often misunderstand and talk at cross purposes because we have different 'culture' and language, and that even when we use the same words, we may not understand them the same way. So this series is not meant to be apologetic so much as it is meant to be focused on the differences in how we approach Faith and the world.

Part II Why Do Protestants Read the Bible So Much?
Part I - Why Catholics Don't Know the Bible.

I grew up in what I consider to be a pretty typical Catholic home in the 70s.  We had a few Bibles around the house, but they weren't conspicuous and the weren't often used.  There was a paperback pocket edition "Good News" Bible in my Dads nightstand.  We also had a paper back New American Bible (NAB) that was on the bookshelf in the living room.  Up until I was 13 I don't recall ever reading the Bible with my parents or ever seeing them read it.

My first, and most treasured, memories of the Bible are from my Grandmother's house when I was very young.  Every morning she would read from the big leather bound, illustrated family Bible she had.  When I stayed over I'd go in and sit beside her on her bed and after she finished reading we'd look at pictures.  The Bible was also a sort of scrap book of sorrow and woe, and a few blessings.  My Grandmother keeps all of her old funeral cards, obituaries, and news clippings about tragedies in her small town in her Bible.  The Blessings are the birth announcements and marriage announcements and any news clippings from college graduations or announcements that my Dad or uncle had joined such and such firm.  I still feel great sadness  thinking of all the deaths and accidents and heartaches.  That Bible and all it contains connects me to my Grandmother's life and through her to my ancestors. This was my Catholic grandmother BTW.  I spent a lot of time with my Protestant grandparents, and until now I've never given it any real though, but I don't remember anything about the Bible with them - although I know they were very religious.

Through childhood I did have a few bible stories.  I remember in particular the story of Zacchaeus the tax collector who climbed the sycamore tree to be able to see Jesus over the crowd.  These were several books in a series that my mother bought from little 'store' in the narthex at Church and as far as I recall they were the only introduction to the Bible I had as a toddler.  I must have started religious education in kindergarten or first grade, but have little recollection until prep for First Communion in second grade.  I don't recall anything about the Bible.  Up until 4th grade CCD (Catholic Catechetical Development) was taught by nuns in habits at my parish.  We had the ubiquitous workbooks with the fill in the blank questions and the 70s folksish representations of Jesus.  I think maybe after 3rd grade or so I remember sometimes having the Bibles handed out and going around reading from the Bible, but that was very rare at least.

My own Bible reading was really sparked by two totally random and unrelated events.  Early in summer of 1975 after 2nd grade my mom took us up to a small farm town to visit her cousin and her family on their farm.  The cousin was the church secretary (I've no idea what denomination - I'd guess Evangelical Lutheran) and the kids were in Bible school for one more day.  So they sent me to Bible school too.  And we did read the Bible.  And I didn't have one, and I probably (being a pretty big blabber mouth) mentioned that I didn't even own one and had never read it.  I went home with a brand new Tyndale "Children's Living Bible" paraphrased.   The next fall I sat next to a 'different' girl at school who always wore long, old fashioned style dresses and had really, really long hair.  I think that was the only year she went to our school.  Anyway, one day she's telling me all about how she has read the whole Bible 3 times.  I was a little sweet on her (I'm lucky I've always had a weakness for wholesome girls) so I figured she'd be more likely to like me if I read the Bible.  So that night I went home and started out to read the Bible cover to cover.  It didn't take me all that long.  And my Bible reading journey had begun. 

I read the Bible somewhat regularly after that.  I really liked the Psalms.  I had a difficult time with the other kids in school and was depressed at times.  I'd read the Psalms and that was always helpful.  One night I was up late, worried about school and life and friendships and a bully, and I read the Psalms.  I got a feeling of intense peace and the deep conviction that my suffering and tribulation wasn't pointless, that God had a plan for me and this was part of his plan.  That moment helped my then and still helps me today.

I was pretty serious about my faith through high school.  I went on retreats where we did more Bible reading.  I started a Bible study in my basement for teens one year, but we only managed about 5 meetings.  My parents stepped up the prayer life at home, and we did try to have some family Bible reading time.  For my confirmation at 15 I  got a New American Bible from my confirmation sponsor.  I think by that time I had been reading my parents NAB rather than my children's Bible. 

As I entered adult hood at various times I began to get more interested in really understanding the Bible.  I began to grow more frustrated that so many parts of the Bible seemed so contradictory and random or just weird.  I've never really thought of that as being much of an aspect of my drifting and weakened faith during my early 20's but it seems to me now that it probably was.  I did read the Bible less and less.

July of 1990 was a low point for me.  I was running and hiding from my responsibilities and the consequences of my actions.  I had recently decided that I needed to stop drinking and made an honest and absolutely firm commitment to stop.  And in less than 2 weeks I'd gone back to drinking, and found myself drinking even when I didn't want to.  Life seemed hopeless.  One afternoon I was going crazy with anxiety and couldn't figure out what to do.  Out of nowhere the idea came to read the Bible.  It had been years.  I turned to the Psalms and soon found an answer.

Psalm 27
11 Teach me your way, O LORD;
lead me in a straight path
because of my oppressors.

And that became a prayer and a mantra. For 3 days I read Psalm 27 and prayed my version of that "God show me the path you want me to walk, and give me the strength to follow you." I made an appointment and went to Confession on Saturday morning. Although I didn't initially confess anything about my drinking, my penance was 3 AA meetings! I wasn't planning to go but I had the phone number of the friend of a friend who had suggested I call him sometime. I called and we went out to dinner. It turned out he was in AA and he took me to my first meeting!

Another event that happened around this time was in the college cafeteria. I was reading the Bible while eating lunch and a classmate saw me and sat down. He pulled out Bible and started talking to me. It turned out that he was in "Campus Crusade for Christ" and when he found out I was Catholic he set out to Save me and prove the falsehood of the Catholic Faith. I didn't have any clue how to debate him, but I was pretty sure the Catholic Church read the Bible differently that Protestants. About the best I managed was "I don't understand that verse the way you do."

This began the period where I was really trying to learn more and read the Bible with a better understanding. What I see now partly as a result of my recent posts, is that I just didn't have the framework (hermeneutic) for constructing an understanding of scripture. Now I do think it is terrible to be locked into one hermeneutic, but I think you must have some framework to build on, especially to start. As a much better than average Catholic who had actually been reading the Bible since youth I just didn't have one!

That is really the story of the next 15 years! I asked for the New American Bible Study version for Christmas in 1990. That was good and bad. Good that I finally got a lot more background on the various books, and it had more notes. Bad - a lot of it wasn't as solid as it should be in either scholarship or Catholicism. I got involved in a few more Bible studies.

Unfortunately, what I recall of the various Bible studies was mostly very squishy and academically light. Mostly I think the focus was on reflecting on passages and coming up with what they mean to me and how to apply them in my life. This wasn't terrible really, but it didn't give me any new guidance on how to actually approach scripture in a serious way.

I think mostly what was encouraged is "lectio devina" which is a spiritual practice of religious and Monks, particularly Benedictines and in modern times Jesuits. And that was my main Bible study method for years. The problem is that short of "infused knowledge" I was never going to really learn how actually understand the more confusing, contradictory and cryptic aspects of scripture.

In the late 90s I began to notice a few more Catholic Bible Study programs showing up and I tried a few. Little Rock Scripture Study was one I remember. All of the programs I encountered were very basic. There was more supporting commentary and materials - like the videos in the Little Rock Scripture Study series. A little help, but very little. None of the series I encountered went beyond the basics. They had more commentary, but like the Little Rock Scripture Series it was often adapted from Protestant sources so in certain areas it tended to oppose a Catholic understanding of critical verses.

Finally, in 1998 a few things began to come together for me. I stumbled upon a copy of "Catholicism and Fundamentalism" by Karl Keating which didn't help with my Bible study directly, but it gave me great insight into Protestantism, and how evangelicals read the Bible and some of the Catholic counter arguments. Also we moved to a city with Catholic Radio and Catholic Answers was on every day. Again, it wasn't really good Bible study, but in the desert, a little puddle is a welcome as a swimming pool. Then Scott Hahn started writing books! That was the first real big help for me. Even learning that there was such a thing as hermeneutics and typology was helpful. Jeff Cavins came out with his "Great Adventure Bible Timeline" and though I have never used the whole series the parts I have used are helpful.  Just a photo copy of the timeline is a huge help.   The options have really become abundant in the past few years. The internet of course makes it easy to connect with all kinds of resources.

I've tried a couple of Bible Study groups recently, but was discouraged because I have no patience. The group was mostly people who are really at the beginning and I'm really looking for some meaty discussions. I find it too easy to dominate the group with my opinions and 'knowledge' and that is not what I want to do. So maybe I should look for a good study group.

Some closing thoughts. Part of the difference between Catholics and Protestants regarding scripture is that the Catholic Church is not tied to, and doesn't endorse or approve any particular hermeneutic or method. The Catholic Church actually takes a very broad approach to scripture. Since scripture does not stand alone, it stands with tradition and authority, there is actually more freedom to interpret scripture. That is one cause of my troubles. Because the Catholics and Catholic scholars use many hermeneutics, and also rely (openly) on tradition, there isn't a hermeneutic just lying there to pick up, or passed on naturally through our experience.  The approach to scripture was not consistent, because it doesn't have to be consistent.  So I was exposed to many hermeneutics at least indirectly, but I wasn't consistently seeing the same hermeneutic and method on a regular basis, which for all purposes made it seem like there really wasn't any systematic way to approach scripture.

Spanning the Protestant / Catholic Divide - Part II - Why do Protestants Read the Bible so Much?

So last night I blogged about Why Catholics Don't Know the Bible. So today it's time to approach the Bible study question from the Catholic Perspective.


Okay, these are my observations and they don't apply universally, and I mean to make them in charity. Please feel free to offer corrections and clarifications. I recognize that a couple of points are going to be controversial for many Protestants because it's how I view the Protestant world as an outsider who approaches Christianity from a very different perspective.

Answer Part A

Sola Scriptura or Prima Scriptura - Only Scripture or Scripture First.  The main idea being that in either case Scripture is the highest authority. The one thing we Catholics can be certain that all Protestant Churches agree on is that there is no greater authority than scripture. The authority of Pastors, Elders, Bishops, Steering Committees, the Pope and even ecumenical councils is subsidiary to scripture.

So right there you have the BIGGEST reason Protestants spend so much time reading scripture! What ever the question of Christian doctrine or practice, the answer in the Protestant world MUST be justified in scripture first and foremost! So every discussion or question starts with looking in the Bible (it doesn't seem to matter if the participants already know the answer). Concordances and commentaries are close at hand to identify chapter and verse and provide insight. Then once they have a collection of scripture passages they may consult other sources - usually their favorite theologian or favorite trendy pastor or perhaps their denomination's 'confession.'

Being the outside observer, what I see is that the result they gets is more dependent on the method of interpreting scripture that they have learned from their pastor or picked when they picked out this church and their choice of theologians to consult than what the scripture actually says - and that's leaving aside whether the question was prejudged in the first place.

Comparison / Contrast  We Catholics acknowledge the authority of scripture, but believe that the authority of scripture actually derives from the authority of the Catholic Church. The magisterium is the authoritative keeper of the 'deposit of faith' which includes both scripture and tradition. We get into speculation if we try to get too much deeper into it. Yes, scripture and tradition can't be contradictory and the Church does not have the authority to contradict either scripture or tradition. But scripture and it's interpretation, and tradition are all dependent on the Authority of the Church. They really can't be separated. Some ecumenical minded theologians have described the Catholic model as also being prima scriptura. The huge difference is that we believe the college of Bishops in cooperation with the Pope teach infallibly in matters of Faith and morals. Authority, tradition and scripture must harmonize, but in the Catholic model authority is required and present!

The result of that is that when we Catholics have a question about the Faith we very seldom start with only scripture, and for expediency we often skip actually looking up the scripture in the Bible. 2000 years of history, teaching and tradition go before us. We'd be spinning our wheels unnecessarily if we didn't consult other sources - the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Encyclicals, the Doctors of the Church might all consulted along with scripture. These sources will cite and quote the most relevant scripture passages. It's going above and beyond to actually dig up a concordance (which most Catholics have never used) and try to re-examine the whole Bible.

My personal observation and opinion From a Catholic perspective, I don't see any fundamental difference between 'scripture first' and 'only scripture' as I observe various Protestants using them. The scripture only groups - Baptists, Evangelicals, non-denominational Bible churches - place scripture as an authority above any traditional interpretation, scholarly approach or any authority. The scripture first groups use models where scripture is one part of authority along with tradition and reason - This is described as the 'Anglican Three Legged Stool', or the 'Methodists quadrilateral'(scripture, tradition, reason, experience). The idea seems to be that they are of comparable weight and value except that nothing can contradict scripture. However, if the interpretation of scripture changes and someone decides as a result that scripture contradicts what has been passed down by tradition, tradition loses. So the overall result is the same to me - what ever interpretation of scripture I can manage to justify (politically to my followers) is superior to any traditional Christian doctrine no matter how central, ancient or strongly proclaimed.

So extreme Fundamentalists who take a very strict literal interpretation of scripture and end up denying the sacramental nature of Baptism and preach a 'once saved always saved' Gospel are actually very similar to liberal Episcopalians lesbian priestesses who claim that Christianity is compatible with both Islam and a homosexual lifestyle because they both reject 2000 years of constant Christian tradition on the authority of scripture as they interpret it.

Answer Part B
Culture Speaking in broad generalities and some speculation: Protestants more often than Catholics grow up in a home where the Bible is read often and conspicuously. Where a really devout Catholic family might pray the rosary as a family, a devout Protestant Family would be more likely to read the Bible as a family. For devotional time a Catholic parent might read the Bible on occasion, but would be most likely to use a Missal and follow the Lectionary or the Liturgy of the Hours or might read books by or about the Saints. A Protestant parent is much more likely to make the Bible a mainstay and constant element of their daily prayer time.

So Protestant kids are just plain much more likely to grow up having the Bible read to them, seeing Mom and Dad reading the Bible, having discussions centered on the Bible. And when they go to Sunday school the education program is likely tied very very closely to the Bible and involves actually reading actual Bibles especially for older children. While Catholic Religious Education is more likely to involved crappy workbooks that might have some Bible readings or short quotations. Typically, at least until recently, you'd very rarely find Catholic students reading from actual Bibles in Religious Education.

I've also observed that Protestant (esp. evangelical) programs for kids often have very very effective educational approaches to teaching scripture. Effective use of Songs and visual aides using all learning modalities and using a very effective (if dentally hazardous) system of positive reinforcement.

For many of the non-liturgical varieties of Protestantism the Sunday service consists largely of a very good, probably lengthy and hopefully well prepared and researched sermon. Many in the congregation are likely to be following along in their own Bibles. It is common for these sermons to jump between several books and the OT and NT, and at least some of the time involve reading longer passages as opposed to 'proof texting.'

Answer Part C
Framework This is really a derivation of both Part A and Part B. Protestants whether formally or informally are much more likely to have acquired a 'framework' or hermeneutic (or a set of hermeneutics) for approaching scripture. Those Bible discussions they've listened in on, or participated in and sermon series "preaching through Ezekiel" have transmitted more than facts - they have transmitted a 'tradition' of how to analyze and interpret scripture! Sunday school has provided anchor points and familiarity navigating the Bible and the different types of books. You will seldom find the poster of a bookshelf showing all the books of the bible arranged and color coded for Pentateuch, History, Poetry, Wisdom, Major Prophets, Minor Prophets.. in a Catholic RE classroom.

As a result most protestants that grew up attending church have 'sea legs' when it comes to reading the Bible. They may not have "all the answers" but they rightly feel like they know the terrain.

My guess is that most Catholics can easily feel overwhelmed by reading certain parts of the Bible - particularly Leviticus, Numbers, the Prophets - especially Danial and Amos, the Pauline epistles, and Revelation. I think generally Catholics do Okay with most of the Psalms, Genesis, and the Gospels. Although some of the parables can seem confusing. I think Catholics get easily frustrated with it. Partly because we don't have a plan for understanding it. Where I think it is more typical that Protestants do have a plan and some tools.

Spanning the Protestant / Catholic divide - Part I "Why Don't Catholics Know the Bible"

Intro: I have been interested in improving communication and reducing confusion between Protestants and Catholics for some time. My pet theory is that we often misunderstand and talk at cross purposes because we have different 'culture' and language, and that even when we use the same words, we may not understand them the same way. So this series is not meant to be apologetic so much as it is meant to be focused on the differences in how we approach Faith and the world.

While eating Mexican fast food with a large group of guys after a 12 step meeting last night I got into a conversation with a knowledgeable and fairly open minded Protestant. John mentioned that he was impressed that I was well informed about my faith and that in his experience Catholics have not been able to answer his questions and they didn't know the Bible.

So John asked me “Why don’t most Catholic know the Bible? ” Also I think he asked if reading the Bible on one’s own was discouraged by the Church.Afterward I wasn’t satisfied with my answer, so now I’m blogging about it. The question is not as simple to answer as it is to ask! My response was (roughly): “Catholics should read the Bible more on their own, but probably most don’t read it often. The Catholic Church is a Church of the Bible. I think its partly that it’s very comfortable being a Catholic. The Sacraments are efficacious regardless of my personal understanding.” It was an inadequate response. We were one conversation in a group and it wasn’t a time when we could focus on really fleshing things out.

So I’d like to take a crack at it here. The problems and solutions for dialoguing with Protestants has been one of my main lines of thought over the past few years, so I am planning to make this a series.

Answer Part A
Catholics do know the Bible! Yes, contrary to what nearly all Protestants and most Catholics believe, Catholics do actually know the Bible. I would even say that it is reasonable that in general the average ‘practicing’ Catholic knows the Bible roughly as well as the Average Protestant!

Catholics just don’t ‘know’ the Bible the same way that Protestants ‘know’ the Bible, or at least the way Catholics think that most Protestants ‘know’ the Bible. Usually Catholics feel inferior about our Bible knowledge because we can’t turn right to the Chapter and Verse for hardly anything, and we don’t generally have any verses perfectly memorized.On the other hand, Protestants are often portrayed in fiction and film and occasionally turn up on our door step seeming to know Chapter and Verse all up and down and forwards and backwards through the whole Bible.

And it is generally true that many ‘serious’ Protestants especially those from very Evangelical or Fundamentalist backgrounds will have spent more time personally reading the Bible and will have memorized at least a couple of dozen verses up to maybe a hundred or so. Thus as a Catholic I feel very inferior because I just paraphrase, usually mix up passages from a couple of places and have a hard time locating any of it quickly by Chapter and verse.

On the other hand, Catholics who attend Mass every Sunday hear a lot of scripture! Three readings usually one Old Testament, one New Testament (epistles, Acts and Revelation) and one Gospel each between 5 and 15 verses or occasionally longer. In the 3 year cycle of readings for the Sunday Mass we hear a pretty healthy fraction of the Bible and certainly all of the most significant passages.

From the readings at Sunday Mass alone, nearly every Catholic who consistently attends Mass weekly is very familiar with all the really significant parts of scripture. I’m not implying in the least that we should call that “good enough” or that there is nothing of value or importance that we’re missing. What I am saying is that Catholics who actually attend Mass actually do know reasonably well what is in the Bible – we just aren’t very good at finding it.

At the same time, I’m not convinced that taken as a whole Protestants really know the Bible all that well. Certainly among certain branches of Protestantism there is a very strong tradition of Bible study, and there are Protestants who really do know the Bible in and out. But I have questions. How often is Bible knowledge heavily focused on particular passages and books – spotty? How often is Bible knowledge focused on memorizing isolated verses and proof texting? How often is Bible knowledge distorted by rigorous use of a particular hermeneutic or denominational understanding?

What I quickly discovered in my own journey is that often times the “Commanding Knowledge” of the Bible I was confronting was pretty easy to deflate. Just memorizing 7 verses supporting the Catholic doctrines and insisting on reading verses in context, and having confidence to know that there are answers and I found that most debates with Protestant Bible thumpers ended very quickly and they seldom make another run at me.

Answer Part B
We have tried / are trying. All my lifetime I’ve known that reading the Bible either personally or in a study group is very much encouraged. Certainly since Vatican II the Church has strongly encouraged Bible reading. Every parish I’ve ever attended was continually offering and starting Bible studies.

I think a healthy majority of practicing Catholics have made an effort at one time or another to ‘read the Bible’ and a pretty good percentage has joined a Bible Study group at least once. Yet overall, it doesn’t seem like serious Bible reading has ‘caught on’ among Catholics. Still, I think most Catholics have managed to read Genesis, the Gospels, a healthy selection of the Psalms and a spattering of everything else.

Answer Part C
Basic Explanation: Reading the Bible is HARD. It’s difficult to build a habit. The Bible is readable in some areas, but many books are very dry, or confusing. Some parts of the Old Testament are difficult to relate to the present. We don’t know the history and background well enough to really keep track of what is going on in the historic books. Romans in particular and large parts of the other Pauline epistles are very confusing to follow and sort out. Not to mention Revelation.

It is generally not something we grew up doing, and seeing our parents do, so we don’t have a framework for it. Generally, Catholic religious education both at the parish and at home, doesn’t focus on the Bible. One result is that the Bible isn’t seen as the source for what we need to know – which is partly true. Another result is that we don’t learn a basic familiarity with Catholic principles for interpreting scripture (literal, allegorical, moral and anagogical senses) and don’t get a ‘feel’ for the various types of literature in the Bible, and a general sense of the history of Israel and how the prophets fit in with the Chronology. Then when we come to the Bible as an adult, we have a hard time ‘developing our sea legs.’

Answer Part D
For Catholics there is no ‘need’ or question that drives us to read the Bible! This is the answer I was trying to get at with my initial reply. As Catholics, we are content with our 'uncertain' salvation. We accept our Sacramental System and that's that. We just don't worry about Calvin, vs. Zwingli vs. Luther vs. Wesley vs. NT Wright when it comes to salvation. The average Catholic seldom or never gets into theological debates unless we’re “attacked” by Protestant evangelizers.

And this is actually HEALTHY. We know that we are justified through Faith in Jesus Christ. We know that we were Baptized and that we receive Communion and go to Confession and most of us have been Confirmed. We know that these Sacraments are Mysterious and real symbols of God’s grace and that we receive the free gift of God’s grace through the sacraments. We understand that our minor sins are forgiven in the two confessions we make during every Mass and that we are united to Jesus Christ by receiving His Body and Blood in the Eucharist. We understand that when we confess serious (or minor) sins to a Priest and receive absolution we don’t have to worry anymore if we are “truly sorry;” the sacrament is not dependent on our subjective emotional feelings. Once we’ve received absolution – from Jesus through the Priest we know for sure that we are forgiven from ALL our sins.

The average Catholic could use a refresher course on the details of being in a “state of grace” and how that relates to what Paul is talking about in Romans regarding being in the Spirit and the Obedience of Faith as opposed to being “a slave to sin” or “in the flesh.” I think that nearly all practicing Catholics have the essential understanding intuitively, even if they are pretty fuzzy on the details and vocabulary. And again, grace doesn't require our knowledge or comprehension.

Having the Sacraments, particularly Baptism, Confession and Eucharist leads to a great sense of security. Catholics who actually attend Mass regularly at least intuitively understand the Sacraments and as a result, the questions, theological or personal or ecclesiastical , that might make Bible study an urgent priority just aren’t there for us.

Conclusion
That leaves a perfect lead in for Part II in this series: Why Do Protestants focus so much on reading the Bible?

I'm Not Mortified

One Catholic controversy this week has been the news that Pope John Paul the Great practiced physical mortification in the form of flagellation, striking himself with leather thongs or a belt. Many Catholics as well as members of the general public have reacted with shock that such practices might be allowed or encouraged for Catholics. I am not shocked or surprised.

During his last years, beginning in the Jubilee year 2000 as I watched Pope John Paul II carry out the burdens of his office I was often struck by his fortitude and his joy. I was often stunned, especially when children were around, at the joy that shone through his face, and as Parkinson's took over, just his eyes. And as he entered St. Peter's to open the millennial door in 2000 and he tripped on entering and had to be helped up, and steadied through much of the liturgy, I 'knew' he was joyfully accepting his infirmities, and his burdens and that he was offering them to Jesus for the good of the whole Church.

Maybe I'm fortunate that I had acquired at least a basic introduction to serious practices of mortification through reading about the great mystics particularly St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila. When you read about the lives of these two Saints and others like them, and particularly when you read their own writings, beneath the harshness of their lives is a joyful heart. The lives they lived, the work they did, and the mortification of various types could not have been endured had they not been deeply rooted in the joy of Christ.


Some of my Failures in Mortification
Personally, I only have a few little experiences with mortification any more serious than the occasional fast. About 14 years ago, in my first couple of years of marriage, I was working on a college campus. I was constantly surrounded by attractive women of all ages, and often the standards of dress were not modest. I constantly found myself failing in keeping custody of my eyes and my thoughts. I would continually find my head swiveling and my eyes lingering and my thoughts followed. Too often I didn't summon much resolve to resist these temptations. As Lent rolled around I read about medieval Lenten practices and that sometimes people would put pebbles in their shoes. Since I was already wearing a scapular and a miraculous medal and carrying a rosary in my pocket and putting holy cards in all kinds of places to remind myself to pray, I decided to try pebbles in my shoes for Lent.

So the first day of lent on my way into work I picked up a nice smooth pebble and put it in my shoe. Whenever the pebble bothered me I intended to pray and surrender my thoughts and will to Jesus. Within hours I was comfortable with a pebble in my shoe, so at lunch I put one in the other shoe. It wasn't enough to break my sinful habits, and I soon was able to ignore the discomfort. So the next day I added more pebbles. Still not enough discomfort.

So, I experimented. I started looking for sharp and pointy pebbles, and found that fairly small was more painful than larger, but too small and I could work them to the side, or down to the toe. By the end of the first week I had 7 pointy rocks in each shoe and I was still regularly falling into my habit of sin. Also, I began to actually challenge myself as to how much discomfort I could endure. At times, it was very uncomfortable, but I'd force myself to walk with a normal stride. And I'd force myself to walk as much as I normally would and even a little more. Although each day it would be painful for a couple of hours (I was on my feet most of the morning) I began to build tolerance for the pain, even though I'd have dents in my soles for an hour or so every night.

I have to say my experiment failed. I didn't break my habit of sinning against chastity, and I didn't make much or any spiritual progress. I did learn a few things. I learned why physical mortification should be done under spiritual direction and not independently; because it is too easy to be driven by self-will and pride and not grace. I learned that pain is not much of a mortification for me.

During another Lent I tried taking lukewarm showers - I really really love HOT showers. Again, I found I soon was able to adapt, and soon began to derive prideful pleasure from forcing myself to endure colder and colder showers. And again it was spiritually unproductive.

I could genuinely see flagellating myself and it doesn't disturb me, and I know I could handle the discomfort. I would prefer flagellating to being attentive to the smaller and more mundane duties of my life - like dusting, or doing paperwork. So for me mortification must take some other form.

Another problem with my efforts at mortification has been insufficient love and devotion to God. In some way there has always been an element of "me doing something for God. Even in trying to surrender my sinful habits, I too often try because I need to succeed in surrendering this Sin for God. And as a reward God will give me peace.

Sorry Charlie - it doesn't work that way.

The Gospel and Sanctification
John Paul II and Saint Paul and all the Saints show us the right way. Paraphrasing Saint Paul our Joy comes from our salvation in the free gift of our redemption through Christ Jesus crucified and resurrected. If by Faith we live in that Hope we will have Joy. We will die to self and be filled with the spirit. In the spirit we may find the grace to accept life's natural sufferings as joyful mortification and offer our small sufferings to God. And we will have the grace to fast and mortify our natural drives and desires. And that is how some of the Saints are asked by God to accept more suffering for the good of the whole Church.

Sanctity, both ordinary for me and extraordinary for the Saints isn't in what or how much we accomplish. John Paul II's saintliness does not rest on the success of his Papacy in the view of history. It rests solely on his heroic virtue in accepting and bearing the burdens of the Papacy fully submitting himself to God's Grace and sustained entirely by God's grace serving the Church Joyfully and humbly in the midst of great troubles and worries. Just as the sanctity of Pius XII does not hinge on whether he made the best possible decisions regarding the Nazis and the death camps during WWII. It is sufficient that in good conscience he made the best decision he could, and that he did not cooperate in perpetrating evil.

Sister Antonia - A Saint I know
I am fortunate to know one elderly nun, Sister Antonia who is a Saint, although her cause will never be promoted. I met Sister Antonia when I was right out of college. I went on a silent retreat led by a Father O'Malley S.J. and he later introduced me to Sister Antonia at a coffee and doughnut social after Mass at St. Aloysius. At that time Sister Antonia was 74 - she was born the same year as John Paul II. After retiring from teaching and nursing she was running a home / treatment center for developmentally disabled adults with addictions! She took me into her world and thank God she did.

I've learned quite a lot about what it really means to be a Saint from Sister Antonia. She is human. She is wonderfully, and sometimes frustratingly human. But she is also full of joy at all times. When the University that owned the house she ran her home in saw fit to 'help' her get out of such a taxing ministry she moved into a tiny apartment and worked as a minister to the home bound for the parish - nearly all of her clients were younger than she was at 77. She would walk 5 or 6 miles a day in the winter snow and ice doing her rounds. She fell several times due to improper foot wear, after that a few of her patrons made sure she got new boots every year.

It has always been very difficult to give anything to Sister Antonia for two reasons. The first is that she gives you something every time she sees you and if you give her a gift, she will give you even more. The second problem is that she is always giving so much stuff away, that she most often will give away what ever you give her to the next person that comes along.

I was excited the first time Sister Antonia invited me to the house for dinner. Then I tasted the food. Boiled pot roast and boiled cabbage. I still don't really understand how one can make pot roast taste that bad. Now she has been in a nursing home for about 2 years with a bad back and having had several heart attacks. She wrote a letter to the Bishop and got permission to minister to the people in the home, so everyday she makes her rounds in her wheel chair taking gifts to each patient and praying with them. One of my recent visits I came at lunch time and she gave me her sandwich and kept her chicken noodle soup. She made a show of 'bragging' how she'd gained weight since someone had given her this box of cereal that she started pouring into her soup. ALL BRAN! Yes, I realized later, she was deliberately making her food unpalatable by adding All Bran to chicken noodle soup, and she was covering by saying this is how she was gaining weight. She's traditional orthodox Catholic and she doesn't have much patience for nuns without habits etc. and she really comes close to letting loose on the sedevacantists who are prominent in that area. But every time she starts to get worked up, you can see her draw herself short, and then if you notice, she'll probably do some small penance immediately.

When you visit this 90 year old woman who has been stuck in a nursing home for 2 years, is in pain, and has had at least 3 heart attacks; I promise the first thing you will notice is her JOYFULNESS. Her will and her soul are conformed to Christ Jesus and in that alone she finds peace. Then she will give you a holy card, or an article clipped from a newspaper, or a collection of straws, or if someone else visited today, you'll get some of what ever they brought.

I don't know if she ever practiced any sort of flagellation or self-inflicted pain as mortification.  She might have, or I would guess not.  She does, however, through grace and humility out of love for Jesus mortify her own desires and passions and joyfully accepts little crosses for the glory of God.  And that is what we should focus on with all the Saints, John Paul II included.

St. Therese of Lisieux, Purgatory, Human Weakness and Why I haven't blogged

SO to translate the title of this post: A Miscellaneous Ramble Through Paul's Thoughts Today. I should probably start with St. Therese - But I'm going to make you read to the bottom for that. You can probably just skim though.

So here is the deal. I'm pretty good at looking and acting like a decent sort of chap, at least for short engagements, or especially over the internet (my wife and kids of course know better). Occasionally someone, usually at a celebration for a baptism, will comment on what great kids I have and what a great Dad I am and how I am "holy" or a "saint" or some such. When this first occurred it startled me but I quickly came up with a response: "Well, I'm hoping to get into purgatory, but I figure I'm going to be there for a LONG time."

Over the past few years as I have wrestled with my demons. I have tried and failed to overcome and defeat sin in my life. I have tried and failed to be better husband and father. I have tried to be less selfish. I have tried to stop being so glutenous - and I'm not just talking about dieting - and failed. And so on, right on through the list of 7 deadly sins. Then there is total failure at work and even being productive. To be clear - my 'trying' has meant prayer and relying on God.... I know I will never heal myself.

Through all of this I have often found myself contemplating my failures, weaknesses and sins while trying to figure out "what next." Always the answer is the same although sometimes I try really hard to find another. The answer is go to confession, resolve to keep trying and commit myself to Christ. That is followed by doing better at daily prayer etc..

To my thinking my line about purgatory seemed very applicable. Actually, I really sometimes doubt whether I will ultimately "make the cut" or "be saved." Really. I see a real possibility of Hell in my eternity. So the question becomes "Why bother continuing to fail? Why not just accept my fate and stop trying." And my resolution has been to go back and modify that line. In my own thoughts I think well "I'm either going to be the fellow in Hell that tried hardest to stay out, or suffer more than just about anybody else in purgatory."

Believe it or not, that has brought some peace to me - if you can call it that. Due to some gift of grace I can't fathom, I'm stubborn and I'm not going to quit on God. Really if I burn for eternity so be it, but I'm not going to go there on purpose! I have to admit, there hasn't been much of the virtue of Hope in me. I am getting very, very tired of the whole thing.

So, if I hooked you on St. Therese - here it comes and the purgatory part too. I've read "The Story of a Soul" and probably one or two other bits of writing from St. Therese, but I wasn't aware of anything about her theology of purgatory. Cleaning up my very disorganized and cluttered office / sleeping area I found a partly crumpled printout of "God's Mercy is Greater: The Teaching of St. Therese of Lisieux on purgatory" by Father Dr. Hubert van Dijk, ORC. I don't know where I got it from, I had to google it to find the link for you all.

I am sure many of you will struggle to digest St. Therese's views. They challenge my understanding of purgatory! "Oh! How you grieve me! You do great injury to God in believing you're going to Purgatory. When we love, we can't go there." (Last Conversations, ICS. Washington DC, 1971, pg 273) WOW! So according to this paper, St. Therese said that we would offend God if we didn't trust enough that we would get to heaven right after dying. Here is one more direct quote from St. Therese speaking to one of her novices Maria Philomena:

You do not have enough trust. You have too much fear before the good God. I can assure you that He is grieved over this. You Should not fear Purgatory because of the suffering there, but should instead ask that you not deserve to go there in order to please God, Who so reluctantly imposes this punishment. As soon as you try to please Him in everything and have an unshakable trust He purifies your every moment in His love and He lets no sin remain. And then you can be sure that you will not have to go to Purgatory.

Somehow, I find this message to be a very great source of Hope for me today. Because regardless of my weaknesses and failures, I do Love God! I want to Trust in God's Mercy. I know enough not to take that too far and fall into presumption. I still abhor my sins.

Now, about blogging. Among other things besides being an alcoholic and a drug addict, I'm a perfectionist, obsessive compulsive with ADHD and a quitter. There in my weaknesses and sinfulness, I'm a great one for good starts! I'm terrible at FINISHING! I wrote a few posts here, and you people actually READ them, and some people shared how they liked them and I obsessed on writing them for a few days. Then came the day that I couldn't find a way to right a piece that was "good enough" and the self imposed pressure was on to be a big shot blogger. So I disappeared into a different fantasy besides the real world responsibilities I should focus on.

That's that

God Bless

Sorry for the Inconvenience

Hi,

Sorry to leave you all hanging. It looks like my readers have been here more than I have the last few months. I am finally going through and doing some needed editing on the existing posts, so I hope you won't be too inconvenienced by having these old posts show up in your RSS feed again.

I've been mentally composing a couple of new posts anyway and today I hit upon this blog postEvangelicals and the Contraceptive Mentality thanks to Mark Shea. I left a comment there and quoted one of my entries here. Thus today's edit.

If I get a new post up, it will be on procrastination and discipline - from my personal experience

Catholic Family Life - In the Bedroom - Part 4

Catholic Family Life - In the Bedroom - Part 3

Catholic Family Life - In the Bedroom - Part 2

Catholic Family Life - In the Bedroom - Part 1

If you start talking about NFP in a group of active young Catholic couples, it won't be long before the discussion starts getting heated. Even spouses seem to get worked up defending their particular take on how and when to use NFP. Sex is a pretty controversial area that goes to the core of the human experience in a way that nothing else can. It's OK to disagree with your friends about pizza toppings and sports teams, but when you start talking sex - things can get uncomfortable.

My wife and I used NFP to avoid pregnancy for the first 3 years of our marriage. At the time, our reasoning was really rather secular. I'm not sure we would have made the same decisions if we knew then what we know now. Our predominant reason was simply that we thought it would be better to have a couple years of marriage to enjoy before we had kids. Really not a very compelling reason in hindsight. A host of smaller reasons were financial, living situation etc.. It's easy for me to see now that most of those reasons are smaller that I thought at the time. I think our secular culture encourages to think that we should wait on marriage and family until we have our lives all worked out, and are financially successful. I think today's economic hard-times might be putting the lie to that philosophy.

After having taken the plunge of marriage and having a family and all the uncertainty, insecurity, responsibility and JOY that came with it I have a different perspective. I say go for it. Don't wait, life is short. Don't count on ever having enough order, money and security in your life to make everything easy. Even if it is easy, it won't necessarily make you happier than struggling.

Anyway, I sometimes feel a little guilty about the time my wife and I spent avoiding pregnancy. There are many who toss out the term "contraceptive mentality" about other couples who use NFP to avoid pregnancy for reasons that are perceived as not really all that serious. The idea being that a couple can use NFP improperly or sinfully. That marriage is to be "open to life" (CCC 1652, 2366-7) and NFP is only to be used to space children for "serious reasons"(CCC 2368) The Catechism of the Catholic Church wisely leaves the discernment of "serious reasons" up to the couple but states in section 2368 that it must not be "motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generiosity appropriate to responsible parenthood."

However, I've found not shortage of fine Catholic folks that will readily share their opinion that many or even almost all couples using NFP to avoid pregnancy do not have a serious enough reason. There is the specter of the 'contraceptive mentality.'

I must admit, that in recent years, as I've begun to see that our reasons for avoiding pregnancy weren't really all that well thought out, and were mainly the secular culture norms of our day, I've felt maybe my wife and I had used NFP inappropriately and committed the sin of having a 'contraceptive mentality.'

Actually, writing Part 3 of this series has changed my thinking significantly. I'm not saying that maybe my wife and I couldn't have made different decisions. However, when I wrote Part 3 I realized that had we taken the approach of planning children immediately and not using NFP to space or avoid pregnancy in anything but the direst of circumstances, I probably wouldn't have learned to be a real Catholic husband and that frequent sex wasn't my right, or necessary for me male ego.

That got me thinking. I know quite a few couples non-Catholic and Catholic who are on the 'whatever God gives us' program. I started thinking abut the men, several of whom I know very well. I realized that sexual problems and attitudes similar to my own distorted sexuality show up in some of these men too and you can see the effects in their marriages. In fact, at least a few of them have had serious marriage problems - separations and a divorce. I don't know enough details, but I have enough clues to speculate. Broadening out beyond families I actually know well, I realize I know, or know of, quite a few Christian families with 6 or more kids that have ended in tragic divorces. Mel Gibson comes to mind also.

This is a tentative thought, but one I think worth considering carefully. Perhaps there are actually dangers to the absolute 'place everything in God's providence' approach to family planning. Maybe that isn't inherently most sanctifying approach.

I'm leaning toward the view that NFP and self-control can be good in and of themselves. And it isn't just for me individually. It is also in the decisions my wife and I made together. We had to learn to listen to each other, and understand each other, and most importantly consider the needs of the other person. I had to learn to accept that my wife was more committed to avoiding pregnancy at that time than I was. Truthfully she always is more committed to avoiding than I am. In fact, early in our marriage my commitment to avoiding evaporated at about 10:00 every evening and didn't return until 8 or 9 hours later. Learning to really respect, and not just grudgingly tolerate my wife's desire to avoid was extremely beneficial to me. The fact that we were in a more challenging than average NFP situation, having to use special rules and not getting many green non-fertile days was actually a blessing (I'll get in to more ways - probably in the next post).

In fact I will say unequivocally that for men who have been severely affected by pornography, promiscuity and related issues, practicing NFP to avoid is more than just practical, it is a highly beneficial if not essential experience for such men growing up and breaking free from the bondage of sexual selfishness.

The Contraceptive Mentality

Now I'm not sure that a 'contraceptive mentality' is really an issue for a couple actually practicing NFP. I think it's easy to speculate about a theoretical couple that is using NFP but is somehow sinfully rejecting God's intended gifts of a child, or another child in their family. In reality, I don't see how that is going to happen. The fact is that practicing NFP to avoid pregnancy is fairly challenging for a fertile couple. NFP promotes communication, trust and understanding between the spouses. The fact that every month the couple has to decide to have intercourse on fertile days or not I think makes it pretty hard to have a contraceptive mentality. When every conjugal act is open to life, even if the couple is somewhat closed, I think the openness of the acts will lead to openness in the couple. When the reasons for avoiding pregnancy are something short of grave necessity, I think the attitude of opposition will soon be overcome by the openness of the acts.

In my own case, my wife used NFP to avoid for almost 3 years. At that point, if anything we were further away from feeling ready for children than we were when we got married. Our economic circumstances were more uncertain, we were living in a smaller apartment, our bank account was smaller. Yet, we had grown together as a couple, and we had grown spiritually. We had gone through some very uncertain and difficult changes in life and learned that we probably weren't ever going to get to the point where we could be certain of providing the ideal life for children. We decided to take the plunge and trust. And it really required trust. Our combined income was less than half what it had been when we got married. We were living in a one bedroom apartment, and we had one working car. 6 weeks pregnant my wife had complications and had to take leave from work so we lost even more of our income. Yet, we didn't have any problem at that point joyfully welcoming a child into our family.

You know, it all just works out. It isn't always easy. Expect the unexpected. Trust in God, open your heart to Jesus, say a Rosary and live. Life is precious life is sweet. And Babies are the best gifts of all.

Catholic Family Life - In the Bedroom - Part 3

Catholic Family Life - In the Bedroom - Part 1

Catholic Family Life - In the Bedroom - Part 2

Living out God's plan for me and my wife in marriage is the most difficult thing I have ever attempted and stuck with. Practicing NFP isn't an easy thing, and it hasn't been easy in my marriage from day -120 the beginning of our 4 month engagement when we started learning the Creighton Method. Picking up a box of pills or getting my wife a shot of depo provera looks like it would be a whole lot easier. We had at least 8 sessions with our teacher before the wedding, and we were told we really didn't start early enough because we weren't going to be fully trained in time for the wedding.

The honeymoon was a brutal call to mortification. It turns out my wife isn't the text book model case of NFP. She had irregular cycles, strange mucus, later it turned out a progesterone cycle imbalance and the 6 or 7 days of abstinence per month that I expected turned out to be something like 20 or so initially. And the Honeymoon. 10 days, and not one "green" (definitely non-fertile) day. Not what I had planned for my honeymoon.

Not having intercourse on my honeymoon probably saved my marriage. If it hadn't been for NFP, and our uncompromising Creighton Method teacher I honestly believe my marriage would have ended years ago. I would have caused my marriage to fail because without NFP I would have not learned what marriage was about. In my selfishness and my pornographic mentality I would have used and abused my wife as an object.

Bear with me for a minute.

Our most basic human need is a relationship with our Creator. There is nothing we can obtain, possess, experience or receive that will satisfy this need. The very heart of the fall is the precisely the weakness of "falling for" the deceit that something out there will increase our happiness. We become driven to search for more, seeking to increase ourselves, our dominion and our comfort. It also takes the form of attempting assuage our insecurity, fears and uncertainty through reliance on creation and our own cunning and manipulation instead of God.

None of us is ever entirely free from this disease of the soul. Saints and truly holy servants of God practice mortification of the flesh. By abandonment to the Divine Providence, acts of the will, and the corporal works of mercy they seek to be fulfilled in relationship to God. They practice rejecting the lie that some better satisfaction can be found in any other way.

When I refuse to mortify my passions, I lay myself open to the slavery of sin. Quite literally refusing to mortify my desires for more pleasure, security, and comfort coupled with holding onto my fears is the source of all my addictions and my bondage to selfishness. No matter how hard I pursue satisfaction through anything other than God I will always need more and I will always be unsatisfied.

Yet, even though I already know the truth.. It is still easy for me to slip into the belief that just a little indulgence will be better than actually trusting in God. Whenever I find myself in the middle of any one of the 7 deadly sins - that is why I am there. I believe for that moment that I can get more peace and satisfaction and comfort from gluttony, or pride, or lust than God will give me if I just trust in Him. And in the end I will always find that I've been chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There is nothing there.

The path to holiness cannot in any circumstances be found in anything except conforming my will to God's will. Marriage is my vocation, and the path to holiness for myself and my wife. We have promised to love each other, and through our love glorify God and help each other to grow in sanctity. That means that my marriage and family is the primary venue in my life for mortifying my disordered desires and coming to trust more fully in God.

Here's a quote from in article on the Huffington Post blog from just today (my emphasis):

Nobody likes abortion. That is not the question being debated. Prevention, not abortion, is the vastly preferred method of family planning. Abortion is an invasive surgical technique, physically and psychologically traumatic, expensive, and potentially dangerous. Whereas responsible adult sex should be as frequent as desired, unwanted pregnancy should be exceptional rather than routine. Part of the adult responsibility commensurate with having an active sex life is prudent and careful use of contraception. Abortion should not be viewed as a contraceptive given the procedures emotional and physical complications. However, if an unwanted pregnancy occurs, a women's right to choose her own reproductive destiny must be protected.

The abortion issue is ancillary to this discourse, but I leave it in because it makes good context. The only "responsibility" is to try to avoid unwanted consequences - children.

There is the essence of a "contraceptive mentality" (I use the quotes because this is a term we'll need to deal with in a later post). I should have an unrestricted right to enjoy sex and avoid any undesired consequences. It may sound course and extreme and I am positive a nice contracepting Catholic will argue that they love their spouse as much as I love mine and that ..... But that is the deceit. That is the lie. Look at the truth. As I ended Part 2 of this series borrowing from Boettger's Blog:

Contraception was NOT invented to prevent pregnancy as there was already a fully effective way to prevent it which, again, I’m confident all of you are practicing as you read this column: abstinence. Contraception was invented to sterilize the fertile period so that if the urge to have sex were to arise during that period, neither the man nor the woman would need to muster up the energy to deny that urge in the fear of pregnancy.

Contraception serves one and only one purpose: allowing adult sex to be as "frequent as desired" without those pesky unwanted pregnancies. And even this promise is hollow because contraception fails and abortion is necessary as a backup.

Once again, the lie of contraception is that "my marriage will be happier and more satisfying if my spouse and I can enjoy sex at will while managing to avoid the responsibility of having more children." And this is a lie because it is precisely the path of avoiding mortification, seeking to wrest our own happiness and satisfaction from the world and denying ourselves the opportunity to trust in God to provide for us. This is not simply because we should want another child or be open to life. It is primarily because we insist on having it both ways. We refuse to trust God to provide us the capacity to love and raise a child and we refuse to accept that we can live a satisfactory life by mortifying our sexual appetites and seeking to trust in God. This in the end denies the primary purpose of marriage - the rearing and education of children, and the secondary purpose of marriage - helping each other to grow in holiness. To contraception of the conjugal act is to "fall for" the lie of the serpent and believe that there is something better than God.

Back to My Honeymoon

Although I'd fully accepted the Church and had become a pretty active Catholic who accepted the authority of the Magisterium and I was seeking to trust in and follow God's law, I still had (and still have) a lot of growing to do. I'd begun the process of getting free from pornography and everything that goes with it, but I wasn't completely free. With 3 years of sobriety from alcohol and drugs I still hadn't learned much about surrendering my selfishness.

I still had a self centered pornographic mentality with regards to marital sex and my wife. Our Honeymoon forced me, yes forced me to confront that mentality - even though I didn't know it. I remember praying in my frustration, and the thought coming: "Why did you marry this woman?"

Surprise! Surprise! SURPRISE! I didn't marry my wife to have Sex! That's right. I didn't marry my wife to have sex. I married my wife because I love her, and I want to be with her. And no matter how hard things are, it is her that I want to struggle through it with. If something were to happen to my wife or me today that made sex impossible for the rest of our lives, it wouldn't change anything.

I had to learn to trust God in a lot of ways. I learned to trust God that I didn't need to have sex. I learned to trust God that there wasn't some better way to get satisfaction.

It took a while, but I had to learn that my wife is not an object for me to use for my pleasure. In the first few months I did continue to attempt to mold her into my pornographic sex life. It failed miserably. If it hadn't been for NFP I wouldn't have been able to know better, and I would have destroyed my marriage trying to make my wife live up to the fantasies I'd poisoned myself with.

The first three years of our marriage NFP was constantly frustrating. Together we discussed our options, and I certainly thought about the alternatives myself. That moment from the 8th day of our honeymoon stuck with me. Having learned about NFP, and knowing that it is possible to identify when a woman is fertile it became impossible for me to make my wife unnaturally and synthetically sterilize herself so I could use her body without accepting that God had designed her to bring life into our marriage.

Catholic Family Life - in the Bedroom - Part 2

Catholic Family Life - in the Bedroom - Part 1 Another interesting blog post by Boettger

I need to make clear that I am using the term "Natural Family Planning" or NFP very loosely and some will probably object to that. People who know will point out that NFP is 99.7% effective when followed and that NFP is based on observations and the couple communicating and deciding whether they wish to achieve or avoid pregnancy. Just "not contracepting" is not the same as practicing NFP. Sorta kinda following the directions is not practicing NFP. So I know I'm not being really accurate. My reasoning is that NFP or Natural Family Planning is easier to say, and communicates what I mean better than any other term I can think of. The most accurate statement is probably "families who sincerely try to practice Catholic doctrine for marriage" or something like that, and a lot of people who have to deconstruct that to figure out what I meant.

I'm not sure any of the 9 families I'm close enough with to have any inside info on are really practicing NFP. I know two of the couples who are currently pregnant, and another couple with recent twins were seriously charting and planning on avoiding pregnancy. Two of the families in our cohort have actually been practicing the other NFP - NO family Planning, those are the two with 9 and 7 kids. Please pray for both of those families. In each of them one of the spouses is saying enough we need to use NFP and their spouse thinks another 5 or 6 kids is no problem. I should point out that both of these wives are just barely 30, so they could have another 7 conceivably. Also, in one couple it is the husband and in the other couple it is the wife that isn't worried about how many kids they have. This is seriously straining their marriages. The other four couples are somewhere in between and actually practice NFP periodically to space births although they are having large families by today's standards. But even these couples find NFP to be very challenging to practice.

I have to admit also, that for the past 2 years my wife and I haven't really been practicing NFP, we've been practicing AFP - Abstinence Family Planning or maybe CFP - Celibacy Family Planning. That is because for us the abstinence isn't the hardest part of NFP. The observations are the hardest part. And I think this is the problem for the couples that keep getting surprised. If the wife doesn't make good observations, and remember what they are, and remember if she forgot to observe, and honestly admit she forgot and the husband doesn't help record it on the chart there is a great likelihood of a surprise. I'm not about to try to conduct in inquiry with my friends, or accuse them in person, but I'd bet Dollars to Donuts that observations weren't recorded honestly.

My wife and I were originally trained in the Creighton Method of NFP - which I still highly recommend and would suggest over Couple to Couple league and other organizations. What I like about Creighton is that it is very scientific and medically based (not saying sympto-thermal is not scientific or dissing C2CL). Creighton just invests a ton of hours in educating their teachers, and following teachers and clients. Creighton also conducts institutes to train doctors in "Napro Technology (probably another post).

The advantage to me is that the Creighton teacher/coach will really be hard on the client couple. They are trained to ask a series of hard questions at each session and really look for any fudging. It's really about honesty and accountability. If you want to practice NFP seriously, you can't be deceiving yourself and fudging the rules.

Whether you are using the Mucus only method like Creighton or Billings, or the Sympto-Thermo like C2CL, observing the woman's vaginal mucus during the pre-ovulation phase of the cycle is the critical piece of NFP. Creighton teachers stress over and over that observations have to be done every prescribed time with no exceptions or the whole day goes down as a "missed observation" which means you must assume the day is fertile and wait three days of completed observations with no signs of fertility before having intercourse.

This is the part that I know has been toughest for us, and at least a few of our friends. I've heard plenty of "woman talk" about the subject and it seems to be universally agreed that it's a pain. I also think it is the most likely suspect for where some couples might be fudging at least a little.

In my marriage at this time we just can't do this. My wife is working full time (I'm home with kids) and doing graduate school. Even before, she had a hard time remembering to observe every time she used the restroom, and remembering what those observations where. It was always easy for her to get confused with "was that yesterday, or today." Now, with her other focuses, she just isn't able to commit to doing that. And for the same reasons, we really feel the need to avoid pregnancy for another few months at least. Thus, our method is abstinence. It hasn't been Total but I'm a little nervous that others, even close friends would be pretty critical of our decision, since it is pretty extreme.

This post on the moral difference between contraception and NFP just happened to show up today. I like this:

Contraception was NOT invented to prevent pregnancy as there was already a fully effective way to prevent it which, again, I’m confident all of you are practicing as you read this column: abstinence. Contraception was invented to sterilize the fertile period so that if the urge to have sex were to arise during that period, neither the man nor the woman would need to muster up the energy to deny that urge in the fear of pregnancy. It is precisely this truth that opens new horizons of understanding between contraception and NFP. While contraceptive sexual acts risk enslavement to the sexual urge, NFP frees one from the all-too-real threat of sexual addiction through periods of abstinence. This makes NFP not only permissible but even virtuous! After all, one’s ‘yes’ is meaningful only when one has the self-mastery to say ‘no.’ However, this level of self-mastery is impossible outside the grace of God concretely and most powerfully manifested through the sacramental life of the Church! May God be Praised!

I think for families in the past once a certain age and a certain number of children was reached, relatively long stretches of abstinence was probably not that unusual, and I don't think my wife and I have a "contraceptive mentality" for precisely the reason stated in this quote combined with the fact that I know we both are not totally closed to having another child, we just have grave enough reasons at this time that we prayerfully believe that we are doing the right thing by avoiding pregnancy at this time.

I'm not sure what we will decide in the near future. We will still have several concerns about having another, and also we both would enjoy another baby. My wife is now over 40 so there are questions and concerns we haven't considered much in the past. Knowing that the end of our fertility as a couple is in sight brings a little urgency to the circumstances.

Catholic Family Life - in the Bedroom - Part 1

It's not exactly a trend and certainly not a "fad" but by my impression starting about 20 years ago, the modern Natural Family Planning movement began to break back into the mainstream of Catholicism - okay we're still working on that. Anyway, that's when people I know started using NFP.

Now, after 12 years of NFP marriage myself I want to begin sharing some of my thoughts and experience and wisdom with NFP. I think this will be at least 4 parts, and may become an ongoing theme for this blog.

Before I begin - I really want to ask you all to pray for NFP families. Especially three families I know that in their own unique ways are struggling with how NFP is 'working' for them. Praise God for the blessing they have experienced in their families that they would have missed if they had contracepted. But also pray that they remain strong as they face the challenges that have come with those blessings.

My Perception - Where my Friends are after 10 tp 15 years of NFP

My wife and I are close friends with 9 other NFP families that we have known for around the length of time we've been married. We also are more casually acquainted with quite a few other faithful Catholic families. I think that gives me a fairly representative exposure to the experiences, struggles, blessings and opinions that might be common in families that have been using NFP for a decade or so.

Living out an authentically Catholic Marriage in the bedroom is no piece of cake! At this time, 3 of the families in our 'cohort' are expecting, and none of them was intentional. This will be child 9, 7, and 5 respectively for these families. 2 of these families have been actively giving us second hand clothing because they were 'done' - ooops. It's one thing to be 'counter cultural' and pass on many of the luxuries and treats that most families around us take for granted. You get used to not eating out, wearing second had clothes, driving 10 year old cars, camping and staying with relatives for vacations. But.. it gets hard when you have to dig even deeper. When the 8 passenger minivan isn't big enough anymore. When you can't fit the whole family into the dining room at once. When you've taken 2 pay cuts, had your overtime eliminated, had your hours cut, and the house you could barely afford and that felt too small 2 babies ago needs to make room for 1 more. What do you do?

So right now I am praying for my friends. I'm praying because a couple of them sound like they are considering the unthinkable. I'm praying because they are stressed. I'm praying because the financial balance they've been struggling to maintain is looking more and more impossible. And I'm praying for my marriage because our own need to space births for the past # months is being achieved at a cost that may be straining our relationship. I'll get into details of that (vaguely) in another post.