Position Papers - January 2015 by Position Papers

A review of Catholic affairs

Who will rescue the lost sheep of the lonely revolution?

The cost of the destruction of marriage • In passing: Seeds bearing life, seeds bearing death • The present of presence • Growing in holy purity • Five questions about same-sex marriage • There are many kinds of love but only one is marriage - Resources • The Holy Family: a perfect model for imperfect families • Should the parish and laity cooperate with approved lay movements • Film review - Exodus: Gods and Kings

Number 485 January 2015

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Number 485 - January 2015 Editorial

In passing: Seeds bearing life, seeds bearing death Michael Kirke

Who will rescue the lost sheep of the lonely Revolution? Anthony Esolen

The present of presence Siobhan Scullion

Growing in holy purity Kevin Majeres

Five questions about same-sex marriage Joan More

There are many kinds of love but only one is marriage - Resources Fr Gavan Jennings

The Holy Family: a perfect model for imperfect families Rev. Eugene O’Neill

Should the Parish and Laity Cooperate with Approved Lay Movements? Fr John McCloskey

Film review - Exodus: Gods and Kings John Mulderig

Editor: Assistant editors: Subscription manager: Secretary: Design:

Rev. Gavan Jennings Michael Kirke, Pat Hanratty, Brenda McGann Liam Ó hAlmhain Dick Kearns Víctor Díaz

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Editorial

‘I think that the Christian family, the family, marriage, has never been attacked as it is being attacked now.’ This was how Pope Francis began an audience with a large gathering of exponents of the Schoenstatt Apostolic Movement last October in the Vatican. The family, he said, is being ’attacked directly or indirectly…. The family is being struck, the family is being bastardised as just another form of association; anything can now be called a family…. There is a crisis of the family, which is being battered from all sides and it is wounded as a result.’ The Pope went on to say that while ‘we do have to spread clear ideas, to show that what is being proposed is not marriage, it may be an association but it is not marriage’, what matters most is that we would engage in a ‘hands on’ apostolate of ‘accompaniment’ in which we patiently accompany people, patiently ‘waste time’ with people. These words the Holy Father must encourage us to defend the true nature of marriage, especially in those countries facing increasing pressure to introduce homosexual ‘marriage’. (Ireland faces a constitutional referendum on the matter in May of this year). The institution of the family is in crisis (‘sociologically, humanly and sacramentally’ the Pope added): it is in a very weakened state and we do have to speak out clearly in its defence. We must insist that there is only one kind of union on the planet which is marriage: the procreative (and ‘procreation’ includes rearing, educating and nurturing) union of a man and a woman. Outside of this there are a myriad of possible human relationships, eg. parent-child, siblings, Platonic friendships, work relationships, romantic heterosexual and romantic homosexual relationships, and fleeting sexual encounters, but none of these makes up a marriage. There are many kinds of love, but only one kind of love is marriage. In mounting our defence of

marriage, we must not, however, underestimate the apostolate of personal ’accompaniment’ – supporting young people as they move towards marriage, supporting married couples who are in crisis, supporting homosexuals in the battle all men and women must fight to live and love chastely.

Editorial

On Christmas Day 2009, St Mel’s Cathedral in Longford was destroyed by a fire in the early hours of the morning. Just before Christmas the cathedral was reopened after five years of restoration work. One painting alone survived the inferno (in which temperatures apparently topped 1000 degrees celsius). While everything around it was incinerated, a painting of the Holy Family survived. According to the senior project manager of the restoration work, this canvas should have been one of the first canvasses to be set alight. ‘We will never know how it survived,’ he said. I think we could read into this remarkable occurrence a parable for the family – in Ireland and elsewhere – today. The family is threatened by a roaring inferno and it would take a miracle for it to survive – but this is a miracle we can be assured will happen; God will not allow the family to be destroyed.

In passing: Seeds bearing life, seeds bearing death by Michael Kirke

“A

h, dear friend, when something happens in life, do you ever think of the moment that caused it, the seed from which it grew? How can I explain it….? Imagine a field being sowed and all the promise that’s contained in a grain of wheat, all the future harvests…. Well, it’s exactly the same in life”.

of both fruit and of the seeds of fruit which in their turn produce more fruit – and more seeds. One event was bitter-sweet, the other filled with a bitterness devoid of any sweetness. The words themselves come from one of the novels of Iréne Némirovsky, Fire in the Blood, which like all her novels, are pathos-laden explorations of human nature and flesh and blood human beings, each revealing the follies, weakness, and wisdom of our kind – wisdom sometimes induced by our follies and our weakness.

I don’t know why exactly, but these words brought to mind two very sad events of the recent past. They were events, each of which had the character

land in general, and Donal’s h o m e p l a c e i n p a r t i c u l a r, seemed to be inflicted with an epidemic of suicide, and more shockingly suicide among young people in their teens and early twenties. Donal was shocked and dismayed by this. Here he was, in love with life but asked by God – and this is the way he saw it – to leave this life. He did not want to leave it and he was appalled by those who not only took their own lives but in doing so inflicted pain and suffering on those who loved them. He went public with his thoughts on the local radio station. The story was picked up by a national newspaper and eventually he appeared on prime-time weekend television to put his case for life. There is no way of knowing how many lives he may have saved but there is no question but that his idealism, his love of live and his heroic confrontation of his illness inspired his country and his own generation.

Donal Walsh

The recent events brought to mind were the sad stories of two people afflicted with terminal illness – the one being young Brittany Maynard on the West Coast of America, the other, even younger, being 17-year-old Donal Walsh who lived in Co. Kerry, on the South West Coast of Ireland. They both died but did so in starkly different ways. Their respective deaths were the fruit of seeds sown and being sown in our culture, seeds whose fruits determine our vision of the very purpose and meaning of life itself.

Young Donal Walsh’s story is now known by everyone across the land in which he lived. Afflicted with cancer as a child, he fought a successful battle with it for years. Eventually, however, the prognosis emerged that his condition was terminal. This happened at a time when Ire-

On May 12, 2013, Donal moved on to his final journey and reached “God’s Highest Mountain” – as he called it – climbing it with a great phrase on his lips

and spoken to the priest who gave him the last sacramental rites in the following conversation:

the young people of his country and to the world. How different the sad and bitter emptiness of poor Brittany Maynard’s story. The bleak pagan ideology which infected her spirit has reaped – and will continue to reap – a devastating legacy, the legacy of the culture of death. Where did this great evil come from? How did this great evil once again, after two thousand years, gain the foothold it held in the ancient world? It was not her illness which took Brittany Maynard’s life from her. Her apparently voluntary act was the bitter fruit of the corrupting seed which now lives within our body politic and which will continue to snuff out many more lives, of the young and not so young, until the spirit of Donal Walsh vanquishes it.

Donal: “Father, Father, what is it like on the other side?” Fr. Padraig “ Donal I’m not sure but I can tell you that it will be a much better place because you are there. Donal, why? Are you afraid?” Donal “No Father, just a little nervous!” Following his death his parents have continued his work. Donal fundraised tirelessly for the hospital where his illness was treated. His family has now had the Donal Walsh #Livelife Foundation set up in order to bring forward his causes of providing age appropriate teenage facilities in hospital and hospice centres as well as promoting his anti-suicide message.

Twenty-nine year-old Brittany, ended her life on 1 November 2014 in Oregon. Having been told in April that she had less than six months to live, Maynard and her husband relocated to Oregon, one of three US states that allows assisted suicide.

Donal Walsh’s life, his story, is not just a memory. It is a tangible legacy, a seed which gave life and continues to give a harvest of joy, faith and optimism to

The false reasoning of the demons which led Brittany Maynard to her death are well documented but not so well understood.

es, the well-funded proponent of the legalisation of assisted suicide in the United States, and offered to tell her story in order to support legalisation. The result was a slickly produced video that has been viewed by nearly eleven million people. Maynard positioned her suicide as part of the campaign to legalise assisted suicide; we were invited to judge.”

Kevin Yuill wrote earlier this month about this sad case in spiked.com: “Many will say that no one should judge Maynard for her decision, that it was her life and her choice, and that no one could understand the kind of suffering she had gone through. Such objections are misplaced. Brittany Maynard wanted us all to judge her situation, to approve of her action. It was Maynard herself who decided to go public with her suicide. She approached Compassion & Choic-

A potent seed indeed, widely sown, and with inevitable and dreadful consequences. Why, Yuill asks, was her action regrettable? Because it is based on an unreal understanding of death. As Kevin Fitzpatrick of Not Dead Yet – who spoke movingly earlier this year at Ireland’s

Brittany Maynard

Pro Life Campaign’s annual conference in Dublin, – an organisation of disabled people opposed to legalising assisted suicide, noted perceptively, death is the end of all the possibilities of life. To be dead is more disabling than any injury or disease. Fitzpatrick remarks that ‘[w]e have lost our sense of “terrible beauty”’, whereby even in the depths of suffering and horror ‘there can still be something there for us to find profound, even beautiful’. Suicide is disturbing because it cuts short the possibility for human interaction, for participation in one another’s lives.

ever think of the moment that caused it, the seed from which it grew?” By thinking clearly about the seeds which are sown among us we can sometimes distinguish the good from the bad and then act courageously in consequence.

There is no doubt but that a great battle is raging out there for the minds and hearts of all the members of our race, the human race. It is the battle between those who aspire to the spirit of noble heroes like Donal Walsh and those who would lure wounded human beings to the false, pernicious and inhuman vision by which Brittany Maynard was betrayed.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Michael Kirke is a freelance writer, a regular contributor to Position Papers, and a widely read blogger at Garvan Hill (www.garvan.wordpress.com). His views can be responded to at mjgkirke@gmail.com.

“Ah, dear friend, when something happens in life, do you

Who Will Rescue the Lost Sheep of the Lonely Revolution? by Anthony Esolen

The image above is a detail from “The Shepherd David” painted by Elizabeth Jane Gardner (wife of painter William Adolphe Bouguereau) in 1895.

orgive me, Lord, if I use your words for an admonitory parable. You said to the Pharisees, “What man among you, having a hundred sheep, and learning that one of them has wandered into the wilderness, will not leave the ninetynine and go after the lost sheep? And when he has found it, will he not call his friends and say, Rejoice with me, for I have found the sheep that was lost?”

for being sinners, because that is what you mean by “lost,” and what you mean by “dead,” when you asked us to consider the young man who had wandered into the far country. The father in your parable wanted his son alive, not dead. The son said, “Father, I have sinned before heaven and you. Now I am not worthy to be called your son.” He spoke but the truth, and that truth set him free.

That is why you came among us, to call sinners back to the fold. Not to pet and stroke them

So I am looking at a world in a shambles. We do not have Pharisees who preen them-

selves for having followed the letter of the law and missed its soul. We have Pharisees who preen themselves for disobeying the law, even the most serious admonitions of the law, even your own clear words on marriage and divorce, while presuming to have discovered a soul-of-the-law whose existence has eluded two thousand years of martyrs, saints, popes, bishops, and theologians. “I thank you, O God, that you have made me a sinner and a publican, and not like these others who set their aim so high.” In this world that I see, there is no sheepfold left. “What man among you, having a hundred sheep, and seeing the fold smashed and hirelings among the flocks, men who, while wolves are tearing the bellies of the sheep, are themselves roasting mutton on spits, will not leave the ninety-nine and go into the wilderness to find one, and when he finds it dead already, will not hold his head high and say, Well, I did my best!” It will be said that the one – the unrepentant or semi-repentant

sinner, the one who wants to have the faith on his own terms – is “marginalized,” a word I detest, but which may serve my purposes this once. If adults in immoral sexual relationships are “marginalized,” Lord, let me speak up now for people who do not even make it to the margins, for the poorest of the poor, for people who have no advocate at all. Let me speak for the children of divorce, who see their homes torn in two, because of a mother or a father who has shrugged away the vow of permanence. I see them straining to put a fine face on it, to protect the very parents who should have protected them, to squelch back their own tears so as not to hurt those who have hurt them. Who speaks for them, harried from pillar to post? Who pleads their case, whose parents conveniently assume that their children’s happiness must depend upon their own contentment, and not the other way around? Where is my Church’s apostolate for the children sawn in half, while the Solomons of our time looked the other way?

Let me speak for the children thrust into confusion, to justify the confusion of their parents or of people in authority over them. Here is a boy whose father is absent or aloof. He needs to be affirmed in his boyhood, but he shies away from the other boys. Then sidles the teacher into the garden of his boyhood to suggest to him unrealities that he cannot understand. Who speaks for that boy, lonely and hesitant upon the shore, while his more confident fellows splash and swim? Who comes to his assistance to supply the want of fatherly care? Which of my Church’s bishops in all their years have ever turned a single glance his way? Saint John Bosco, where are you now? Let me speak for the children exposed to unutterable evils on all sides. Here is a girl at age twelve who has seen things on a screen that her grandmother could never have imagined. She is taking pictures of herself already, and making “friends” among the sons and daughters of Belial. This is happening under our very eyes. She goes to the drug store and must con-

front magazines for “women” blaring out their headlines about sex and what without any irony goes by the name of “beauty,” and nobody says, “Why should this be?” Who speaks up for her innocence? Where are the leaders of my Church, helping her to become a gracious and godly Christian woman, rather than a poor self-prostituted wreck, more cynical about the opposite sex at age twenty than the hardest thrice-divorced old woman would be? Who pleads for her protection? Who notices her? Let me speak up for the young people who see the beauty of the moral law and the teachings of the Church, and who are blessed with noble aspirations, but who are given no help, none, from their listless parents, their listless churches, their crude and cynical classmates, their corrupted schools. These youths and maidens in a healthier time would be youths and maidens indeed, and when they married they would become the heart of any parish. Do we expect heroic sanctity from them? Their very friendliness will work

against them. They will fall. Do you care? Many of these will eventually “shack up,” and some will leave dead children in the wake of their friendliness. Where are you? You say that they should not kill the children they have begotten, and you are right about that. So why are you shrugging and turning aside from the very habits that bring children into the world outside of the haven of marriage? Let me speak up for the young people who do in fact follow the moral law and the teachings of the Church. Many of these are suffering intense loneliness. Have you bothered to notice? Have you considered all those young people who want to be married, who should be married, but who, because they will not play evil’s game, can find no one to marry? The girls who at age twenty-five and older have never even been asked on a date? The “men” languishing in a drawn-out adolescence? These people are among us; they are everywhere. Who gives them a passing thought? They are suffering for their faith, and no one cares. Do you care,

leaders of my Church? Or do you not rather tacitly agree with their fellows who do the marital thing without being married? Do you not rather share that bemused contempt for the “old fashioned” purity they are trying to preserve? What help do you give them? Do you not rather at every step exacerbate their suffering, when by your silence and your telling deeds you confirm in them the terrible fear that they have been played for chumps, that their own leaders do not believe, that they would have been happier in this world had they gone along with the world, and that their leaders would have smiled upon them had they done so? You want more? More people who do not merit a footnote? What about the men and women abandoned by their spouses? Have you stood up for their rights? What about the innocent men who, after they have been abandoned, become in effect slaves to a corrupt and lawless regime? Have you stood up for them? Founded a society for mutual support?

More? Go visit a prison. Do it, all you who say your hearts beat warmly for the poor. Prisoners are poor to the point of invisibility. Go there and ask them about their sexual histories and those of their families. Go find out what the Lonely Revolution has done to them. Well may you plead for cleaner cells and better food for prisoners, and more merciful punishment. Why do you not plead for cleaner lives and better nourishment for their souls when they are young, before the doors of the prison shut upon them? Who speaks for them? Who speaks for the penitent, trying to place his confidence in a Church that cuts his heart right out, because she seems to take his sins less seriously than he does? Venturing forth into the margins, my leaders? You have not placed one toe outside of the plush rugs of your comfort. Do so, I beg you! Come and see all those whom the Lonely Revolution has hurt. Leave your parlors and come to the sheepfold!

This article first appeared in crisismagazine.com and is reprinted here with the kind permission of the editor.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Professor Esolen teaches Renaissance English Literature and the Development of Western Civilization at Providence College. He is a senior editor for Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity, and a regular contributor to Crisis Magazine.

The present of presence by Siobhan Scullion

anuary 2015 looms upon us as I sit down to write. No doubt many of us will be recalling the events of 2014: the people we met, the places we went, the memories we made. We’ll also be looking to 2015 and perhaps many of us will be setting our resolutions, professional goals or personal targets – even if it is just to lose the weight from the Christmas turkey dinners! I have to admit I’m normally not a big fan of New Year resolutions. Not because I don’t think they are worthwhile or that we shouldn’t try to improve upon our defects and acquire virtues, but rather because I sometimes find big projects overwhelming. I prefer to set mini resolutions per month or even per week instead of one gigantic goal for the entire year. Then if (and when!) I start to slacken and lose my will, it

doesn’t seem as hard to start again. I’m only looking to make it day by day and if I fall I can get up and try again tomorrow. As a result, I’ve never seen January 1st as the absolute deadline for knowing what I need to improve upon in the year ahead. This year however, something changed and I have thought more seriously about a resolution. Three days before Christmas I received the news that the son of my former manager had died suddenly and unexpectedly. He was only thirty years old. Extremely gifted and talented at his profession, I had the privilege of working with both him and his wife due to the nature of my role and the work we outsourced to their business. In the days and hours since I heard of his death, I’ve observed that it

has affected me deeply, perhaps as much as the deaths of members of my own family. I’ve often heard it said at funerals and wakes that we just never know when the time of our death will come. I have always known and understood this but this is the first time that I have really perceived this reality and become conscious of it. We really do not know when the words we utter will be our last, when we’ll make our last cup of tea or say goodnight to the people we live with. We also do not know when others will do the same. My resolution for the year is to live in each moment. That may sound twee and probably incredibly clichéd but I mean it with all seriousness. I resolve to be present in each moment in time because that time is all I may ever have. It doesn’t mean I’ll refuse to make any plan outside of the next sixty seconds because life’s not exactly like that is it? What it does mean though is that I will be thinking more seriously about my attitude in what I am doing. If this moment is really all I have, then I resolve to be present in it, with

the people I have around me, doing what I am doing with a true sense of purpose. Playing superheroes with my four year old? Then I am the best super hero Mammy that ever existed. Doing the ironing? Then I am going to iron those clothes with the efficiency of a steam roller, even if I do hate it! Date night with my husband? Then we are actually going to have a conversation about something we like when we have some precious time free from runny noses and nappy changes, rather than discuss the logistics of the week ahead. And while I’m on the subject of nappy changes, I won’t have to change them forever, so I might as well find something worthwhile in it! We can burden ourselves with our own worry over things that may never happen. We can jump to conclusions and ruin things for ourselves. We can miss the precious moments with the people we love for the sake of getting things done. The present moment is really all we need. Part of the reason I felt so shaken by this death was that this young couple reminded me of

my husband and I. They are the same age and have a similar set of circumstances: married young, trying to manage professional work with young children and trying hard to live life through the lens of faith in God. It was the first time in my life where I saw a tragedy unfold and fully appreciate that it could happen to any of us. Even me. Even my husband. When we set out to build anything in life, especially a marriage and a family, we imagine it will last. We don’t expect things to be cut short or people to be taken away from us. But it happens. As the new year dawns upon us, I certainly don’t mean to sound depressing. In my own experience, living life with faith in God brings joy and peace and I am the last person who would be walking around with a cloud over my head waiting for the doom and gloom. And I certainly don’t mean we have to be super responsive and super present in the moment, all day, every day. Sometimes we are distracted, and we do worry and we do have to plan. It’s not always possible to drop all responsibility

to recklessly live in the moment. But when I think back over my year, and consider how many times I thought I was too busy, or too stressed, or too tired and brushed things aside and put people off, what annoys me most is that I will never get that time back again. The reality was, that I was busy, I was stressed and I was tired but sometimes there are no second chances. So, with all this in mind, in the year ahead, I am giving the present of presence to the people and tasks around me. I may be giving the gift but I wholeheartedly believe I am the one who will receive the most.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Siobhan Scullion is an Arts graduate of Queens University Belfast and a regular contributor to Position Papers.

Growing in holy purity by Kevin Majeres

ope John Paul II, in a homily during a pastoral trip to Sandomierz, Poland in 1999, rhetorically asked what is meant by the phrase “purity of heart.” He answered, “At this point we touch upon the very essence of man who, by virtue of the grace of the redemption accomplished by Christ, has regained the inner harmony lost in Paradise because of sin. Having a pure heart means being a new person, restored to life in communion with God and with all creation by the redemptive love of Christ, brought back to that

communion which is our original destiny.” The inner harmony Christ won for man is directed toward communion with God, mankind’s original destiny, and is itself perfected by that communion. As the Pope went on to explain, it is by uniting himself to Christ, particularly in the sacraments, that man experiences the triumph of grace in the faculties of his nature: his mind is enlightened, his heart is purified, and his freedom is renewed. In our intellect, the dullness and darkness left by the Fall are healed by the gift of faith, so that now the Christ-

ian shares in the mind of Christ (cf. Phil 2:15). In our will grace triumphs through the freedom of love, to the point that the redeemed person seeks to make Christ’s will entirely his own by saying Yes to his personal calling. In our bodies grace triumphs through holy purity, which keeps God in the first place of all our loves. All of our happiness on earth comes through grace, and grace gives us happiness in these three ways: the gift of faith, the gift of our vocation, and the gift of holy purity. They are the greatest gifts God can give to man on earth. Holy purity is a triumphant affirmation of love. It gives strength to the soul, and, we could say, a kind of lightness to the flesh, so that our hearts can soar to God in love. It is a source of hope for Christians living in the world today, people who know what their souls are worth and who aspire to live in a manner worthy of their calling. It causes one to experience the truth of the teaching that our bodies are meant to be temples of God, where he abides through love.

Holy purity is a gift of God, but he does not ordinarily grant this gift apart from our serious effort. Our struggle to live holy purity both prepares us to receive the gift, and, in some way, constitutes the gift as God wants to give it. Such was the case when God gave David victory over the Philistines: David’s effort to wage the war was blessed by God with success since it was imbued with faith and the desire to do God’s will. With us, our struggle to live holy purity also shows our faith in God, and our desire to be faithful to our Christian vocation. Purity is always a victory – which means that ordinarily it follows battle. CONVICTIONS

he light of faith gives us some clear convictions that guide our struggle to live holy purity: 1. It is always possible to conquer St Augustine had fallen into despair due to sins against purity, and had thought that purity was impossible; later, he discovered and taught that victory here is

always possible once we learn how to pray, and how to fight. This experience echoes the teachings of St Paul, when he tells the Corinthians, “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength; but he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Cor 10:13). Commenting on this line, St Cyril of Alexandria writes,

“He grants us the ability to endure. But it lies with us how we make use of this power given to us, wh eth er vig oro usl y or feebly. There is no doubt that in every temptation we have the power of enduring, provided that we make proper use of the power thus granted.”

The faith teaches us that all things are possible for God: and that includes our victories over sin. Though purity is a gift of grace, we can say with certainty that God always gives it to those who humbly ask for it and strive to put it into effect.

2. The spiritual means are more powerful than the human Pelagius did not seem to struggle with any sins of the flesh; hence he taught that provided one has a good example to follow, only effort was required, and he denied that success was a matter of grace. This, of course, is a heresy. Spiritual progress is primarily a work of grace, even if that progress, when it develops, develops along lines of a human process of maturing.  The denial of the primacy of grace is seldom put so bluntly by Christians today, but this doesn’t mean that Pelagianism is over. It is a perennial temptation, generally taking the form of an excessively human outlook concerning one’s spiritual life.  A peculiarly modern way of having excessive human outlook about purity is to treat it as a psychological problem. It is true that irrational behaviors that are repeated due to cravings can be called addictions; this will be discussed more fully later. Still, one should take care not to make every problem a “clinical”

one. It is first necessary to see that the spiritual means – piety, prayer and an intense sacramental life, love for God and our Lady – are more powerful than the human means, though the supernatural virtues impel us to use what human means we can.

SINCERITY

3. Pride and impurity go hand in hand – but pride is worse It is easy to see that pride and impurity are closely related. Both can be seen in terms of a desire for selfish gratification: a self-centered love leads one to be excessively concerned with one’s own excellence, and, at the same time, to seek pleasure at the expense of love for God and others.  In contrast, humility disposes one to focus one’s attention outside of oneself, and so makes one able to respond more generously to the promptings of charity. As one learns to love God and others more effectively, one discovers the joy that genuine self-giving brings with it. Holy purity is both a seal of authenticity and a safeguard for one’s gift of self.

ne effect of pride in the soul is to make it ashamed of acknowledging its difficulties; and, conversely, one of the best ways to grow in humility is to grow in the virtue of sincerity. St. Josemaría spoke of “the dumb devil,” taking this phrase from the Gospels (cf. Mark 9:16) to identify that most difficult of devils to expel, one whose company is to be avoided above all. He makes his presence known by our silence. Persons afflicted by the dumb devil don’t speak about their problems: they may think that if they ignore the problem, it will go away. St. Josemaría would go so far as to say that if we conquer the dumb devil, our victory is assured; so when people asked him how to grow in purity, he always insisted: be sincere! Sincerity with oneself One must learn to be sincere with oneself before one can be sincere with God and others. Difficulties in purity often have in them an element of self-deception. For example, one may “in-

nocently” enter a situation associated with previous falls, though the situation was avoidable — and even though one could have predicted in a reliable way that future problems would also occur there. These situations, called occasions of sin, are easily discerned if one is able to be sincere with oneself. For instance, one could ask oneself, “When and where have past falls occurred?” If one is sincere, one can often find that there is a common theme, some avoidable circumstance — this is the occasion of sin.

Sincerity with God and others

If one is sincere with oneself, one can also notice warning signs that temptations are gaining in strength: it may become difficult to work; one may feel clouded; one thinks of reasons to enter into an occasion of sin; one tries to ensure privacy or isolation; and so on. Sincerity with oneself at this stage is already a major victory, for if one knows to prepare for the struggle — for instance, by putting possible occasions of sin even more remote for a time — one’s victory is more assured.

This help is particularly effective if one learns to make use of spiritual guidance “on time.” While it is never to late to be sincere, the earlier one is able to be sincere, the more effective spiritual guidance can be. If a fall occurs, confession restores one to grace, which cannot happen too soon. Prompt confession and the seeking of spiritual guidance also can stop a single lapse from turning into a full-fledged “relapse,” and can often show how decisively a person is seeking to win.

Since the earliest days of the Church, Christians seeking perfection have found it useful to receive spiritual guidance from a priest or another trusted person of proven soundness. Having regular spiritual guidance is the fastest way to make progress in holy purity, for it allows one to live fully the virtue of sincerity. Difficulties can be acknowledged; problems can be foreseen; plans can be made with the advice, and the prayers, of the other person to help.

What does it mean to live a complete sincerity in spiritual direction? It is helpful to be complete, within the confines of good manners, without unnecessarily getting into details. Some important questions are: Was the fall alone? In an isolated place? At night? If it involves the Internet, was one using the Net without a filter? Did one begin to use it without a purpose? While seeking entertainment? In a place associated with previous falls? How explicit was the material? How much time was spent viewing it? Did it lead to further sins? What was the quality of my struggle against the temptation, and at what point did the decision to commit the impurity occur? TEMPTATIONS

hat exactly is a temptation against purity? Everyone has experienced thoughts about sexual matters. We have also all actively engaged in thinking about sexual matters, reading about them – for instance, what one is doing right now. None of this need

constitute a temptation in any way. A temptation is an impulse to sin, in which something appeals to our desire contrary to our good. The necessary element in temptation is desire. If a thought that is bizarre or explicit crosses our minds but does not appeal to our desires, or if it instead rouses disgust or anxiety, it does not really constitute a temptation. Action follows desire; temptations appeal to our desires and thus moves us to act. When trying to grow in holy purity, people often focus on the nature of the sexual thoughts or images that beset them: their content, frequency, how vivid they are, and so on. This can be unhelpful – particularly in the time of temptation, when one is better off not letting one’s attention be fixed on these thoughts or images. Rather, what really matters is the state of our desires: how frequently certain cravings beset us, how intense they are, how long they last – since this is what would lead us to action. The thoughts or im-

ages we experience do not necessarily say anything about ourselves; what is most revealing of the core of the person is the state of the will: how inclined to act we were, whether we took steps to resist the temptation, what we did in the face of a particular temptation, and so on. This is an important distinction since, as one progresses in virtue, the random sexual thoughts and images themselves still generally occur – even in the state of perfect virtue – but they become progressively less arousing (though they always can, particularly when involving touch and sight). The appeal of the impulse greatly diminishes — one could say that impure stimuli no longer “resonate” in the flesh, at least not to the degree they did before. This is the distinction between sexual continence and holy purity: with the former, sexual thoughts and images arouse strong desires against right reason; with the latter, they do not.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kevin Majeres is currently on the faculty of Harvard Medical School, where he teaches a weekly class on cognitive-behavioral therapy to psychiatrists-in-training at Beth-Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (i.e., board certified in psychiatry). His blog can be found at: http://blog.drmajeres.com.

Five questions about same-sex marriage by Joan More

s we approach a constitutional referendum in Ireland on the topic of marriage, we can usefully learn from the experience of Croatia where a similar referendum took place on 1 December 2012. There, the question posed was “Are you in favour of the constitution of the Republic of Croatia being amended with a provision stating that marriage is matrimony between a woman and a man?” The result was that 66% of voters voted YES, and in some regions the percentage in favour of the proposal was as high as 80%. ‘In the Name of the Family’ was the NGO which gathered enough signatures on a petition to force the government to ensure that the referendum had to be submitted to the people. In

the Name of the Family comprised a group of professionals, and was an entirely lay initiative, using only secular arguments, which appears to have combined a strong determination to win with an obvious compassion for all members of society. Their determination was evidenced in the choice to adopt an entirely positive approach, which went on the offence, rather than defence, by proposing the affirmation of the good that marriage is, rather than spending time discussing counter-proposals. This is summed up in the slogan: ‘Marriage = Woman + Man. Everything Else is Something Else’. Their compassion was manifest in personal commitments not to speak badly or impolitely about

their opponents, even in private, and even under pressure. They acknowledged the pain of homosexuals who would like to be able to call themselves ‘married’, who feel left out when their friends are getting married, who comprise a very small minority of the population which sometimes suffers discrimination whether by means of inappropriate language, behaviour or rejection. Accepting the right of adults to choose their own lifestyle and having no desire to deprive them of that right, they nevertheless simply insisted both that marriage is something different and something special and also that the rights of equal opportunity of children to be raised by own mother and father must take precedence over the choices of adults. They urged voters not to be afraid or embarrassed to say that marriage is between a man and a woman, and not to be ashamed to make the rights of children their number one priority. Adopting this positive approach, we could answer the first five questions in the marriage debate along these lines:

1. Why are you opposed to the same-sex marriage? Marriage is such a good idea! There is something ingenious in this concept which unites men and women in a commitment, as fathers and mothers, to love and to bring up their children. The Constitution recognises marriage as an institution precisely because it is so special. It recognises that it is a good thing for the whole country when a man and a woman decide to get married and to live their whole lives together in a commitment of love. It is right that we should want every child in the country to have an equal opportunity to be born and to grow up with his or her own father and mother, and that’s why the Constitution endorses marriage so strongly. 2. That doesn’t explain why you are opposed to same-sex marriage! If marriage is such a good idea, why not allow people who are already in homosexual relationships to have the benefit of marriage? Love is always a good thing, but it’s not always called the same thing. There is love between brothers and sisters which is a lifelong commitment to sharing each others’ joys and sorrows; it’s important and it’s certainly love, but we don’t call it marriage. There is love between

friends who opt-in to sharing their lives together and care for each other deeply; it, too, is important and we wouldn’t ever want to undermine it, but we don’t call it marriage. There is love between mothers and sons and between fathers and daughters which is almost supernatural in its depth and strength, but again, we don’t call that marriage. There is love between two people in a relationship, whether they have been dating for three weeks or three years, and we don’t call that marriage. Different relationships have different names because they are different, even if they are all directed towards love. 3. You’re just defining marriage to make it mean what you want it to mean. Marriage didn’t begin because somebody came up with the word, and then we decided what it should mean. Since the beginning of time there has always been this lived reality in which men and women come together to love each other in a union which gives rise to children. Marriage is a name that we give to this lived reality which has always been. Men and women come together, they love each other, but their love is so unique that children are born to them. That’s what marriage is. Irish people didn’t invent this lived

reality, just like we didn’t invent the fact that the earth goes around the sun. Marriage was there and marriage was important long before we even had a country to call our own. 4. Marriage isn’t just about procreation, though. There are plenty of couples who are married who don’t have children, and it is possible to get married even if you don’t have the intention or capacity to have children. The question about the purpose of marriage is profound and yes it is true that there are many purposes to marriage: the mutual care that husband and wife give each other, the development of their character over a lifetime of love, the example of faithfulness and commitment that they give to those who witnesses their marriage. But marriage is designed for procreation, even if some couples don’t have children, in the same way that eyes are designed for seeing, even though some people are blind. Yes, marriage is about sex and marriage is about procreation, and other good things, too. 5. That definition discriminates against homosexuals. Surely they are entitled to equal recognition of their relationships?

Well, let’s think about this. The claim to equality is strong if the relationships are in fact equal, but can we really say that these two kinds of relationships are equal? In one kind of relationship there is mutual love but no possibility of children being born of that love, whereas in the other kind of relationship there is mutual love and the possibility of children being born of that love. So, in fact, we could only say that these relationships are equal if we think that children are irrelevant. Supposing that children are not irrelevant to this question, what can we say about their equality rights? Is the Constitution wrong to hold every child has an equal opportunity to be raised by their own mother and father? Even if sometimes, unfortunately, a child won’t in fact be raised by her own parents due to circumstances beyond anybody’s control, shouldn’t we keep that premise that each child should have equal opportunity to be raised by her own father and mother? Homosexual relationships are already recognised in law, through civil partnerships, and enjoy most of the legal benefits that married couples have. If we are serious about equality, shouldn’t we think about whether we think a child, who has no choice in determining the circumstances of her birth, is entitled to have an equal

opportunity to be raised by her own father and mother? Shouldn’t we put the rights of children first?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Joan More is a free lance writer based in Ireland.

There are many kinds of love but only one is marriage Resources by Fr Gavan Jennings

In May 2015 the Irish people will be asked to redefine marriage to include the union of homosexual couples in a constitutional referendum. Many will be made feel that only a heartless homophobe would vote against such a measure. That is simply untrue, and the reason is quite simple, and it is this: ’there are many kinds of love but only one is marriage’. A father may love his son or daughter, but such doesn’t need the etiquette of marriage; two or more friends may love each other and we call this ‘friendship’ but not ‘marriage’. A teenage boy and girl may dearly love each other and we call that a ‘boyfriend-girlfriend relationship’, not marriage. Marriage is unique, and like all unique things, if its uniqueness is not recognised, it is in danger of destruction. We have five months to rediscover ourselves, and help our families and friends rediscover this precious uniqueness of marriage. This is the critical question. Whether other forms of interpersonal union (and they are myriad) are morally acceptable is irrelevant. The uniqueness of the procreative union of a man and woman alone matters. This is a treasure. There are wonderful resources available on the web, and this month I would like to introduce you to four websites which give compelling arguments for the uniqueness of marriage. Please visit these sites, study them and then share them!

Marriage Unique for a Reason The US Bishops Conference of Bishops has set up a website www.marriageuniqueforareason.org to offer resources to assist with the education and catechesis of Catholics on why marriage is unique and why it should be promoted and protected as the union of one man and one woman. Each of the videos in this initiative, with its companion viewer’s guide and resource booklet, is intended as a catechetical and educational aid to be used as a resource by a priest, deacon, catechist, or teacher.

Manif Pour Tous

Resources

http://www.lamanifpourtous.fr/en/who-are-we/our-message is the English language version of the ‘Manif Pour Tous’ movement, “a spontaneous and peaceful grassroots movement, which, beyond any religious, partisan or gender concerns, works to preserve the unity of the equal, man-woman parentage guaranteed by French law in civil marriage”. It has successfully brought millions of French citizens onto the streets of Paris to protest against the introduction of a law introducing same-sex marriage. This website provides clear and concise arguments against same-sex marriage.

Conjugality http://www.mercatornet.com/conjugality/ is Mercatornet’s blog dealing with the true nature of marriage and the challenges it faces today. Its current focus is on the campaign to legalise same-sex marriage.

Humanum

Resources

http://humanum.it/en/videos/ is a website stemming from last November’s Vatican sponsored colloquium examining the complementarity of man and woman. Here you will find videos of talks given by international leaders and scholars from many religions across the globe, examining and proposing anew the beauty of the relationship between the man and the woman, in order to support and reinvigorate marriage and family life for the flourishing of human society. Here also are six ‘must watch’ videos called ‘The Humanum Series’ examining: the meaning of marriage, parenthood, masculinity and femininity, the overcoming of hardship in marriage, the contemporary rediscovery of marriage, and finally marriage in civil society.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Fr Gavan Jennings is the editor of Position Papers.

The Holy Family: a perfect model for imperfect families by Rev. Eugene O’Neill

he Church has long held up the Holy Family as a model for all Christian families, and in the nineteenth century instituted the Feast of the Holy Family (which we now celebrate on the Sunday within the Octave of Christmas) for this purpose. The feast of the Holy Family was instituted by Pope Leo XIII in 1893 and extended to the whole Western Church by Pope Benedict XV in 1921, in the wake of World War One – a war which had shattered the old stabilities of society and dealt a body blow to the most fundamental unit of society: the family.

The Holy Family reminds us that Jesus, our Saviour, became a child in a family and was raised to manhood in one – a normal family like ours. And it asks us to think again about what “normal” means. It serves also to remind us of the tremendous significance of families – practical and spiritual. Whatever shape they take, they are the cradles in which we all grow and are nurtured and prepared for our great task on this earth and our ultimate destiny in the next world. And also, just after Christmas, we are reminded to ask Jesus – God, Mary – his mother, and St Joseph – his fos-

ter father –, to intercede for us and our families, and to remind us never to lose sight of a key perspective i.e. that though we live on earth, and our earthly life here is vitally significant, our ultimate destination is to be in heaven. There’s a problem, however. The Holy Family of Nazareth can come across as a treacly icon of unattainable perfection. It can sometimes seem to be all about perfection. And perfection can be marginalizing if you aren’t perfect. The tyranny of perfection is definitely not what the Holy Family is about. Indeed, quite the opposite is the case. Look again at the realities of the family of Joseph, Mary and their son, Jesus. Clear away the tinsel and an altogether different picture emerges in the Gospels. The Holy Family began with a pregnancy that was largely considered to be extra-marital, was a source of scandal, and could have led to the death of Mary. God himself had to intervene to stop St Joseph divorcing his betrothed. The scriptures say that

Joseph “accepted the child as his own” – a fairly limited response wouldn’t you think? There was no room at the inn – why did he not organise it better? Was he himself perhaps still reeling from shock? The family became refugees in Egypt. There would, without question have been a continued stain on the reputation of the family upon return to Nazareth. The child didn’t get married – something shameful for a Jewish family of the time. And finally, Jesus’ life ended with public execution. All of this is there in the Gospels. Let’s think of these facts when we look at our own experience of family. It seems to me that the reality of families is that normal families can be warm havens, but most of the time, they are mixtures of warmth and pain, calm and anger, life and death. Remember that if there is one thing we can learn from gazing at the real Holy Family, it is this: not to be perfect, is not to fail. Failure – to some degree, dysfunction – at some level, pain – somewhere, even if hidden in the dark, private recesses: these are the shadow sides off

all families. And they do not take away from the fact that, for Christians, it is failure, dysfunction and pain that mark the milestones of our pilgrimage through life as often as joy. So what is the Holy Family saying to us? To husbands and wives - when you look at one another beware of disappointment, you are looking at a mystery. Don’t panic when you look across the breakfast table at the dashing GAA player you married twenty-five years ago and can see only the beer belly. Don’t feel you want to run when you wake up beside your snoring spouse and think: whatever happened to the lovely blonde with the enchanting laugh I married thirty years ago? It is saying: keep faith. This life is significant. Only later, in heaven, will its meaning and significance be revealed to you. You don’t ever really know the extraordinary reasons and motivation of another. Trust them and love them - even if things are not watertight.

To parents – who look at their children with perplexity: the daughter going out with that creep you can’t stand, those who seem to reject all that you wanted to pass on, the militant atheist son, the child who happens to be gay.… Remember the struggles of your children are as real as yours. This is a more complex and challenging world than it was even thirty years ago. And Mary and Joseph too had little idea what was going on in the head and heart of their son, Jesus. To children: keep faith with your parents. They are not necessarily wiser – just older. And it is hard for them too. I love looking at pictures of my parents in the years after their marriage and realising: good grief: how young they are – nearly twenty years younger than I am now: how innocent, how clueless they seem…. They did their best. I’m grateful that they stuck with it. To all families: don’t worry if your family script would never make an episode of The Waltons: you are normal and valu-

able. So, when we look at the Holy Family we are reminded:

- to look at our families with compassion; if it’s a happy one, be thankful on this feast day; if tough, let’s pray for them:

- that we are not alone; Jesus himself knows our joys and our struggles because he shared our humanity and lived in a family like all ours:

- how vitally important it is to pray for families; our own families, yes, but also the families of our parish and the families that make up our society;

- to be consoled by the great truth it teaches; not to be perfect is not to fail.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Rev. Eugene O’Neill is parish priest of Kilmore and Killyleagh, Co.Down and is a regular contributor to A Thought for the Day on BBC Radio Ulster.

Should the Parish and Laity Cooperate with Approved Lay Movements? by Fr John McCloskey

ome years ago I preached a retreat to a group of priests and suggested to them that they might consider, if they became pastors (parish priests) as was likely at some point, an opening homily on what a parish is about. It is not about the school or the CYO or paper drives, and the priests could even assert that there is no need to become "involved" in the parish! You can imagine the confusionâ&#x20AC;Ś But it is an act of truthfulness on the priest's part to insist that the purpose of the parish is for the parishioners to receive the sacraments of the Church and to hear the word of God so that

they, like the first Christians, can then go out to set the surrounding pagan world on fire with the love of Jesus Christ and his Church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us in paragraph 2179 that: "A parish is a definite community of Christian faithful established on a stable basis within a particular church; the pastoral care of the parish is entrusted to a pastor as its own shepherd under the authority of the diocesan bishop.â&#x20AC;? It is the place where all the faithful can be gathered together for

the Sunday celebration of the Eucharist. The parish initiates the Christian people into the ordinary expression of the liturgical life: it gathers them together in this celebration, it teaches Christ's saving doctrine; it practices the charity of the Lord in good works and brotherly love. That constitutes the Catechism's description of the parish's role in the Church. Without doubt, parishes perform a necessary function for the faithful, being a conduit of sacramental graces and sound teaching. In addition, the parish is the primary way of sharing our faith with fellow believers and supporting our neighboring faithful. However, we all should also be sharing our Catholic faith with daring among everyone we come in contact with, as Pope Francis constantly reminds us. In support of personal conversion and spiritual development and in pursuit of this evangelical mission, many of today's faithful choose to join one of the array of Catholic movements. Strangely enough, there is nothing I could find on the Catholic

movements in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, although with time I imagine that will be rectified. However I did find this on Wikipedia: Movements in the Catholic Church are groups of church members following a specific spirituality given to them by the founder of their movement. In the case of officially recognized movements, this specificity never finds expression in rejection or overemphasis of certain teachings of the Magisterium but constitute a specific way of Christian life. Church Movements include:

• • • • • • •

Charismatic Renewal Communion and Liberation Regnum Christi The Schönstatt Movement Focolare Couples for Christ Jesus Youth

From other sources I have found dozens more movements where the laity may find a spiritual home inside the Church that helps them grow in holiness un-

der an approved spirituality and at the same time remain a part of a parish—though not necessarily "involved" more deeply than by helping sustain the parish financially. In short, as Pope Francis and his immediate predecessors have taught, all Catholics are called to spread the faith through prayer, holiness of life, words, and action. All, without exception – and that means YOU! – in your parish, yes, but also (and much more importantly for the evangelization of the world) in your workplace, among family, and with friendships. Indeed, there are no boundaries. Souls are at stake. What a privilege to assist the Holy Spirit in the work of saving souls! To examine in greater detail where viewers might find a spiritual home as a member of one of the movements, in 2010 I hosted a 13-episode EWTN series on them that you can download from the EWTN website for free as MP3s. Special guests on my series were Cardinal Stafford and

Archbishop Charles Chaput – then archbishop of Denver, now archbishop of Philadelphia, where he will be hosting the papal visit of Pope Francis early in the coming year. I hope you will be there in Philadelphia with dozens of family and friends and, yes, fellow parishioners and/or members of your movement. There, after receiving a revelation of truth by the presence of the Vicar of Christ in our country, May you be further inspired to spread the good news of Jesus Christ. This article first appeared on Aleteia.org on December 8, 2014 and is reprinted here with the kind permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Fr. C. John McCloskey is a Church historian and Research Fellow at the Faith and Reason Institute in Washington DC Website: www.frmccloskey.com.

Film review

Exodus: Gods and Kings by John Mulderig

ime was when the biblical extravaganza was a Hollywood staple. In fact, from the silent era through the mid-1960s, it seemed a safe bet that selected slices of the bestselling volume of all time – or fictional spinoffs from it like BenHur – translated to the screen on a large scale would yield box-office gold. Post-Beatles irony and the baby-boomer generation's antipathy toward authority and tradition may have put that calculation to rest for a few decades. But, as earlier movie offerings from this year – ranging from Son of God to Noah – suggest,

some in Tinseltown are apparently dusting off their copies of the Scriptures and taking a second look. The latest to do so is director Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven). The bad news is that his 3-D epic Exodus: Gods and Kings (Fox) turns out to be big but boring. The good news is that, somewhere, Cecil B. DeMille is at ease, knowing his 1956 blockbuster The Ten Commandments remains the definitive mass-media take on this crucial portion of the Old Testament.

Just as DeMille's fleshing out of the story is not above satire, though (witness Billy Crystal's hilarious channeling of Edward G. Robinson's Dathan), so Scott's tale is not without its promising aspects. Chief among them, for viewers of faith, is the conversion story his film introduces into the life of Moses (Christian Bale). Here, the patriarch's series of trials and triumphs takes him from religious skeptic to true believer.

calls on him to lead his enslaved compatriots to freedom.

Raised as a foster son to Egypt's Pharaoh, Seti (John Turturro), and adoptive brother of Seti's heir, Ramses (Joel Edgerton), Moses is sent into exile when Hegep (Ben Mendelsohn), a corrupt official whose wrongdoing he has uncovered, reveals his lowly origin as the child of a Hebrew slave.

Additionally, the collaborative script – penned by Adam Cooper, Bill Collage, Jeffrey Caine and Steven Zaillian – is skittish where miracles are concerned and revisionist in its treatment of the relationship between Moses and the Almighty.

Working as a shepherd in Midian, Moses finds solace in married life (Maria Valverde plays his loyal, devout spouse Zipporah). But his contentment is once again disturbed when God – oddly personified by an 11year-old boy (Isaac Andrews) –

While Scott's picture has computer-generated effects to spare, especially in the plague scenes, its human interaction is stilted and uninvolving. Thus Moses' potentially intriguing spiritual development is only sketched out in the dialogue, and lacks the heft that might propel the audience along on its trajectory.

Granted, the Moses of the Bible sometimes plays the role of advocate for the Israelites, pleading with God to spare his wayward people. But it's nonetheless perplexing to find Scott's main character frequently coming across as more merciful than the petulant lad who embodies his vision of the Divinity.

Though it ends with the giving of the Commandments on Mount Sinai, at an intimidating running time of over two-and-a-half hours, Exodus: Gods and Kings may strike many as recalling more directly the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness by which the fidelity of the Hebrews was thereafter put to the test. The film contains considerable combat and other violence with some gore, religious themes requiring mature discernment as well as restrained sexual content, including a gay innuendo and two marital bedroom scenes. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III â&#x20AC;&#x201C; adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Mulderig is on the staff of Catholic News Service. This article first appeared on www.catholicnews.com has been reprinted with the kind permission of Catholic News Service.

Interdiocesan Retreats For Priests 2 Feb (9pm) - 6 Feb (10am) 2015 23 Mar (9pm) - 27 Mar (10am) 2015 The retreat will be preached by a priest of Opus Dei Prelature and will also include plenty of time for silence and private prayer.

PROGRAMMES EACH YEAR IN FEBRUARY & OCTOBER. See website.