Position Papers - March 2017

A review of Catholic affairs

One Italian Wife’s Countercultural Message to Women Edward Pentin

Recognizing his Presence Fr George Rutler

Number 507 · March 2017 €3 · £2.50 · $4

7 Books to feed the mind and edify the soul in 2017 Matthew Becklo

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Number 507 · March 2017 Editorial

by Rev. Gavan Jennings

In Passing: Crises of saints

by Michael Kirke

How The Whimper Of A Sick Child Is Like The Rosary

by Jennifer Kehoe

What is our Fundamental Problem?

by Bishop Robert Barron

Recognizing his Presence

by Fr George Rutler

One Italian Wife’s Countercultural Message to Women

by Edward Pentin

Creating Bright and Cheerful Homes

by Ciro Candia

7 Books to feed the mind and edify the soul in 2017

by Matthew Becklo

Book review: The unseen Paul VI: an introvert who wore chains beneath his robes

by Francis Phillips

Film review: Silence: A Different Perspective

by Fr Conor Donnelly Editor: Assistant editors: Subscription manager: Secretary: Design:

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

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Editorial

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n his 1979 Apostolic Exhortation on catechesis, Catechesi Tradendae, Saint John Paul II outlined a catechetical principle of perennial importance: “God himself used a pedagogy that must continue to be a model for the pedagogy of faith.” In other words, as God teaches us, we must seek to teach one another. This principle came to mind on reading the Entrance Antiphon of the Ash Wednesday Mass: You are merciful to all, O Lord, and despise nothing that you have made.

You overlook people’s sins, to bring them to repentance, and you spare them, for you are the Lord our God (Wis 11: 24, 25, 27).

We see here a splendid divine pedagogy at work: God, very much a loving father, encourages us to undertake the daunting task of Lenten conversion using kind and hopeful words, rather than with crushing words of bitter condemnation. God, through his Church’s liturgy, does not dwell on the reality of our sinfulness, but rather He gives us hope of a solution from the outset: He is merciful, He loves us and is indulgent towards us, and He himself will lead us out of sin.

Following St John Paul’s insight into the relationship between divine and human pedagogy, it becomes clear what should be the attitude of the Christian to the fallen world in which he lives and of which he is very much a part. We don’t need to stress the negative aspects of the world unduly, but must try to offer solutions to problems and renew hope in those around us who have very often fallen into a veiled kind of despair.

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The Christian must resist the temptation to alienation from a world which has to a large degree turn its back on God. Those who fall into such a bitter alienation can do nothing do bring the world back to God. In Vasily Grossman’s fictionalised account of life in Stalin’s Gulags, Everything Flows, he includes a description of two elderly nuns who have fallen into this condition. He describes their disdainful aloofness towards their fellow “criminals” (a mix of political prisoners and ordinary, and often quite barbaric, thieves) in the camps:

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The two old nuns, Varvara and Ksenya, would exchange quick whispers the moment any sinner approached them. Then they would fall silent. They lived in a world apart. … Their holiness was visible in their clothes, in their white kerchiefs, in their pursed lips, but in their eyes was only cold indifference – and contempt for the sins and sufferings of the camps.

An attitude of cold and contemptuous indifference – of “pursed lips” – towards the sinful world may indeed preserve a Christian’s feeling of unsullied purity but it also obviates any possibility of actually lifting one’s fellow man out of their misery (and of course only accentuates the delusion of personal impeccability), and in the end God’s divine pedagogy finds no echo on earth.

Lent is a summons to engagement with the misery of the world. The Christian, Pope Francis teaches us in his 2017 Lenten message, must not adopt the attitude of aloof indifference of the Rich Man of the Gospel when faced with the miserable Lazarus at his gate. Lazarus must be for us rather, “a face, and as such, a gift, a priceless treasure, a human being whom God loves and cares for, despite his concrete condition as an outcast.”

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This is brought out in a tale told by another Russian novelist, Leo Tolstoy, in his short story ‘What Men Live By’ which tells the tale of an angel, Michael, who for disobeying a task given him by God, is cast down to earth in the form of a naked, pale beggar. He is adopted by a kind and humble shoemaker and Michael’s return to his original angelic form is made possible by the kindness of the shoemaker and his wife. It is only through the personal experience of human affection that Michael comes to solve the mystery of man: “I have now understood that though it seems to men that they live by care for themselves, in truth it is love alone by which they live. He who has love, is in God, and God is in him, for God is love.”

Without the personal experience of human love divine love remains opaque.

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In Passing: Crises of saints

by Michael Kirke

“T

he whole world is in a terrible state of chassis”, Captain Boyle, famously proclaimed in Irish dramatist Sean O’Casey’s masterpiece, Juno and the Paycock.

local or global. Generally there are plenty to choose from.

Just now we have the Brexit fallout and its related knock-on implications for the future of the troubled states of the European Union. Across the Atlantic there are the multiple storms associated with a very unusual new US administration, and further to our east we have an enigmatic Russian regime which might or might not be playing a high stakes cat and mouse games with its nervous neighbours. “Plenty of potential for chassis there – accepting Captain Boyle’s Malapropism – to be going on with.”

Indeed it is, and we suppose it always will be. The evidence is compelling. It’s a long, long story and it’s not really a terribly productive pursuit to go on analysing the “whys” and the “wherefores” of it all. But what is incumbent on us is to constantly and creatively respond to and deal as best we can with each new symptom of chaos, generally in the form of some crisis, as it arrives on our doorstep – whether personal,

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I often wondered what St Josemaria Escriva meant when he wrote: “A secret. – An open secret: these world crises are crises of saints.” It’s an intriguing and even strange phrase. But it is only strange if we limit our understanding of what saints are to those popular images we have of them – haloes, pious postures and sometimes living hermetic reclusive lives separated from the affairs of the world. These were the saints a good number of us grew up with, and who indeed may have played an important role n helping generations of Christians to model their lives according to the teaching of Christ.

middle of the world is all about, is elaborated by the editor of the critical-historical edition of the book in which he first put this statement down on paper, The Way (The Way (CriticalHistorical Edition), P. Rodriguez, Scepter).

But these saints do not really get to the heart of St Josemaria’s challenging phrase, which seems to suggest that being a saint offers some hope of a resolution of the world’s problems. Is that credible? Daringly, maybe outrageously for some, he maintains that it is.

This phrase, and the chapter of the book from which it comes, is an example of his insistence on the correspondence to grace – holiness – of those who have become aware of God’s calling.

That calling was a universal one, not one for the special few – the saints of popular piety. It was call for all women and men because it was, it is, the express will of God that all be saved.

“The doctrine on holiness, the

What the phrase essentially underlines is the central idea of Escriva, that Earth is really only properly understood in the context of Heaven and that if the problems of the earth are to be solved at all they can only be truly solved on that horizon where heaven and earth meet in the hearts of women and men, in the reality of holiness, that is, sanctity, the stuff of saints.

The origins of his thinking about this, and its place in his teaching about what being a saint in the

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editor of the edition points out, is not an idea outside time, but is an idea realised in time, and more specifically, it determines the solution to the ‘world crises’.”

explained his vision in more detail in a homily: A pinch of salt is enough to season a meal for many. To impart newsavour to the world, relatively few people will be necessary. But these few, by obeying God’s Will, have to truly be salt that cures and seasons. [...] If we carry out our apostolate, then the face of the world will change, and thedisorder and wretchedness we see in the world will be replaced with Christian peace and happiness. Then peace will spread throughout the world.

This idea permeated all of St Josemaria’s teaching and preaching. On another occasion, stating it in very practical terms, he reminded people, putting before them a very simple ideal: If every country had a group of holy fathers of families, holy doctors, holy architects, holy workers, all the world’s problems would be solved.

He always rejected any conception of Christian life as something “private” which absents itself from the “world crises” – a mistaken sense of “interior life” – and puts, instead, the “interior life” in strict and close connection with “human activity”, with the problems of human society.

Nor did he see it as a big numbers game. The same point in The Way is completed with this rider: God wants a handful of men, “of his own” in each human activity. – And then … pax Christi in regno Christi – the peace of Christ in the kingdom of Christ.

In this, as in all things, Escriva’s vision was always united to the Popes of his time. He was moved by the vision of Pope Pius XI who used the expression “Pax

In 1937, when he was in hiding during the Spanish Civil War, he

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Christi in regno Christi” which to a great extent summarised his pontificate’s programme laid out in his first encyclical (1922).

There Pius recalled that his predecessor, Pius X, in taking as his motto “To restore all things in Christ” was inspired from on High to lay the foundations of that “work of peace” which became the programme and principal task of Benedict XV. These two programmes of Our Predecessors We desire to unite in one – the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Christ by peace in Christ – the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ. With might and main We shall ever strive to bring about this peace, putting Our trust in God, who when He called Us to the Chair of Peter, promised that the divine assistance would never fail Us” (Urbi arcano 22).

universal vision of St Josemaria was not widely appreciated.

As the editor this edition states in his note, St Josemaria goes to the root of the problem beyond social and political factors and every form of Catholic organisation. He sees peace as the result of men and women of God – saints – present in all human activity: the peace of Christ springing from within human activity.

His “theology of peace”, so to speak, has to be seen in close connection with a “locutio divina” more than five years earlier, and which remained engraved in his soul for ever. It took place on 7 August l93l. In his personal notes from that time St Josemaria left an account of this intervention of God in his life, written and dated that very day.

The teaching of Pius XI gave a great impetus in those years to Catholics to take seriously their responsibilities in the public square. Nevertheless, the understanding of the role of lay people in the life of the Church still remained limited and the

Referring to the celebration of Holy Mass that day, he wrote: The moment of the Consecration arrived; as I raised the Sacred Host, without losing proper recollection, without being

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distracted – I had just mentally made my offering to the most merciful Love – some words of Scripture came to my mind, with extraordinary force and clarity: “et si exultatus fuero a terra, omnia traham ad meipsum” (And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to myself: John 12:32). And I understood that it would be the men and women of God who would raise the Cross, with the teachings of Christ, above the summit of all human activity And I saw Our Lord triumphant, drawing all things to Himself.

moved to do so from the deepest resources of lives sustained by grace and sanctity.

The Erasmus column looks at the resurgence of Catholicism in France but sees it as a much weaker player now in the politics of that nation. Nevertheless, its influence is there and perhaps it will only be when, or if, the fullness of Christian virtue begins to flower in the lives of people that the many crises of that nation will be responded to effectively and fruitfully.

Romano Guardini has called for a purer reading of Christ’s role in the world and an end to the reductive reading of him as the greatest and wisest man who ever lived. Again, it is a reading which calls on his followers to be saints, people who as such must read the world and their place in it in a truly radical way, not just followers of another great leader.

In a recent column by Erasmus in the Economist, reflecting on the origins of the European Union in the aftermath of the horrors of two wars, the Catholic inspiration which was central to that movement in the persons of Robert Schuman, Alcide de Gaspari and Konrad Adenauer is noted. These men, some of whom are now being thought of as candidates for canonisation, were types of the saints Escriva saw as proper to the modern world, responders to its crises in a thoroughly modern way but

Christ does not step into the row of great philosophers with a better philosophy; or of the moralists with a purer morality; or of the religious

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geniuses to conduct man deeper into the mysteries of life; he came to tell us that our whole existence, with all its philosophy and ethics and religion, its economics, art, and nature, is leading us away from God and into the shoals. He wants to help us swing the rudder back into the divine direction, and to give us the necessary strength to hold that course. Any other appreciation of Christ is worthless. If this is not valid, then every man for himself; let him choose whatever guide seems trustworthy, and possibly Goethe or Plato or Buddha is a better leader than what remains of a Jesus Christ whose central purpose and significance have been plucked from him. Jesus

actually is the Rescue-pilot who puts us back on the right course.

This is a hard saying for the world to accept. It offends our vain-glorious sense of selfsufficiency. But there it is, until it does, these world crises will go on and on in their chaotic way.

Some will leave us muddled, like poor Captain Boyle. Others, tragically will once again plunge us into the abyss of human degradation. The choice is ours.

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.

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How The Whimper Of A Sick Child Is Like The Rosary

by Jennifer Kehoe

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s you know I am Catholic.

Recently a friend of mine asked me why I, and Catholics in general, say the rosary. It seems like such a boring prayer. I gave her a simple answer, simple and inadequate. And then I said to her I’d think more about it and answer her again in a better way.

So I have been thinking about this and a day or so ago, suddenly, like a curtain opening, I knew exactly what I was going to say.

An insight I had from an angle I’d never even thought of before.

As usual, I’m going to tell you a story but first a little background.

If you are Catholic I hope this rings true and if you are not

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Catholic, or not Christian, I invite you to read on for the next few minutes and maybe glean some understanding into this Catholic custom.

I can fully understand how people think the rosary is a boring repetitive prayer, more suitable as a cure for insomnia than anything else. Hail Mary … Holy Mary … Hail Mary … over and over again, the same thing every day….

It has always been there in my life. As a child it was a cue for giggling misbehaviour; just make sure you knelt out of swiping distance of the long arm of the parental law. As a teenager something to be more or less

abandoned until exam time when out of desperation it would be resorted to in the hopes that Mary would put a good word in for us in the ear of her son that he would overlook our laziness and procrastination and all those TV shows that filled our study hours ... Hail Mary ... Holy Mary ... Pray for us ... I promise I’ll be good forever ... now and at the hour….

As a young couple we prayed more fervently, every day together, again and again, praying for help to overcome all the seemingly huge obstacles which stood between us and our longed for wedding day. Mother of God ... Pray for us….

And then children come along and it’s an ideal we so often fell far short of. A hit or miss in the hustle and bustle of nappies and laundry and copy books. We’d fit in shortened versions, look out helpful tools for the children and try our best to make this prayer a part of our family life and all too often long-fingering it till bedtime and closing eyelids ...

Mum and Dad, Husband and Wife, Me and John praying in

half sleep and promising that tomorrow we’d do better.

However I cannot say I ever really understood this repetitive prayer. I knew it, I loved it and could see the palpable differences it made to my young family whenever it was part of our family life. But understand it?

Not really.

Now you know the story of our little girl and her diagnosis and all that went with it. I’m not planning to drag the rear end out of that tale but it is a story that has so many facets to it, many of which are only unfolding with the passing of time.

This story is one of those things which completely passed me by when it was actually happening.

So back we go to a few years ago.

A little girl, not quite three, is in distress ... my own little girl, back on the ward after her very big operation. Her ragged little heart has just been stopped and restarted, patched, shunted, stitched and changed. Her bones have been wired back together, she has three painful drains coming out of her little body,

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machines and monitors are attached to her small limbs and her chest. Every vein has been exhausted from blood being drawn.

“Mommiee” “What, Baby?”

“I want you” “I’m here, Baby”

I have a little camp bed set up beside her with a sleeping bag which is calling me because I am exhausted. But I’m not as exhausted and worn out and wretched as the little girl beside me. I am her mother and that gives me all the energy I need to stay awake.

All night long, over and over and over again “... I want you ...

Mommy ... I want you … I’m here Baby.”

A hundred times, a thousand times and then the sun starts to rise and she wakes up from her fifteen minute sleep….

I am longing to do something for this suffering child who cannot sleep though she needs to. All night she reaches for me to hold her hot little hand in mine. All night she whimpers: “Mommiee” “What, Baby?”

“I want you” “I’m here, Baby” “Mommiee” “What, Baby?”

“I want you“ “I’m here, Baby”

“Mommiee” “What, Baby?”

“I want you” “I’m here, Baby” All day and all the next night.

What could I do but hold that little hand and stroke it and assure her I’m here ... I’m here.

That’s all she wanted. She could say nothing else, a little child who clung to her Mommy in her time of distress.

Was I bored of this little conversation repeated incessantly?

What do you think? No I wasn’t

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bored. I wasn’t bored because it wasn’t boring. Every time she uttered those sorrowful words “I want you” my heart filled to overflowing, it’s capacity increasing with every little whimper. Of course I wasn’t bored and it was an honour to be able to say “I’m here, Baby” to be the one who was able to give that longed for comfort. The assurance that her mother who loved her was watching her and was never going to let go that feverish little hand.

it’s not boring. She has no intention of letting go of our worn out and wretched hand. She is awake because she is the mother who loves her child and loves us all the more when we turn to her and say over and over and over again “Mommy ... I want you.”

And THAT my dear is why I will never not say the rosary till the day I die. Mary is not bored of our repetitive plea Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners. She’s not bored, because

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jennifer Kehoe is a young mother of six, living in Kildare, Ireland. She runs a blog “Raindrops on my Head,” at http://jenniferkehoe.blogspot.ie

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What is our Fundamental Problem?

by Bishop Robert Barron

T

he first reading for Mass on the first Sunday of Lent this year, taken from Genesis 3, deals with the creation of human beings and their subsequent fall from friendship with God. Like a baseball coach who compels even his veterans to re-learn the basics of the game every spring, the Church invites us, during the spring training of Lent, to re-visit the spiritual fundamentals. And they are on no clearer display than in this great archetypal story.

We hear that “The Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life.� The God of the Bible never despises matter, for he created it, and everything that he made is good. Our bodies are indeed made from the earth, from the lowly stuff of atoms, molecules, and minerals. It is of singular importance to realize that

sin is not a function of matter, not the consequence of our embodied nature. God exults in our physicality, and so should we. But we are more than mere matter, for God blew into us a life akin to his own and ordered to him: minds that seek absolute truth, and wills that desire goodness itself, and souls that will not rest until they come into the presence of the fullness of beauty. The tragedy of the secularist ideology is that it denies this properly spiritual dimension of human existence, reducing everything in us to matter alone and construing the deepest aspirations of the heart as psychological quirks or wishfulfilling delusions. Thomas Aquinas said that the human being is a sort of microcosm, for he contains within himself both the physical and the spiritual. To know and honor both dimensions of our humanity is the path of

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joyful integration; to overstress one or the other is, concomitantly, a principle source of mischief.

The book of Genesis tells us that God placed his human creatures in the midst of a garden and gave them free rein to eat of practically all of the trees found there. Unlike the gods of classical mythology, the God of the Bible is not in a rivalrous relationship to human beings. On the contrary, his glory is that we be fully alive, for he made us solely for the purpose of sharing his joy with us. This is why the Church Fathers consistently interpreted the trees in the Garden as evocative of philosophy, science, politics, art, stimulating conversation, friendship, sexuality – all the things that make human life rich and full. And it is furthermore why puritanical fussiness about pleasures both intellectual and sensual is simply not Biblical.

The original couple was told to refrain from eating the fruit of only one tree – and thereupon hangs a rather important tale. The tree in question is identified as the tree of “the knowledge of good and evil,” which is to say, a form of knowing that is the unique

prerogative of God. Since God is himself the unconditioned good, he alone is the criterion of what is morally right and wrong.

According to the semeiotics of this story, therefore, the eating of the fruit of the forbidden tree is the act of arrogating to oneself what belongs in a privileged way to God. It is to make of the human will itself the criterion of good and evil, and from this subtle move, on the Biblical reading, misery has followed as surely as night follows the day.

Notice how wickedly and cunningly the serpent tempted Eve: “God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is evil.” The basic sin, the original sin, is precisely this selfdeification, this apotheosizing of the will. Lest you think all of this is just abstract theological musing, remember the 1992 Supreme Court decision in the matter of Casey v. Planned Parenthood.

Writing for the majority in that case, Justice Kennedy opined that “at the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the

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universe, of the mystery of human life.” Frankly, I can’t imagine a more perfect description of what it means to grasp at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If Justice Kennedy is right, individual freedom completely trumps objective value and becomes the indisputable criterion of right and wrong. And if the book of Genesis is right, such a move is the elemental dysfunction, the primordial mistake, the original calamity.

Of course, the Supreme Court simply gave formal expression to what is generally though unthematically accepted throughout much of contemporary western culture.

How many people – especially young people – today would casually hold that the determination of ethical rectitude is largely if not exclusively the prerogative of the individual?

That’s the fruit of eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Just after the fall, the first humans realized that they were naked and sought to cover themselves. I would interpret this, not so much as shame, but as deep and preoccupying self-

consciousness. When we acknowledge that goodness and value lie outside of ourselves, in the objective order, we look outward, forgetting the self; but when we are convinced that our own freedom is the source of value, we tend to turn inward, protectively and fearfully.

What is fundamentally the problem, spiritually speaking?

Why, deep down, are so many of us so unhappy? There is no better guide to answering these questions than chapter three of the book of Genesis.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

This article first appeared at: www.wordonfire.org. Bishop Robert Barron is an author, speaker, theologian, and founder of Word on Fire, a global media ministry. This article has been reprinted with the kind permission of the editors.

Recognizing his Presence

by Fr George Rutler

E

urope and its contiguous lands were in a chaotic condition in 1240. The Mongols were destroying Kiev, the Novgorod army virtually wiped out the Swedes along the Neva River, and the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II, was pillaging the Papal States using Islamic Saracens as his mercenaries. Pope Gregory IX’s attempt to rally a Crusade against the invaders failed, and his good friend Saint Clare was virtually bedridden as the Saracens besieged her convent at San Damiano. Her beloved Francis of Assisi had died fourteen years before. In this emergency, she left her invalid couch, went to the window and exposed the Blessed Sacrament

in a silver and ivory ciborium, and the alien troops fled.

In northern Mexico until just a few years ago, drug – and gang – related violence had made Ciudad Juarez one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

Following the example of Saint Clare, missionaries turned to the Eucharistic Lord for help. A perpetual adoration chapel was opened in 2013 when the murder rate was forty people a day, with soldiers and policemen joining the gangs. Increasing numbers of devotees urged the soldiers to join them in Holy Hours. Few now dismiss as only coincidence the fact that within five years the annual murder rate dropped from 3,766 to 256.

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That rate is far lower than many cities in the United States now.

With dismaying insouciance, statisticians in our nation over recent years have coldly taken for granted its moral decay.

Besides graphic violence in the streets, there are over 500,000 abortions each year. In many places, births out of wedlock are the norm, teenage suicide has doubled in little more than a decade, 40% of all children live in broken homes, school diplomas and college degrees have generally become meaningless, marriage has been redefined into surreality, and freedom of religion has been intimidated by false readings of constitutional rights.

revere the Eucharist.” If more Catholics themselves understood that, there would be more miracles. Now, miracles do not contradict nature: they are God’s will at work at high speed. Christ promised to be with us “until the end of the world.” Eucharistic adoration is simply the recognition of his presence.

Saint Clare prayed, “My Lord, if it is your wish, protect this city which is sustained by your love.”

The Lord answered, “It will have to undergo trials, but it will be defended by my protection.”

Recent political shifts in our nation offer a faint glimmer of genuine promise for a change in all this, as more people realize that in the past they had placed their confidence in gossamer hopes and tinsel messiahs. But the ballot box is no substitute for the Tabernacle. A well-known Pentecostal preacher surprisingly admitted that most miracles happen in the Catholic Church because “Catholic people

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Father George W. Rutler.

“Recognizing his presence.”

From the Pastor (February 12, 2017). Reprinted with permission from Father George W. Rutler.

One Italian Wife’s Countercultural Message to Women

by Edward Pentin

W

hen Italian mother of four Costanza Miriano wrote Marry Him and Be Submissive, she had no idea it would be so popular, expecting it to be of interest only to family and friends. But the book has been a best-seller in Italy and gone on to be translated into several languages, including English.

A collection of letters addressed to Miriano’s friends, mostly female, it deals with differences between men and women, engagement, marriage, family life, openness to life, having children, raising children and experiencing sexual relations as a gift from God.

“Such letters may look funny – in some bookshops, my books are placed in the humor section – but the content is very serious: It is actually the thought of the Church,” she explains on her website, adding that the title of the book was inspired by the letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians. “Women should try to be submissive, writes Paul. I think it means they have to be open, warm and patient. This is not a weak attitude, but the contrary, as women are strong and stable; welcoming and easygoing; they are capable of creating good relations with people. Women who are profoundly connected to their nature are truly happy and can

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give birth to a new life, whether in a biological or spiritual way.”

I had to be just like Mary, like the Mary in the Miraculous Medal: She has her hands opened, and she gives graces. He said that I had to have my hands open to receive what I was receiving from my husband, but my hands had to be open; I didn’t have to check first if they were good enough. I just had to receive without looking, with hands open.

In this recent interview with Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register, Miriano explains more about the book, how its content can serve as an antidote to feminism, and how husbands and wives can have a more harmonious relationship, lived in faith.

Why did you write the book?

I had many friends who couldn’t find the courage to marry just one man for their whole life, so it was due to my desire to see my friends as happy as I am. But I didn’t think they were going to read it. I thought just my mother, sister and aunt would buy my book. I never expected all that has happened since.

Also, just as Mary, with her feet, kills the serpent, so must I kill my tongue – because I don’t always have to comment, to criticize my husband. So he said in that way I could be a good wife – not that I had to be submissive for the sake of being submissive, but because I had to stop being so critical, so unbearable, as I was at the beginning of marriage.

The title, and particularly the word “submissive,” is provocative. Why did you choose it?

I didn’t want to be provocative by choosing that word. My spiritual director used to tell me

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Would you say also that, on a spiritual level, it’s more about dying to oneself? That both the woman and the man have to die to their own selfishness in order for the marriage to work?

Yes, because on the Christian level, there is a dying process, conversion to God – because in the current mentality, men and women just need to have a job, food, health and happiness, and then they are fine. But we are not “fine” – we are “ill,” we are wounded by original sin, so even if everything is going well for us, we are not happy. There is something which doesn’t work inside us, like a bug in our system.

So marriage is one of the ways in which this bug can be healed.

We are ill, but my husband is my way to Christ, and when he makes me suffer – angry – and I think I can’t bear the way he behaves, that’s the moment when “sculpting” is taking place.

We have to find our beauty [through that]. Michelangelo said that by taking away things we don’t need in the marble of a

sculpture, you find the beauty inside.

Would you say your book is like an antidote to feminism, in many ways?

Yes, because I think feminists chose the wrong ways to affirm women, to empower women, because we adopted the masculine way. We tried to become like men, and we are not men, so we don’t need power, strength or independence. We are different. But we are not happy [because of feminism]. I know of many women who have power, success in their careers, but at the end of the day, they’re not happy, deep down.

I think, at the beginning, feminism was just like a request: We needed to be looked on by someone else, we needed someone else’s eyes on us, and when we asked for this, we asked for attention, someone to tell us we are beautiful, we are lovely.

So at the beginning, feminism was a request about our looks, and it was like a spring, because women wanted to be seen. But then we adopted men’s

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strategies, and we lost our path – because we call abortion a “right,” the right of killing our children, to kill through using contraception. We have given men the right to use our bodies without taking responsibility.

It’s not a victory. We lost.

Would you say all women now have a misplaced sense of independence, even among practicing Catholics, and that is a consequence of feminism? If so, how can this be overcome?

It’s said feminism has become so widespread it has also seeped into the Church. To what extent do you see this?

Our King died on the cross, so even man has to be Christian in that way, but a woman has to be doubly that way because she’s a woman – she’s made to make room inside her [for life]. If we have to define a woman, the most appropriate image is a room for other people. A woman is an empty room, and she has the power to give life and to make room inside herself to do that. So a Christian, Catholic woman who forgets that mission has lost everything.

I think being independent is an illusion, because we depend on our boss at the office, for instance. We depend on many things. So it’s just an illusion.

We depend on one another, and especially women depend on other people. I know many women bosses at work who are very weak and fragile inside. We can be free when we deeply know we are loved by the other.

G.K. Chesterton used to say that women in the past were at home, not to be slaves, but to be freer to follow all their other interests because we are not monoautomatic like men. We have many interests in our lives. If you see a woman’s agenda, she has women friends, her husband, her house; she takes care of her home; she wants to meet people, and also has a job.

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But a man has a job, and that’s it. I don’t mean you don’t have interests, but you can put on an on/off switch. When you work, you just work. We are always connected with our children – we are never apart from them, so we always depend on someone else. And I think it’s beautiful to depend on someone else. I don’t have a problem saying that if I’m asked a question and I can’t answer, I’ll call my husband and ask him, for example, “What do you think about the war in Syria?” Because that’s a part of the world I don’t know, and I need him to explain some things. I think it’s beautiful to leave that part to him.

Men mustn’t get a free pass, of course, and every husband has the responsibility of being committed to his wife and taking care of her. How important is this to the woman, so she can be who she is supposed to be?

There’s just as much responsibility on the part of the man, as well.

Yes, sure, but the main problem for men is selfishness. They don’t want to die [to self] for the family, they want to have a part of life that’s separate, to save something [for themselves]. So they have to be in a path of conversion, too. But I just ask women: What can we do to help

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the relationship? What we can do is to learn to watch them with eyes of great fullness. We have to see the good aspects of the man; we have to be like a mirror that gives him a beautiful image of himself. We have to give that good image. When a man feels he’s looked upon in that way, he wants to die, to give his life. If we stop complaining, stop criticizing, stop saying: “You’re not worth my life,” I have seen miracles.

I have made many presentations of the book in Italy, and I’ve met maybe thousands of people now.

And I always tell a story about a couple living in the mountains: The husband, Gudbrando, one day goes to the market in the valley to sell one of two cows, but he can’t sell it. So he exchanged the cow for a horse, and then the horse with a pig, and then the pig with a sheep, the sheep for a cock, the cock for a duck, and so on. Finally, he gets home with nothing because he always changed the animal for a smaller one. So he goes back to his wife, but runs into his neighbor, who tells him he wouldn’t want to be in his shoes,

as his wife will be very angry.

But he says: “No, my wife is always happy about what I do.”

So the neighbor bet some money, and he listened to the conversation between Gudbrando and his wife, so he can check to see if his wife really is happy with whatever animal he might have changed it for. He said he first changed the cow for a horse, and she’s happy because she’ll have a horse to go to Mass.

It’s a long story, but at the end, the wife says: “It doesn’t matter Gudbrando, even if you came home with nothing, because, for me, it’s not important what you do – but it’s important that you come back to me, that you love me, and so all that you do is done well in my eyes.”

I have found true wives of Gudbrando, the mountain man, all around Italy, from Turin to Palermo, and they keep writing me emails. They say things like: “I am at the Gudbrando stage No. 22, and my husband loves me more than ever because he has seen it in my eyes.” It’s not a trick; it’s a real desire to have a loyal look toward your husband.

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You decide you want to see all the good things he does for you, and it brings miracles in life.

Sometimes even husbands write to me to thank me.

You are free to love because you are deeply loved by someone else. So daily Mass and prayer is the defender of my married life.

Would you like to say anything to close?

Would you also say all of this really comes down to faith, that faith is central to a good marriage?

Yes, because the real spouse is the Lord. As Pope St. John Paul II used to say, there’s a distance between husband and wife which will never be covered, and this distance is the space for God in the couple. And in a real living relationship with the real Spouse, then you can love the other with a heart that is not demanding, not making claims.

I would just like to say that I hope [many] a wife, like the one of Gudbrando, can become like an army around the world, to fight for marriage, which is in danger.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Edward Pentin is the National Catholic Register’s Rome correspondent. © 2017 EWTN News, Inc. Reprinted with permission from the National Catholic Register – www.ncregister.com.

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Creating Bright and Cheerful Homes

by Ciro Candia

M

y wife and I are both teachers and as parents of seven children we are constantly asked questions about how we raise our children – “How do you discipline them?”, “How do you cope with difficult teenagers?” and so on.

Raising children right is difficult these days. However creating a loving home in which our children’s characters, hearts and minds can be nurtured and developed is a battle worth fighting. Moreover it can be great fun!

There is no more powerful way of creating such a home than developing a culture of unconditional love. Pope Francis in a General Audience in February 2015 reminds us that,

“A child is loved because he is one’s child: not because he is beautiful, or because he is like this or like that; no, because he is a child! Not because he thinks as I do, or embodies my dreams. A child is a child: a life generated by us but intended for him, for his good, for the good of the family, of society, of mankind as a whole.”

As a father I want all my children to achieve well academically but more than that I want them to be successful as people and to be well formed in their Christian faith. Later, when they become adults, their lives will be filled with those who will constantly judge them on their successes. At least in the home our children should be loved unconditionally

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for who they are, just as God loves them.

The home is not simply a place for feeding our children, keeping a roof over their heads and trying to ensure they don’t end up in jail! Rather it’s a place where values first make their appearance and where the whole person is developed – body and soul. A place of laughter, warm memories – a break from the pressures of the world and where we can point our children to new horizons and a reality beyond the four walls.

For this reason parents should avoid any kind of negativism along the lines of, “Modern culture is terrible and I don’t allow any TV in the home or let my children use mobile phones.”

The issue, in such cases, is not technology but how we use or misuse it. Our focus should be on the good and how to filter out the bad. Setting controls and limits is an important part of our job as parents but we gain little by shutting down access. Ultimately parental controls should lead our children to develop self-control but this is much harder if we turn our home into a boot camp!

In our own home we have a few hard and fast rules to help develop a sense of family culture – for example, no calls or internet use after a certain time, no technology at the dinner table and no use of uncivil or disrespectful language; but if we have sometimes “gone to war” over these issues we have tried to pick the right fights. Loving discipline doesn’t mean starting World War III over the issue of the colour of a pair of jeans.

Ultimately it’s about our attitude as adults. With the raging hormones and fluctuating moods of teenagers, for example, it’s important that we remain a steady, calm force. There has to come a point where no matter how much paint our 5-year-old has tipped over the new carpet it can be dealt with and forgotten.

Forgiveness must be central in our homes. None of us can develop humanly or spiritually if the past is thrown at us every time we get something wrong.

So if focusing on the good should be our goal in creating a genuinely happy home, here are a few ideas that my wife and I have found useful over the years.

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a) Praise your children a lot.

Praise tells us what we are doing is right and encourages us to do it again – crucial if good habits and virtues are to be fostered. Praise must never be insincere, but it should always be given for small victories: “John, well done for putting some of your pocket money into the collection”, is a favourite of mine as such praise encourages generosity and develops a sense of financial prudence! b) Children love those who have the time not only to teach them, but to have fun with them. Fun need not be expensive. It’s about the odd surprise, having a midnight feast in holiday time, water fights, making silly videos or simply playing charades.

When our children were very little we used to tickle them. It’s important we never stop! c) I always know when the friend of one of my daughters has visited our home by the dirty footprints and fingerprints left behind on the floors and walls.

Making our homes bright and cheerful means having them open to other children. Indeed engaging our children’s friends in conversation, or any other visitor

to the home, by taking an interest in them provides a wonderful example to our own children of how to develop their friendships later on. d) Make daily quiet times a part of your family routine. These times offer the opportunity to bond more deeply, but don’t have to be silent. They are often most powerful when they are filled with our prayers to God, through the family rosary for example, but quiet times can also be a wonderful opportunity to instill a love for reading, or going for a walk, having a family get together – all relaxing pastimes that can extend to adult life and which give everyone in the family a great sense of mental and physical well-being. e) One way of helping children to develop in virtue is to find as many opportunities as possible to get them to serve others. We have an elderly friend who our children visit regularly and for a period of time my teenage children accompanied me to a soup kitchen where they had to engage with the homeless and vulnerable. We have assigned a day of the week to each of our children and on their day they

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are encouraged to lead the family prayers, help make dinner and carry out other responsibilities.

Helping children to see the needs around them and to cheerfully serve others is an important part of their formation. f) Make time to be with your children by just “being there.”

Encouraging conversation, especially at meal times, or “odd moments” with children can be the best way of developing our friendship with them. St Josemaria, in one of his interviews with journalists in the 1960s says, “I always advise parents to try to be friends with their children. The parental authority which the rearing of children requires can be perfectly harmonised with friendship, which means putting themselves, in some way, on the same level as their children. Children – even those who seem intractable and unresponsive – always want this closeness, this fraternity, with their parents.”

One of the best conversations I ever had with one of my sons was in the car on the way to a football match. After having been on a mini retreat my son suddenly asked me about the nature of

vocations. Interestingly this conversation followed after a rather prolonged period of silence when we were simply sitting there driving along. The conversation which followed was a deep and hopefully meaningful one, talking about the meaning of love and sacrifice; and in a sense this is what our relationship with God is all about – about living lives of prayer, quiet moments when God can reveal himself most intimately to us.

Finally let’s not forget about the love that should exist between spouses. My wife and I are the first to admit that we have failed many times in our role as parents but we also recognise that by being united to one another, each new day offers a chance to begin again. Raising a family is a great sporting adventure, and we should be prepared for the setbacks, but with God’s help and a sense of humour our homes can always become the nurturing environments they were intended to be.

This article is one of a series on married love which appears on the Opus Dei website: www.opusdei.org.

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Books

7 Books to feed the mind and edify the soul in 2017

by Matthew Becklo

W

hether dealing with timeless questions of metaphysics and phenomenology, or the social reality of living a Christian life in an increasingly post-Christian culture, these are seven upcoming titles that you might want to get on their radar.

Strangers in a Strange Land: Living the Catholic Faith in a Post-Christian World Author: Charles J. Chaput Release Date: February 21 “A vivid critique of American life today and a guide to how Christians – and particularly Catholics – can live their faith vigorously, and even with hope, in a post-Christian public square.”

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The Socrates’ Children Series Author: Peter Kreeft Release Date: March 10 “How is this history of philosophy different from all others?

It’s neither very long (unlike Copleston’s twelve-volume tome, which is a clear and helpful reference work but pretty dull reading) nor very short (unlike many skimpy onevolume summaries), but just long enough. It’s available in separate volumes but eventually in one complete work (after the four volumes – Ancient, Medieval, Modern, Contemporary – are produced in paperbound editions, a one-volume clothbound will be published).

It focuses on the “big ideas” that have influenced present people and present times.

It includes relevant biographical data, proportionate to its importance for each thinker. It is not just history but philosophy. Its aim is not merely to record facts (of life or opinion) but to stimulate philosophizing, controversy, argument.”

The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation Author: Rod Dreher Release Date: March 14 “In a radical new vision for the future of Christianity, New York Times bestselling author and conservative columnist Rod Dreher calls on American Christians to prepare for the coming Dark Age by embracing an ancient Christian way of life.”

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The Hidden and the Manifest: Essays in Theology and Metaphysics Author: David Bentley Hart Release Date: March 29 “Rowan Williams says that David Bentley Hart ‘can always be relied on to offer a perspective on the Christian faith that is both profound and unexpected.’ A new collection of this brilliant scholar’s work, The Hidden and the Manifest contains nineteen essays by Hart on theology and metaphysics.

“Spanning Hart’s career both chronologically and topically, these essays cover such subjects as the Orthodox understanding of Eucharistic sacrifice; the metaphysics of Paradise Lost; Christianity, modernity, and freedom; death, final judgment, and the meaning of life; and many more.”

The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise Author: Robert Cardinal Sarah Release Date: April 15 “In a time when there is more and more noise, and technology and materialism continue to exert their hold on us, Cardinal Robert Sarah presents a bold book about the strength of silence. The world generates so much noise that seeking moments of silence only becomes more necessary. For Cardinal Sarah, modern man, in repressing the divine, finds himself in a deep dilemma, an oppressive and anguishing trial. The Cardinal recalls that life is a silent relationship between what is most intimate in man and God. Silence is

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indispensable for hearing the music of God: prayer arises from silence and returns to silence with ever greater depth….

“In this book, Cardinal Sarah has only one aim, which is summed up in this thought from his book: ‘Silence is difficult but it makes a human being able to allow himself to be led by God. Silence is born of silence. Through God the silent one we can gain access to silence. And a human being is unceasingly surprised by the light that bursts forth then. Silence is more important than any other human work. For it expresses God. The true revolution comes from silence; it leads us toward God and others so as to place ourselves humbly and generously at their service.’”

Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination Authors: John Corvino, Ryan T. Anderson, Sherif Girgis Release Date: June 1 Virtually everyone supports religious liberty, and virtually everyone opposes discrimination. But how do we handle the hard questions that arise when exercises of religious liberty seem to discriminate unjustly? How do we promote the common good while respecting conscience in a diverse society?

This point-counterpoint book brings together leading voices in the culture wars to debate such questions: John Corvino, a longtime LGBT-rights advocate, opposite Ryan T. Anderson and Sherif Girgis, prominent young defenders of the traditional view of marriage.

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The Rigor of Things: Conversations with Dan Arbib Author: Jean-Luc Marion Release Date: August 2 “In a series of conversations, Jean-Luc Marion reconstructs the path of a career’s work in the history of philosophy, theology, and phenomenology. The conversation ranges from Marion’s engagement with Descartes, to phenomenology and theology, to Marion’s intellectual and biographical backgrounds, concluding with illuminating insights on the state of the Catholic Church today and on Judeo-Christian dialogue.

“In these interviews, Marion’s language is more conversational than in his formal writing, but it remains serious and substantive. The book serves as an excellent and comprehensive introduction to Marion’s thought and work.”

This article first appeared on www.aleteia.org.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Matthew Becklo is a husband and father, amateur philosopher, and cultural commentator at Aleteia and Word on Fire.

His writing has been featured in First Things, The Dish, and Real Clear Religion.

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Book review The unseen Paul VI: an introvert who wore chains beneath his robes

Author Rino Fisichella Publisher Gracewing

by Francis Phillips

I Met Paul VI – The Pope by Those Who Knew Him

A

rchbishop Rino Fisichella’s slim book I Met Paul VI (Gracewing) is not a personal memoir. Rather, it collects stories from those who knew Blessed Paul personally. Fisichella was the reporting judge in the Cause for Paul’s beatification, which took place in 2014. There are interesting glimpses of Paul’s personality from this book, but you have to search for them, which is made harder by the lack of an index. Footnotes and a bibliography would also have been helpful.

Nevertheless, the Archbishop writes with piety, affection and circumspection, anxious to show that that Paul VI was a holy man.

Aware of the frequent criticisms of his subject, he occasionally sounds defensive, remarking at one point that Paul was not “a Hamlet figure, incapable of decision”.

Despite these caveats, I did glean certain things from the book: that Paul was baptised on the same day – 30th September 1897 – as St Therese of Lisieux died; that the chasuble in which he celebrated his first Mass was woven from his mother’s wedding dress; that he was a temperamentally shy man of delicate health who did not seek out company. On being selected to join the prestigious papal academy for future Church

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diplomats, the young Father Montini wrote home: “There is room … for the possibility to have some solitude. That consoles me a bit, because solitude allows one to build up the energy to be in company with others.”

Another telling remark, after his election as Pope Paul VI in 1963, is his comment that “I feel like a statue on a pedestal, the only differing [sic] being the statue is alive.” There is a brief mention by Mgr Magee, one of his private secretaries, that the Pope often wore chains underneath his clothing “to remind him that Christ had carried the Cross to redeem the world.” Another anecdote concerning his dying hours at Castel Gandolfo in 1978, tells us that the Holy Father’s alarm clock, which had been a gift from his mother when, as a young papal diplomat, he had been assigned to Warsaw, suddenly started to ring out at 9.40 pm, the actual moment of Paul’s death, even though it had not been wound up that day. It had woken him at 6.00 daily. Now, uncannily “it welcomed him that evening into … eternal life.”

I single out these points as they bring Blessed Paul VI alive. Of his great courage, in the face of the enormous and vociferous dissent from his encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968, there can be no doubt, though the book doesn’t discuss this. That only he could have steered the Church through the turbulent waters of the Second Vatican Council after the death of John XXIII is also true. Although seen as “sad, anxious, indecisive” during the later years of his pontificate, Mgr Magee affirms that, on the contrary, Paul was “always profoundly serene” – indicative of a deep prayer-life.

I think history will judge Paul VI more kindly than his contemporaries. Archbishop Fisichella’s book has reminded me to pray to him and for a second miracle to aid his canonisation.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Francis Phillips reviews books for the Catholic Herald. This article is reprinted with the kind permission of the author and the Catholic Herald.

Film review Silence: A Different Perspective

Director Martin Scorsese Starring Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Liam Neeson USA

by Fr Conor Donnelly

This is response to the review of this movie by Mr Brad Miner which appeared in Position Papers in January.

T

he early part of the movie portrays the heroism, fortitude, courage and faith of those Jesuits who set sail for Japan in the 17th century. Later their struggles with their vocation is evident in the face of mighty contradictions. The early part of this movie led me to prayer. I cannot say that about many movies in the past twenty years.

On reading the critique of the movie by Mr Miner, I wondered if he is judging the movie in the light of the director and his Catholicism and not the movie itself. In reference to Mr

Scorsese I can only plead ignorance.

It may be accurate to say that the movie is about apostate priests but that, although possibly a part of history, is not the whole story. That the main character apostatised is not clear. At one point, he is shown to be stepping on an image of Christ. It is clear that he does this because he thinks it's the only way to save others from certain death. The final scene of the movie has him holding a crucifix in death, suggests he never really apostatised.

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I am reminded of the book Memoirs by Cardinal Minzenty of Hungary who after torture in a communist prison in the 50s wrote a “denial” of the Catholic faith, but after his name wrote the letters C.F, signifying coactus fecit in Latin, which means “done under duress”, thereby rejecting responsibility for his action.

periodic denials from them, which also suggests that they may never have really apostatised. The Japanese themselves are not completely sure.

The Judas figure of Kichijiro is the epitome of human weakness.

But could he not be a “Peter”. He is taken out at the end of the movie, presumably to be killed, not because of apostasy but because he was found with a religious image. It is a story of fidelity in spite of enormous weakness. The insistence with which he repeatedly asks with humility for the sacrament of confession is edifying and speaks of a profound faith.

It could be argued that the main apostate priest, Fr Ferreira, could be seen from the dialogue to be psychologically disturbed.

He seems to be held in a state of semi captivity as does the main character of the movie. The Japanese demand repeated

Whatever the perspective, the movie sheds a glorious light on the Japanese martyrs and the history of the Church in Japan.

There are many other similar stories worthy of movies. In Africa their stories are beginning to be written. They should be on sale in every Catholic bookstore in the world to inspire future generations of young people with the ideals that led so many missionaries to do what they did and contribute so much to the development of so many countries.

These were people who lived their faith seriously. The movie can help many Catholics to know history and not be in La La land.

The movie is worth watching, thought provoking, it will give rise to not a small amount of discussion but from a cultural and historical perspective it is worth the time. It should have

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been given all the nominations other movies got.

The latter part of the movie speaks of the “silence of God”.

It is powerfully done. God has been speaking silently in the soul of the protagonist all along. It is subtle but clear.

Hence the title of the movie and perhaps its most impressive message.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Fr Conor Donnelly qualified as a medical doctor in University College Dublin in 1977 and worked as a house physician and surgeon for one year at St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin. He was ordained a priest in 1981 for the Prelature of Opus Dei. He obtained a doctorate in Theology from the University of Navarre, Spain in 1982. He is at present the chaplain of Kianda School for Girls, Kenya.

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