• Calibration to grace and for recognizing sin will increase as you journey with your halo.

• Be amazed: what was written by Saints hundreds or thousands of years ago so often seems written for me, today, with what is happening.

#Halo #Marriage #Parenting #Catholic #Shepherding #SpiritualDirection

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Every wife and husband are joined by God to reveal God's love to the world, bear new life into the world, and provide, protect, and defend hearth, rearing their children to come to know God's breath in them and breath it into the world. Wives and husbands, each in their own way, reveal Christ to each other and are called to be humbly obedient to Christ in each other, running toward Jesus our sweet Christ hand in hand, sharing the delights and challenges of this pilgrims' journey. For each married person the path to salvation is their marriage, serving each other in Christ ... their primary halo, their marriage.

#Halo #Marriage #Parenting #Catholic #Shepherding #SpiritualDirection

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Heavenly Father,

Forgive me for being foolish! Help me see how ridiculous (name the temptation) is!

Jesus,

Grant me the humility to accept your gift of the grace of (name the counter virtue for that temptation’s deadly sin), which always defeats the temptation of (name the deadly sin that tempts you).

Holy Spirit,

Guide me to see and immediately take the one next step to breathe my Breath of God into the world. Specifically, my next step is to (name the immediate next step). Give me the fortitude to go and do it now. In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen! ____

A few notes

God always answers this prayer.

“If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you.” (John 15:7).

Asking for the weapons of the Salvation Arts always remains in God, making His words remain in us. The prayer to the Father asks for the Salvation Art of Mindfulness to see how ridiculous sin is. The prayer to Jesus asks for one of the virtues, another Salvation Art. And the final prayer to the Holy Spirit asks for the gifts needed to breath our inner breath of God into the world.

The Father’s Gift

Freedom and laughter. If you don’t feel light and free immediately after calling Satan’s temptation ridiculous, you didn’t name the temptation clearly or specifically enough. Satan fights us in this prayer and does all he can to hide behind rocks on the battlefield that he may attack us with renewed vigor when we arrogantly think we’ve won. As long as Satan remains hidden behind a rock, we aren’t able to accept the gift of wild freedom God the Father always offers us. We have to exercise our will against Satan and name with clarity the temptation — not the detailed circumstances, but the flavor of the deadly sin.

Thus, “help me see how ridiculous my sin is!” fails because it isn’t specific in naming the deadly sin, leaving lots of rocks for Satan to hide behind. Likewise, “help me see how ridiculous it is when Sam is praised at work and all my hard work, which was hours and hours and which Sam needed to do his work, for which he was praised … is!” fails because rather than being prayer that simply names the temptation it repeats and deepens the sin itself.

Instead pray: “Father help me see how ridiculous it is when I am jealous of Sam for succeeding!” This removes all hiding places without entering into the turmoil of the sin, inadvertently repeating the sin anew. Instead, it is short, simple, specific and clear.

If you pray to the Father and do not immediately experience the gift of wild, jubilant freedom, you prayed it wrong. Dig deep, examine how to name the specific deadly sin without repeating the sin, and pray it again. Like using any weapon, the more you wield the Trinity Sword Prayer, the more effective you will become! This is spiritual warfare, you are exercising your will to trust God over Satan, to choose your inner Saint over your inner Sinner. Satan attacks where you are weakest, so naming where his attacking frees you to accept God’s abundance, and graces (weaponry). Fight to get this prayer right, and you will be stunned by God’s loving abundance!

Jesus’ Gift

Courage. Being emboldened. Again, if we do not immediately feel emboldened on praying it, we are allowing our Sinner to hide in how we are praying, preventing us from being able to accept the gift Jesus freely offers us. One way this happens is in our asking for something that isn’t a grace. If it isn’t one of the seven heavenly, life giving virtues, it may not be a grace. As long as what you ask Jesus for is a grace, it will be given and you will feel emboldened.

The Holy Spirit’s Gift

Action. If you don’t immediately find yourself with your first two gifts (wild abandon and and courageous) doing the next step to breathe your Breath of God into the world, free of the burden of temptation, you prayed it wrong. Take some time to get to know your Breath of God. Understand that it is through everyday ordinary tasks that miraculous things happen to transform the world, to help build God’s kingdom here and now. Make your next step simple and specific and something you can do right now. Open the gift of the Holy Spirit by going and doing it, right now!

Pray without Ceasing

Saint Paul extolls us to “pray without ceasing.” A powerful way to do this is to realize all activities worth doing ought to be prayer. Promote that way of seeing the world by praying the Trinity Sword Prayer, changing the prayer to the Father to:

“Father, thank you for your wild abundance in the beauty of today. Help me build your kingdom!” Then continue with the prayer to Jesus and the prayer to the Holy Spirit.

Suddenly, your value, meaning, purpose as a gift of wild abundance from God is clear, as is the single thing you need to do next to breathe God’s breath into the world! Go get ‘um!

As seen in Scripture!

Is there reference to any of the Trinity Sword Prayer in scripture? Yes! It appears in the Gospels is concept, John 21:15–19. Peter, called Simon again in these versus by Jesus to point out how his sin (how ridiculous he has been), has fallen for the sin of cowardice in the face of his fear during Jesus’ trial — denying Jesus three times. Jesus asks Peter if he loves Him three times — to directly counter and overcome the bigger Sinner Simon Peter has because of his sin. Each time, Jesus then tells him the next concrete action he is to take: “Feed my lambs … Tend my sheep … Feed my sheep” — aka: be Pope and take care of my Body, the Church! What other scriptures reveal this pattern of seeing how ridiculous sin is, asking for grace, and concretely moving forward?

Ask and it shall be given you: multiple places in the Gospels Jesus says if we ask for things in union with God they will be given. As referenced above, John 15:7 is one of these.

It really is “Digital”!

Either our faith is “on” or it isn't (just like the zeros and ones in the digital world). One of the amazing gifts of the Trinity Sword Prayer is it helps us discover areas where we aren't trusting God as much as we might think, giving us the opportunity to exercise our will and choose to trust where trust seems impossible. “Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief!”

One question I've received about this prayer is what about (soon to be) Saint Mother Teresa's years of despair? Surely there must be more nuance here to the “pray right and these gifts will be given”? If a Saint, like Mother Teresa or Padre Pio experiences despair, surely they know how to pray right?

First, Saint Ignatius in his two “Discernment of Spirits” appendices to his 30 Day Retreat, reveals there are three causes of despair (desolation), all of which have some form of sin at their root. Somehow, some way, if we are in despair, there is someplace in our soul we don't yet trust God with wild abandon. This is true for all of us, Saints included.

What is amazing about Saints who experience desolation in their prayer life is they understand it is part of their purgation, or purgatory, and challenging as it is, they embrace it, trusting God to heal them even as they anguish, and they continue to persist in their ministry despite it all. This is what Jesus calls us to do, because faith bears fruit in all seasons, including desolation. In the Gospel of Mark (11:11-26), Jesus curses the fig tree because it is not bearing fruit out of season. To the eyes of the world, this seem unjust. But this is Jesus, who defines justice. Through faith, we are called to bear fruit in all seasons, even the season of despair.

Learning from Praying it “Wrong”

One of the powerful gifts of the Trinity Sword Prayer is that praying it “wrong” is an invitation to examination of consciences, as well as a guide map to discovering where we are deaf, blind, dumb, and stupid — where and how our inner Sinner is hiding. The more we discover this, the more we are able to open ourselves up to Christ's light, which always abolishes the Sinner, and receive the abundant gifts God has already given but we have yet to unwrap! Even in our despair, God is a God of wild abundance!

#Halo #Marriage #Parenting #Catholic #Shepherding #SpiritualDirection

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Weird as all this looks to an outside observer, everything seems normal to us nibble-wits on the inside, even if most other people are doing things that make no sense.

Imagine how foolish we must look to everyone else! Moving about in odd ways to a distorted vision of the world only we see. Now imagine how a bunch of us look, each with our own differently distorted pair of glasses.

“Help me, please!” I call out.

“I’m right here, how can I help?” you offer, concerned.

“No you’re not,” I respond in frustration. “You’re not near me at all. You’re by that tree.”

“What?” you reply confused and a bit agitated. “You’re crazy. There is no tree.”

In reality, we both stand together, trying to hold each other up.

“Oof! Hey!” you holler. “Why’d you punch me?”

“I didn’t. I was getting the sliver out of your eye.”

Absurd as this interaction may seem, it represents the type of miscommunication that happens so easily between two people, even if they’ve known each other for years, even if they have the best of intentions, even if they are married and deeply love each other. Strife often enters relationships because of sin’s fun house glasses.

Strife, however slight, in relationship always indicates the presence of sin. Sin makes us deaf, blind, dumb, and stupid. Join a Halo. Start a Halo. Halo together, lose the fun house glasses, and run toward Jesus our Christ, with clearer sight, together.

#Halo #Marriage #Parenting #Catholic #Shepherding #SpiritualDirection

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Sex outside sacramental marriage is a primary plot device and source of conflict in modern stories. So much so that we have come to think of extra-marital sex as normal, at least on the screen and perhaps even see it as a sign of health and freedom. That's not healthy or holy. In truth, sex outside marriage is inherently selfish and prideful and lustful. Sex outside marriage thus encompasses at least three deadly sins, severs souls from God, shatters right relationship with all they know, and risks pregnancy out of wedlock, which puts a modern woman in the near occasion of choosing murder and calling it healthcare, another mortal sin.

What if, instead, characters chose chastity? What would change? How would the story be different? Would it develop or end differently? How?

Discuss with your halo.

#CurrentlyTimeless #Halo #Marriage #Parenting #Catholic #Shepherding #SpiritualDirection

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To understand this shepherding moment of centuries, this article builds on the understanding provided in these two articles: Living in a Catholic Monarchy and Mass Confusion.

If shepherding occurs in moments, different moments require shepherding differently. Again, good Catholic fathers inherently know this, shepherding a preschooler in temper tantrum differently than a willfully rebellious teen differently than a dutiful teen, even if the issue in each case is poor performance in school.

Shepherd's Examination of Conscience

The good shepherd begins with an examination of conscience, recognizing Saint Augustine's point that all shepherds are ever also sheep first (Letter to Pastors, Office of Readings). As a shepherd, we are called to ask questions such as: Do I see this moment clearly? How did we get here? How is/might my own sinner blind me and how do I ask Christ to heal it and have the faith to receive it? Do I need to grow more into this office of being a parent, deepening in faith and virtue and salvation arts?

Like a good daily examination of conscience or one prior to making a good confession, self assessment of one's capacity to shepherd may be brutal, if honest, yet also reveal clear steps to heal my deafness, dumbness, blindness, and stupidity that comes to light. Confession may be one of the steps to move forward.

Sheep Assessment and the Crux of the Cross

Next, having prepared to be the best shepherd he knows how to be, the good Catholic father assesses the sheep entrusted to him by Christ. A great many errors of shepherding occur here.

We are called to shepherd from the crux of the cross, where the horizontal beam and vertical beam meet, at Christ's Most Sacred Heart; not false compassion out on the horizontal beam where “admonishing the sinner” doesn't occur nor up on the vertical beam brow beating with false justice absent Love and Mercy.

Jesus on the road to Emmaus is our Good Shepherd, revealing we are called to meet our sheep wherever they are and interact with them (the horizontal beam of Love and Mercy) and then, lest the horizontal beam, being detached from the vertical beam of Truth and Justice, never be lifted out of the quagmire and miasma of sin's filth, admonish them to drive home the need to turn away from sin and live faithful to the Gospel: “Oh how foolish you are!” (Luke 24:25) so as to motivate them to hear with fresh ears God's Love (Truth, Justice, and Mercy), for only then can they have eyes to see Christ in the breaking of the bread and realize He was with them all along.

Just beginning to sort out Vatican II

We botched both our understanding and initial implementation of the Second Vatican Council. Our Church is beginning to see that the Second Vatican Council offered a slight redirecting without promulgating anything new or changing Church teaching. The so called “spirit” of Vatican II told us we were to largely ignore everything prior to 1960 and only their secret understanding of the Council was to be paid attention to (Manichaeism heresy, anyone?). We are just beginning to realize that the grave errors of this so called “spirit” of Vatican II are not the actual Truth (Love, Justice, and Mercy) of Vatican II. Bishop Nickless, referencing Pope Benedict XVI, explains: “The so called “spirit” of the Council has no authoritative interpretation. It is a ghost or demon that must be exorcised if we are to proceed with the Lord's work” (Pastoral Letter Ecclesia Semper Reformanda: The Church is Always in Need of Renewal).

In other words, we have no idea what Mass would look like had the Church actually obeyed Vatican II's Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. It called for a very different process and metrics for instituting change. It called us to retain Latin except in specific parts, give primacy of place to Gregorian Chant, and never called for the priest to face the people as the default posture. This confusion in the Church hierarchy and confused milieu of the faithful greatly defines this shepherding moment and what the faithful need as one next step toward Christ.

Shepherding Poverty?

With such confusion, how likely is it our current understanding of shepherding is less than what it has been in our Church's more than two-thousand-years? Do we suffer from a poverty of shepherds and thus shepherding? How goes our examination of shepherding conscience? Is our understanding of shepherding impoverished? If so, how do we invite Christ to heal it and deepen our faith, prayer, and fasting, so we more fully grow into the shepherding office with which Christ has entrusted us? Are we living up to the revealed example of Our Good Shepherd to “Love one another as I have loved you” and the two millennia of lived shepherding wisdom and experience? (John 13:34). How goes our shepherding examination of conscience?

Wayward Society

Society is wayward. No longer are the Church and her princes viewed positively, let alone as authoritative. We are dismissed by modernists of all flavors as just another voice spouting primitive religion that humanity has supposedly outgrown.

And yet...growing numbers of people in the younger generations see the poisonous fruit of twisted liberty, no Truth or authority, communism, progressivism, and liberalism surrounding them. They hunger for something solid: Truth (Love, Justice, Mercy) eternal. They are much like native peoples who hunger for truth and without ever hearing of Christ, are yet humbly obedient to the idea there is Truth (Love, Justice, Mercy) larger than opinions or feelings or any group, that marriage must be more than “love is love, while it lasts,” among other aspects of God's natural law they feel written on the human heart. This reality, and all that has led to it also greatly defines this shepherding moment.

How do we shepherd in this moment?

How do we meet people where they are, walk with them (yes, Christ's version of synodality, which is incomplete without the rest of what He did on the road to Emmaus), admonish the sinner, reveal God's Love (Truth, Justice, and Mercy) in their lives and in salvation history, and then, at the crossroads go our own way, and if they invite us to join them for it is late, break bread with them, revealing Christ is with them always and giving the instruction on how to become Catholic as we go about our shepherding way, leaving them with a choice to make...continue to run away or return to Jerusalem and become Catholic.

This gives a glimpse of the hard questions and state of shepherds, the faithful, and society. This is the current shepherding moment of centuries. How will we shepherd?

#CurrentlyTimeless #Catholic #HumanEndeavor #Parenting #Shepherding #SpiritualDirection #Symposium #VaticanII #SpiritOfVaticanII

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Saints tend came in bunches, interacting with others striving to follow Christ on this pilgrim's journey. Together, they became Saints. St. Therese the Little Flower and many of her family. St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. Sts. Francis and Claire, Benedict and Scholastica. Not to mention Sts. Peter and all the Apostles. As the hope of every Catholic is to become a Saint, following their example of meeting with other Catholics is a great way to “run toward Christ,” as Saint Benedict describes it.

A halo is simple. Like all things simple, it takes five minutes to learn, a lifetime to master.

Who do you want to invite to join your halo? Ask them, and determine what you want to read and discuss (Saint Therese the Little Flower is an excellent place to start!). Meet at home, a coffee shop, park, video conference, phone, even by snail mail. Meet with family, friends, someone new at church... whomever God and you bring together. That's it. That's all there is to starting a halo.

So, What’s a Halo?

A group of 2-12 Catholics who meet weekly to monthly to discuss their life journey running toward Jesus our Christ.

For focus, a halo may read and discuss sections of a work from a Doctor of the Church, sharing quotes that struck them and why.

How Do I Start?

Join or start a Halo. That’s it. Gather in prayer and faith and discuss life and faith and triumphs and challenges with one to eleven other people.

Don’t I need to Register … or Something?

Nope. Meet. God knows. You’re registered with God. Grin. It’s seriously that simple … which is why it’s also so powerful and life changing. May God startle you with joy!

#Catholic #Halo #Shepherding #SpiritualDirection #Marriage #Parenting

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Over our two-thousand-year history, Catholics learned we become our liturgy. How we pray becomes who we are. Yet, in the years and decades since the Second Vatican Council, our liturgy has become confused. No wonder we Catholics are confused. Our faith, prayer, and lives are not integrated. We live disintegrated from our faith, to varying degrees, because our prayer has become disintegrated from our faith.

The deep, satiating Mass of the Ages, the Vetus Ordo, is frozen in time. The Mass prayed, lived, and loved by nearly all the Church's saints in her history, is no longer a living liturgy organically shifting with the Body as we grow and move. Simultaneously, the Mass experienced by most of the living faithful , the Novus Ordo, was implemented without clearly following the desires of the Second Vatican Council. And, in some ways, it was implemented clearly defying her own documents: for the Novus Ordo presumes the priest faces the people, speaks only vernacular, and all but eliminates sacred chant—despite the Constitution on Sacred Liturgy calling for retaining much Latin, presuming the priest is ad orientem (facing liturgical East, with the people), and recommending Gregorian chant. Additionally, the Novus Ordo, invites liturgical abuse with the nebulous rubric phrases, “according to local custom,” and “in these or similar words,” the former still included, the latter printed in the initial editions of the Missal (No. 8-11, 21, 23, 36-37, 116).

The faithful face a choice: a persecuted Mass, frozen in time yet deeply satiating, or a Mass confused, and less satisfying, yet somehow limping along.

We must also grapple with the collectively dawning realization that the so called “spirit” of Vatican II was not the Holy Spirit, but Satan sneaking in immediately after consolation, as Saint Ignatius warns is common in his Discernment of Spirits. As Bishop Nickless explains, having referenced Pope Benedict XVI, “The so called “spirit” of the Council has no authoritative interpretation. It is a ghost or demon that must be exorcised if we are to proceed with the Lord's work” (Pastoral Letter Ecclesia Semper Reformanda: The Church is Always in need of Renewal).

Where does this leave us in this moment, with the Liturgy of the Mass and how it feeds the body of Christ? Christ in the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist is fully present in both Vetus Ordo and Novus Ordo. The reality is that although we are in the early days of implementing the Second Vatican Council, we can see the changes enacted these past 6 decades have sown confusion. The question is, how do we look to the future and move toward a Mass that is what the Second Vatican Council called for? How do we follow the clear vision of the Council and draw Novus Ordo toward the more timeless and satiating, yet frozen Vetus Ordo?

Councils take two-hundred years to be maturely implemented, however long those two-hundred years may be. Holy Mother Church yearns to nourish and feed her children. Two-hundred years from now, I strongly suspect the memory of the Novus Ordo we now know will be, “In retrospect, we bought formula but over time returned to breast milk and made it more accessible.” How we get there is the challenge we face these next two hundred years.

In the meanwhile, whichever Mass we attend, let us lift our eyes to Christ on the Most Holy Cross, hear His Word, and receive His Most Precious Body and Blood, that we may be nourished to go forth and build the City of God amidst the city of sin.

Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi: “As we pray, so we believe, so we live.”

#Catholic #CurrentlyTimeless #Mass #AdOrientem #VetusOrdo #Shepherding

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We live in a Catholic monarchy. Jesus our Christ is our King, our Blessed Virgin Mother our Queen. True, in the United States, our local government is, of the moment, if we can keep it, a democratic republic, with regions devolving into anarchy courtesy of modernism's progressivism. Yet, we all, each and every one, regardless of belief, live in a Catholic monarchy. This realization likely leaves us with a lot to (re)examine, including history, monarchy, some of our cherished human rights, and how we Catholics answer Christ's call to be in the world but not of it.

An overarching Catholic monarchy lived by Catholics threatens and terrifies tyrants and anarchists, other despots, and those whose delusions depend on God's non-existence. Interestingly enough, this terror of the Truth (Love, Justice, and Mercy) is part of the proof of the Truth. Catholics, therefore, appear to “hate” much in the modern world, when we love one another as Christ has loved us (Jn 13:34). Pride has those deluded by the various poisons of the fallen world needing to rule at the top; be it a kingdom of many or, in the case of nihilists and anarchists, an ever dwindling kingdom of one.

Monarchy is the governance model God gives us, and He freely shares His authority. He appoint husbands as head of house to love their wives as Christ loves His Church (Eph 5), priests, bishops, and our pope, all as ruling shepherds over the sheep entrusted to them by Christ.

A brief history may help, for modern history ignores the Catholic Golden Age, claiming it was part of the Dark Ages. For 1,200 years, from Charlemagne in 600 to the last vestiges ended unjustly after World War 1 due to the fear and hatred described above, the Holy Roman Empire served her people in various forms and imperfections. Yet, by the grace of God working through His authority on earth, she ushered in a Catholic Golden Age, out of the Dark Ages following the fall of the Roman Empire. Agriculture and trade developed and flourished, universities and hospitals formed, various sciences emerged—advances that occurred nowhere else.

Out of the Dark Age, the Church upheld and recognized and aided the rising authority of Catholic monarchs. Pope Leo XIII, pope from 1878 to 1903, explains: “...when Christian rulers were at the head of States, the Church insisted much more on testifying and preaching how much sanctity was inherent in the authority of rulers” (Diuturum Illud, No. 21) So much so that “Obedience to authority is obedience to God” (Ibid. No. 27).

As Pope Leo XIII explains: “...from the time when the civil society of men raised from the ruins of the Roman Empire, gave hope of its future Christian greatness, the Roman Pontiffs, by the institution of the Holy Roman Empire, consecrated to political power in a wonderful manner. Greatly, indeed, was the authority of rulers ennobled; and it is not to be doubted that what was then instituted would always have been a very great gain, both to ecclesiastical and civil society, if princes and peoples had ever looked to the same object as the Church. And, indeed, tranquility and a sufficient prosperity lasted so long as there was a friendly agreement between the two powers” (Diuturum Illud, No. 22).

Pope Leo XIII goes on to explain the checks and balances on the State, as well as the people: “If the people were turbulent, the Church was at once the mediator for peace. Recalling all to their duty, she subdued the more lawless passions partly by kindness and partly by authority. So, if, in ruling, princes erred in their government, she went to them and, putting before them the rights, needs, and lawful wants of their people, urged them to equity, mercy, and kindness. Whence, it was often brought about that the dangers of civil wars and popular tumults were stayed” (Ibid.)

Arguably, we have fallen into a new Dark Age, under the weight of Martin Luther's attack on God's authority on earth, in the form of the Sola Heresies (I refer to them this way as each of his heresies' first word is “sola”: scriptura, fide, gratia). Pope Leo XIII again explains: “...the doctrines on political power invented by late writers (of the so called Enlightenment and Rationalists) have already produced great ills among men, and it is to be feared that they will cause the very greatest disasters to posterity. For an unwillingness to attribute the right of ruling to God, as its Author, is no less than a willingness to blot out the greatest splendor of political power and to destroy its force. And they who say that this power depends on the will of the people err in opinion first of all; then they place authority on too weak and unstable a foundation...From this heresy (the Sola Heresies of Martin Luther) there arose in the last century a false philosophy—a new right as it is called, and a popular authority, together with an unbridled license which many regard as the only true liberty. Hence we have reached the limit of horrors, to wit, Communism, Socialism, Nihilism, hideous deformities of the civil society of men and almost its ruin” (Ibid. No. 23).

This shocks the modern mind: A Catholic monarchy has more immediate and effective checks and balances on it than are built into the Constitution of the United States. A Catholic monarch strives to have bold, humble obedience to God, including His Church, the royal family, and the people of God. Read the writings of the Reigning Prince of Liechtenstein Hans-Adam II in The State in the Third Millennium and The Habsburg Way by Eduard Habsburg, Archduke of Austria and they also describe the workings of these checks and balances of a Catholic monarchy by God's authority on earth.

To understand history, and the rise and eventual neutering of Protestant monarchies, we need only understand that Martin Luther's Sola Heresies evaporated these checks and balances, leaving Protestant monarchs deluded into believing they alone were the highest authority to interpret God's revelation, something no good Catholic would do (keeping in mind Christ Himself defers to the will of the Father).

Is a Catholic monarchy perfect? Not this side of death's veil; it is, however, the best governance model there is, divinely instituted. As near as I can see, based on the nurturing and defense of obedience to God's authority on earth in each: Catholic monarchy > democratic republic >> Protestant monarchy >>>> all others.

As with any shifting and developing relationship, the emergence of a Catholic emperor caused challenges as the papacy and monarchy sorted out how and where authority flowed. Much the same long term learning is occurring in these recent centuries between emerging democratic republics and the papacy and society at large, especially with the added shift of the disenlightenment and rise of irrationalism that now infuses society. Time and experience improved the relationship with the Holy Roman Empire through the centuries, as both chose bold, humble obedience to Christ and thus learned and improved how each filled their divinely appointed office.

Jump forward to the current challenge between the papacy and modernist society: Is similar improvement possible when one of the parties rejects the existence of God? Improvement depends on bold, humble obedience to Christ; thus, the question becomes one of how to shepherd a wayward child who has turned away from Truth, Love, Justice, and Mercy. How did this happen? Since 1517, society has been in decline, not ascent. Authority—which is only granted by God—on earth, the Church, Catholic monarchies, and in individuals, was attacked by Martin Luther's Sola Heresies. The Church has reeled since with how to shepherd. How does one shepherd amidst the confusion of modernism? Naming and lamenting the errors, including that only the individual can discern Truth and the authority to rule derives from the people, not from God, is a start, yet how do we answer Christ's call of the spiritual act of mercy to “admonish the sinner”? Shepherding people out of modernism's many errors is akin to parenting a wayward teen running with the wrong crowd, relishing sex, drugs, and violence.

In theory, in a democratic republic, a well formed, faithful people have a collective authority of sensus fidelium, sense of the faithful, in discerning how they vote (the same authority that is a check and balance against a wayward Catholic monarch); yet when society erodes the “fidelium”, the authority decreases; so to, as leaders have less or no fidelium, what authority they had also erodes, for they have no Christ compass to recognize Truth, Love, Justice and Mercy.

Pope Leo XIII explains part of the root of this shepherding challenge with the many flavors of modernism—including liberalism, progressivism, communism, socialism, nihilism, and anarchy—“For fear, as Saint Thomas (Aquinas) admirably teaches 'is a weak foundation: for those who are subdued by fear would, should the occasion arise in which they might hope for immunity, rise more eagerly against their rulers, in proportion to the previous extent of their restraint through fear'” (Diuturum Illud, No. 24). With diminished authority, fear of punishment is the remaining motivation to obey to the law and there is no motivation to obey what is just.

This explains the chaos of our time. How, then, are we to be Catholic in a local democratic republic? Firstly, we ought always remember we are within the rule of Christ our King. Secondly, much as early Christians were faithful leaven as citizens of the Roman Empire, which persecuted them, we called to be leaven.

Saint Alphonsus De Liguori described Saint Sebastian's martyrdom: “Sebastian answered that he considered he was rendering the greatest possible service to the emperor (as a soldier), since the state benefited by having Christian subjects, whose fidelity to their sovereign is proportionate to their devotedness to Jesus Christ. The emperor, enraged at this reply, ordered that the saint should be instantly tied to a post and that a body of archers should discharge their arrows upon him” (Victories of the Martyrs, Ch. LXII).

In more modern times, Pope Leo explains: “The Church of Christ indeed cannot be an object of suspicion to rulers, nor of hatred to the people; for it urges rulers to follow justice, and in nothing to decline from their duty; while at the same time it strengthens and in many ways supports their authority” (Diuturum Illud, No. 26).

As faithful Catholics, our challenge is to be formed by the Church. We are called to turn to the shepherds Christ entrusts us to so Christ, through them, may shepherd us. As we become more formed, we become leaven throughout society. No matter the local government, or the state of society, Christ within us rises, elevating society. This is how the Church can shepherd manfully amidst these modern errors, and how we faithful can be manfully shepherded. Who but Christ through His Church can name error of our modern ways? For we hold as cherished rights these errors, so turned around by Satan are we: the supposed even plane of ideas, the individual as the highest authority of Truth, and the people, not God, as the source of authority to rulers, among others.

We Catholics are called to elevate public discourse, both with how we live our lives and how we converse with others who do not yet understand. We ought never entertain the voice and temptation and lies of Satan in modernism's many flavors. To modernist eyes, any just voice elevating discourse spouts authoritarian hate. To anarchists, everything looks like fascism.

We Catholics are called to be leaven. Let us turn to our shepherds to form us, that by living our Faith we elevate the city of man, in which we live but are not of, toward becoming the City of God, by being the light of Christ on the hill.

Now, how do I get this bushel off my head?

May Christ startle you with joy!

#BlessedVirginMary #CurrentlyTimeless #HumanEndeavor #Catholic #Monarchy #Shepherding #Symposium #Communism #PopeLeoXIII #Nihilism #Modernism #Progressivism #MartinLuther #Habsburg #Lichtenstein #DarkAge #GoldenAge

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We at Cor Sacrae Familiae, hopefully including you, dear reader, desire to restore Christ to human endeavor. To restore Christ to human endeavor, we need to evaluate if actions uphold or topple human dignity. Enter the model of Catholic social teaching, a model which can be teased from the various social encyclicals as well as the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. As with all things simple, it is easily explained and takes a lifetime to master.

“The permanent principles of the Church's social doctrine constitute the very heart of Catholic social teaching. These are the principles of: the dignity of the human person; ... the common good; subsidiarity; and solidarity” (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, 2004, Para. 160).

Seat of the Stool: Human Dignity

Human dignity is the innate and immeasurable value every person has because God breathed a unique breath into their clay at the moment of their conception, endowing each with an aspect of God only they can share with the world.

Thus, every Catholic has a responsibility to come to know and breathe into the world their own breath of God and to invite and aid others in doing so themselves. This is a fundamental reason for Cor Sacrae Familiae's Halos.

Why such a responsibility? Because when Jesus says to. “Love one another as I have loved you,” (Jn 13:34) and “...as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me,” (Mt 25:40), we can know we love our neighbor and if we do so out of love of God, then we obey the greatest two commandments.

Human dignity is thus the preeminent principle of Catholic social teaching, the seat of the three-legged-stool, upheld by the three legs of common good, subsidiarity, and solidarity.

Three Equal Legs of the Stool

Here is how to know if we uphold human dignity: Ensure each of the three legs of the stool is as fully present as possible. In supporting a given action, say minimum wage law and government social aid, we can evaluate if it upholds human dignity. How well does the action mutually uphold these three principles: common good, subsidiarity, and solidarity?

Common Good

The common good is the mutually shared responsibility of all individual people to corporately realize our full, individual, human potential. Life, food, clothing, and shelter are clear example of such foundational human needs. Society, and all within it, are best served when there is a safety net that provides these for those who can not provide them for themselves, including aiding those who could provide for themselves with a “hand up.” The key challenges are how to provide them in such a way that subsidiarity and solidarity are also upheld. Much is written about the common good and how we are to recognize when it is present.

Subsidiarity

Subsidiarity is the responsibility of individuals to realize the fullest potential of the smallest groupings, down to the family and individual, by placing ownership at the smallest feasible and practical level in society. Indeed, not only is it the responsibility of smaller groupings to claim and act upon their local authority, but it is the responsibility of larger groupings to encourage and support ownership at smaller levels as required. Larger institutions should not overwhelm or interfere with smaller or more local institutions, yet there is room for the higher levels, including the State, to encourage and support this ownership at lower levels.

Solidarity

Solidarity is the responsibility of individuals to realize that what happens to one affect all and thus to stand together, with our strongest helping our weakest, that we might realize our fullest human potential. Each individual owes a proportionate debt to society, for all success is partially due to society; thus, for an individual, a proportionate debt is owed to society.

Assessing if an Action Upholds Human Dignity

Assessing if an action upholds human dignity is challenging because it is subjective. Even when applying the same meaning of the same principles the same way, people of goodwill can disagree and have conversation in good faith.

Yet Satan creates a greater challenge by muddying the waters with watered down or upside-down meanings that “forget” the true meaning of terms and principles and how to apply them.

One common error is “plucking principles” out of the fabric of Catholic social teaching and holding them up as though a seeming violation of it clearly undermines human dignity. The error of logic becomes apparent when we apply this same illogic to justify abortion, claiming “choice” or free will trump sanctity of human life by only focusing on the mother and ignoring the full immediate picture that the baby in her womb is a full human life from the moment of conception.

Minimum Wage Laws

“Living wage” is a perfect example of multiple errors seeping into Catholic social teaching and into those who error in how they apply it. Proponents of minimum wage laws pluck the principle of “living wage” out of the fabric of Catholic social teaching and claim it justifies the government interference in two people establishing a contract. Such principle plucking causes a number of errors.

First, the meaning of “living wage” today as come to mean any job worked full time should provide a lower-middle-class income, be it flipping burgers or serving coffee, or sweeping the docks. This differs greatly from the meaning Pope Leo XIII gave it in Rerum Novarum, stating:

“Let the working man and the employer make free agreements, and in particular let them agree freely as to the wages.”

For Pope Leo XIII, the freedom of individuals to enter into contracts takes precedence over the idea of enforcing a living wage, which should instead serve as a moral guide for determining what a just agreement looks like. Imposing a fixed minimum contract amount undermines the principle of subsidiarity and, in practice, harms workers, business owners, and consumers by restricting the freedom to negotiate mutually beneficial terms. Experience shows that such top-down mandates often harm the very people they aim to help.

Yet, woe to the business owner who abuses his position and could pay a living wage: one that supports a “frugal and well-behaved wage-earner” to “support himself, his wife, and his children.” Pope Leo XIII's living wage is an underlying “dictate of natural justice more imperious and ancient than any bargain between man and man.” Yet it was likely never meant to include flipping burgers or serving coffee and other entry level positions. Unlike the “living wage” in the modernist's mind, Pope Leo XIII's worker “find(s) it easy, if he be a sensible man, to practice thrift, and he will not fail, by cutting down expenses, to put by some little savings and thus secure a modest source of income.”

In short, it falls on the princes and clergy of the Church to form business owners to treat their workers well and shape their businesses so they can provide a living wage, or as close to one as the market will allow.

Pope Leo XIII names two checks and balances on business owners, and incentives for laborers: Private property (Rerum Novarum, nos. 4-8, 46), which should be held “sacred and inviolable,” and the forming of labor unions. Private property because “its policy should be to induce as many as possible of the people to become owners. Many excellent results will follow from this; and, first of all, property will certainly become more equitably divided” (RN, nos. 46-47).

Indeed, Pope Leo XIII warns against the socialist and communist tactic of pitting the workers against the owners: “the poor man’s envy of the rich” to incite violence and tear at the fabric of society (RN, no. 4). Further, “they delude the people and impose upon them, and their lying promises will only one day bring forth evils worse than the present” (RN, no.18). He likens trade unions to the guilds of old in their seeing to uphold the needs of the workers and aiding them in gaining private property (RN, nos. 48-49).

Conclusion

As in all things Catholic, we do well to know what we know and hold ourselves accountable to it; this is a fundamental principle of shepherding. Truth is simple, not noisy. Applying Truth in a fallen world is challenging and not easy, but the yoke of doing so should always be easy and light, lest it be sin's yoke rather than Christ's.

All social actions must be held accountable to the three pillars upholding human dignity: the common good, subsidiarity, and solidarity. These form the greatest principles of Catholic social teaching. No lesser tenet can supersede them, for undermining one weakens them all.

In order to speak thoughtfully—with intellect, a fruit of faith and intelligence—about how much a given action upholds human dignity, clergy and all faithful need to be prayerfully formed, discerning, and grounded in Catholic social teaching. Only then can one examine, uphold, and most fully strive to respect the dignity of all involved.

#Catholic #CatholicSocialTeaching #SocialJustice #Shepherding #CSFSymposium #HumanEndeavor #SpiritualDirection

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