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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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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Goal

Reinfuse Christ into human endeavor, as it was, however imperfectly, from the 12th into the early 16th centuries. Shepherding, education, healthcare, storytelling, technology, science, agriculture, governance, among others.

Method

Cultivate ongoing conversation among Catholics, particularly shepherds and those in a given area of human endeavor that addresses the question: what would (insert human endeavor here) look like if we were boldly, humbly obedient to Christ's full revealed Truth (Love, Justice, and Mercy)?

Authority

Christ gave His Church authority, humbly obedient to God, over the soul when He gave Saint Peter the power of the keys, to bind on earth and in heaven. This sole earthly authority includes the authority of the Sacrament of Confession and thus authority over souls, granted her by our Lord Jesus Christ. In this capacity, the Church as authority over every soul, and thus over every human endeavor.

Premises in Common (History and Current)

• In the 12th, 13th, 14th, and into the 15th centuries humanity ascended in broader Europe, the Holy Roman Empire, because, despite many flaws in people and emerging systems of human endeavor, Christ was central and foundational and thus bold, humble obedience to Christ (Love, Truth, Justice, and Mercy) was commonly rewarded. This ascension of human endeavor to the benefit of humanity would begin to visibly crumble in 1517, and continue crumbling until, with few exceptions, the very institutions founded by the Catholic faithful are unrecognizable as Catholic.
• In discerning Christ's presence, we need Ignatian holy equipoise—indifference to specific result of our labor in the result of how we achieve consolation in striving to reinfuse Christ into human endeavor.
• 1517: Martin Luther's 95 Theses, which became the Sola Heresies, attacked God's authority on earth: first in the Church, then Catholic monarchies, then disciplines of human endeavor, personal free will, and finally devolving into the self-refuting anarchic claim that “the only/highest truth is personal truth.” Over the centuries, this gravely harmed the presence of Love, Truth, Justice, and Mercy (Christ) in all human endeavor, including the Church, state, science, technology, medicine, education, pastoral care, manufacturing, food production, storage, and distribution, news and story telling, and many others. This has diminished and even poisoned the fruit of subsequent human endeavors. We need to restore bold, humble obedience to Christ in all human endeavor.

• We do not know what (insert human endeavor here) would look like had we kept Christ central; thus, per St. Ignatius, we in desolation must back track to the last time of consolation and sort out how to proceed forward in consolation.

  Tools and Resources

• Understanding Human Dignity (LINK)

• Shepherding Quick Guide

  Initial Observations

• What is the current state of this human endeavor? What does it do well, poorly, and sinfully from a Catholic perspective?

  Queries

• What questions need answers?

  Proposals

• What are the possible answers, or path toward discovering and discerning those answers, having humility to know that answers will rise through faithful conversation and dialogue?

Note: Saint John Paul II's encyclical Redemptor Hominis no. 15-18 gives the context for understanding the decline of human endeavor since the Sola Heresies and Christ as the remedy.

Where and How is this CSF Symposium?

Excellent question. Ideally, it becomes a global conversation among faithful Catholics. Thus, to start, the default “where” is the internet, with folks emailing me their posts, possibly including the Fediverse by the tags used here. Open to ideas beyond that.

#Catholic #HumanEndeavor #Shepherding #Symposium

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Greetings in Jesus our Christ and in the Immaculate Heart of His Blessed Virgin Mother, our gateway to His Most Sacred Heart and in the Humble Heart of His Holy Papa Joseph, our defender as we approach Cor Sacræ Familiæ, the Heart of the Holy Family!

I am Deacon Patrick Augustin Jones, founder of Cor Sacræ Familiæ, in the Diocese of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Because of brain injury, I live as a married Catholic hermit. I am blessed with a wondrous wife and four children. Our Blessed Virgin Mother has shown me Cor Sacræ Familiæ. This website is my inadequate attempt to translate Cor Sacræ Familiæ's beauty, truth, and goodness into finite words. Whatever error this contains is mine.

Nearly two decades ago (now being September, 2025), praying the rosary on a local trail, I heard Our Lord Jesus our Christ say “Free My Church!” I naturally asked how. Through the years, He and our Blessed Mother Mary showed me the answer of Cor Sacræ Familiæ.

Cor Sacræ Familiæ

The Heart of the Holy Family: three hearts, each in each.

Christ's Most Sacred Heart, being divine, is naturally infinite. Yet, each is in each, for His grace makes the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Humble Heart of Joseph infinite. The Sacred Heart of Jesus welcomes within His impenetrable wall, where evil can not pass, all the elect, who, as Saint Paul describes, fully run the race. His Heart includes all devotions to Jesus, the Holy Trinity, and the Holy Family.

The Immaculate Heart of Mary is the sole gate into her Son's heart (cf: The True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin by Saint Louis De Montfort). Her Immaculate Heart includes all devotions to her.

The Humble Heart of Joseph defends all who approach his Son's Sacred heart and includes all devotions to Saint Joseph as well as Saint Michael the Archangel.

Why Now?

Christ's Catholic Church is in a new Dark Age, shackled by the many and various poisonous fruits of the 16th century's Sola Heresies, the result of Martin Luther's 95 Theses, which attacked God's authority on earth in the Church and in Catholic monarchies, leading to a decline of man out of freedom, into the deception that humanity could elevate itself without “primitive” belief in God. This disenlightenment of the 18th century led to the very irrationalist rise of delusion that each man can choose best for himself, being the highest authority. This devolved into the nihilism and anarchy we witness now, the devolved, poisonous fruit of modernism (progressivism, liberalism, communism, socialism, feminism, transgenderism, among other flavors).

Additionally, as Saint Faustina describes, Satan has been unfettered to attack marriage and family, and we experience and witness this attack in many ways daily.

These are the shackles from which Christ's Church needs freed.

Free My Church

Faithful devotion to any aspect of Cor Sacræ Familiæ leads to deeper devotion and a body of faithful striving to answer Christ's call to:

CSF Symposium: Reinfuse Christ into Human Endeavor

An ongoing symposium, in general and by profession or discipline, to restore Christ to every human endeavor. This is an answer to what Saint John Paul II describes in Redemptor Hominis (No. 15-18).

Be it shepherding, science, education, healthcare, technology, food production, manufacturing, story, or any other aspect of human endeavor, we strive to promote conversation, proposals, and discernment of how to reinfuse Christ into human endeavor.

Here is the template starting point for Reinfusing Christ into a given aspect of human endeavor.

CSF Community: Build the City of God amidst the city of man

Cultivate community of Cor Sacræ Familiæ spirituality, be it in promoting inter generational faithful family living and the shepherding to support it, multiple families sharing resources and community in neighborhoods, or the eventual founding of a Cor Sacræ Familiæ Confraternity and community. Striving to help answer: how do we live and work together in faithful community, much as the early Church, to build the City of God amidst the city of man?

May Christ startle you with joy! – Deacon Patrick

Pray the Cor Sacræ Familiæ Chaplet

Books by Deacon Patrick

“Defend the Tabernacle”, took silver medal for best novel in the 2018 Catholic Press Association Awards.

“Ecsodus Vision”, is my first novella.

#Catholic #Disability #HumanEndeavor #Marriage #Rosary #Shepherding #CSFSymposium

By: Deacon Patrick Augustin Jones

Quick Guide Rules of Shepherding

1. The soul is God's unique breath breathed into each person at their conception. The soul is aeviternal: once created, it is immortal. Likewise, the body into which the soul is breathed, will be raised either to eternal death or eternal life. God's unique breath creates the human soul, which He intends to have additional beauty and virtue and graces.

2. Jesus will judge each soul on the Last Day. The soul is likened to a grain of wheat. Baptism removes the grain's chaff from its meat (Mt 3:12; Lk 3:17). Sin returns the chaff and diminishes the meat, God's breath. Much as the talent was taken from the servant who buried it, so throughout life in sin or virtue are the graces removed from and given to the soul, leaving the meat diminished or plump. Come the Last Day, goats, per Matthew 25, will become as chaff, having relinquished the graces bestowed upon their soul back to God, and be cast into Hell. They forever burn as chaff, a desiccated soul, the imprint of God whom they rejected but for whom they hunger eternally, flesh ever burning, never consumed (Hell is an act of divine mercy: for souls who reject God, the only greater torment would be being eternally in His presence); sheep will enter deep, abiding, eternal relationship with God. cf.: Life of St. Teressa by Herself, Ch. XL, No. 8-9.

3. God is Love (1 Jn 4:8). As the Most Holy Trinity is Three in One, One in Three, without confusion, so with Love. Love, to our finite minds, needs to be broken open to be rightly understood. Thus, Love, synonymous with God, is: love, truth, justice, and mercy. A perfect, divine unity; each requires the others to be fully understood as meant by divine revelation from within the tidal pools of infinity(cf. Deus Caritas Est. Pope Benedict XVI).

4. Jesus extols us to “Love one another as I have loved you” (Jn 15:12). This is the call of shepherding. Sacrificially love each other toward Christ and through Him toward eternal paradise.

5. Sheep, for shepherds are to presume all entrusted to his care are sheep rather than goats, that judgement being God's alone, will be judged for having fully run the race and loved one another as Jesus loves them (1 Cor 9:25). But beware! The enemy sows the wheat field of the faithful with tares, weeds among the wheat while those in the watchtowers sleep. These tares are the faithful who fall away, who do not fully run the race, who are not the predestined elect. The roots of these weeds entwine and choke the wheat unseen below ground while appearing above ground the same as wheat.

6. The journey of the soul is simple: Fear of God begets curiosity to know God; knowing God begets love of God; love of God begets desire to serve God; serving God begets the desire to unite our will to God's.

7. God's universal invitation through Jesus Christ includes the graces needed to fully run the race; however, a soul's free willed choices of virtue or sin aid or hinder its capacity to cooperate and receive these graces. The predestined elect, who are known by God from before time and space and for whom this entire universe was created, against all other possible universes, are granted reception of graces to aid them in fully running the Race. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux's cup analogy from The Story of a Soul comes to mind: some souls expand through holiness to hold more grace than others, so there is a hierarchy and diversity of holiness in heaven. These graces are the salvation arts. As faith without works is dead, grace must be exercised to be received (Jm 2:17). Like martial arts, the salvation arts must be experienced, taught, learned, practiced, and integrated into daily life if we are to wield them effectively and become, by the grace of Jesus our Christ, saints.

8. Our soul, our unique breath of God that only we can share with the world, grows as we wield the salvation arts. This is our inner saint (Gn 1-2; Ps 1-2) and growing in holy virtue (Latin for strength) fortifies our soul.

9. The salvation arts are weapons Jesus gives us through our Confirmation to defend against Satan's attacks with comparatively little effort on our part. Practicing them propels us toward Christ. The salvation arts include: Sacraments; ten commandments; prayer in all its many forms, especially Mass, the Divine Office, adoration, and the rosary, among others; devotions and sacramentals; six precepts of the Church; Virtues; gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit; Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy; Beatitudes; the Four Last Things; intellect, including mindfulness, logic, and reason; and corporal discipline (cf # 11).

10. Every choice we make either grows our saint and diminishes our sinner, or grows our sinner and diminishes our saint. Either turns us toward or away from Jesus our Christ increasing our momentum toward or away from Him (Ps 1-2). Each person's choices create the landscape around their soul, as we are each called to make choices that honor the temple God made us to be. For as Saint Paul says, “Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in your midst?” (1 Cor 3-16).

11. Correcting errors in a soul who has cultivated eyes of innocence, eyes that see the world as God sees the world, is a gentle matter. They may even self-correct or only need soft correction once. Stubborn souls and obstinate blind spots in any soul require greater action, to include appropriate corporal discipline such as time-limited vows of silence, carrying a rock for a day, extra labor, and the like. Practice that aids the soul always is doing all things practicable by human power. As Saint Teresa of Ávila explains, “It is true we cannot be free of sin, but at least let our sins be not always the same” (The Interior Castle).

12. Shepherding can be crisp, clear, blunt, soft, gentle, harsh, companionable, adversarial, sly, mocking, and many other expressions of love as appropriate. Consider Jesus as He says: “Oh how foolish you are,” “Go and sin no more,” “Ye of little faith,” “This kind only comes out with prayer,” “Get behind me Satan,” “Do you love me more than these?” “Feed and tend my lambs and sheep,” “Love one another as I have loved you.” A good shepherd's deepening wisdom aids him in discerning the flavor of shepherding appropriate to the person and circumstance.

13. A good shepherd knows shepherding requires urgency and clear direct truth, while balanced with understanding, mercy, and patience — especially for the lambs still growing and lacking the fortitude of muscle, structure, and stamina to handle the blunt. Yet to treat the entire flock as newborn lambs is a foolish way to shepherd. It weakens the whole flock, leaving it unable to repel blight, discern good pasture from poisonous tares, and recognize wolves lurking at the periphery or in their midst.

14. Patience is a flavor of virtue similar to bravery: it’s not about feeling brave in the face of fear but more about acting brave despite it. Likewise, patience is less about feeling calm as injuries fester, capacities languish, and questions come and go and more about engaging the world anyway, while we can, as much as we can, with contentment and joy. Such patience is only possible via faith.

15. Souls go where they focus their gaze. However faithful they intend to be, souls fixated on the rapids of life or the enemy, end up sucked in, churned about, and chewed up by the current, rocks, and downed trees of the rapids. Good shepherds aid their flock in lifting their eyes to Christ in all things, for he is always the way through. Notice and call out the rapids, maintain focus upon Christ. This is how the storm is becalmed through faith (Mt 8:26).

16. Saints travel in bunches, known as halos — aiding one another against sin and running to Jesus, our Christ. Peer faithful are called to shepherd one another. Faithful do well to form or join halos, in the fervent desire to accept Christ's invitation to be predestined elect at the races end. Each married person's primary halo is their husband or wife.

17. Sheep, including oneself, who are not progressing against foundational attacks by their sinner, should reflect honestly: how would a Saint respond in similar circumstances? Seek to integrate faith more deeply: guard time for prayer, create space for discernment, and act on what is already known of the faith. Listen to the halos God as placed around you — spouse, peers, superiors, and subordinates. When choosing a spiritual director or new halo, ask yourself: Who challenges me in new ways? Who do I avoid and why? Might they be part of the answer God is offering? The consequences to sin often are proportionate to the stubbornness with which it is held.

18. Shepherding is the intentional aiding of other sheep to turn toward and run to Jesus, our Christ.

19. Love the sinner (one who sins), hate the sin. To love or even tolerate the sin is to hate the sinner. As Saint Augustine of Hippo explains: “Whoever loves himself, not God, loves not himself ... he cannot love himself who loves himself to his own destruction” (as quated by St. Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea on Jn 21:18-19).

20. Give the inner sinner no quarter. A shepherd's staff is a multi-tool: a hiking staff for navigating rough terrain and seeking out the one lost; a lasso and lift for guiding sheep and rescuing the lost from hard-to-reach niches; a quarter staff and cudgel for defending the flock against wolves without and within the flock. All uses properly applied are pastoral.

21. The good shepherd corrects and accompanies, and in so doing administers Christ's love in such a way that it can be received and invites and challenges the lamb or sheep one next step toward Christ.

22. Jesus, our Christ, gave Saint Peter and his successors, and to a lesser degree, all disciples, the power of the keys, to bind and loose on earth and in heaven. Thus Christ grants the Church and her priests alone the authority and power to forgive sin —– clergy and disciples and likewise given the authority and power to shepherd souls. Moreover, in both divine and natural hierarchies, authority increases with greater fidelity to Christ: the closer one is to faithfulness to the Catholic Church, the greater one's authority as shepherd. For example, all parents have equal power and authority over their children(Eph 6:4); however, Catholic parents, who actively live the faith and receive grace from the sacraments, have greater capacity to correctly know and exercise that authority than less active or non-Catholic parents.

23. God's authority is bestowed on some of the faithful through various offices to shepherd others entrusted to them by Christ, the Good Shepherd (Jn 21:15-17). It is important to distinguish between power and authority: power is the ability to effect change; authority is the rightful and divinely granted prerogative to govern or make decisions. For example, a husband is called to be head of house and love his wife as Christ loves His Church (Eph 5:23-25). His wife is called to loving obedience, partner with her husband to shepherd their children in mutual love of Christ, and aid her husband in fulfilling his office as head of house. This mutual submission is rooted in charity and respect, reflecting the Church's own relationship with Christ (Eph 5:21). Clergy, by virtue of Holy Orders, receive authority in varying degrees over the flocks entrusted to them in parishes, dioceses, and the global Church. This hierarchical authority is not merely administrative, but is a sacred trust to serve the People of God (cf. Lumen Gentium, 18). When those in authority fail to rightly fulfill their duties, God, in His providence, may raise up faithful members of the Church to assist or correct — an example being Saint Catherine of Siena, who through her bold, humble obedience to God helped restore the Papacy to Rome. Thus authority within the Church is both a divine gift and a solemn responsibility, exercised in love for the salvation of souls.

24. Baptism washes away all original and personal sin; yet concupiscence remains ... a lingering scar of pride to reject God and pridefully make us our own god.

25. This voice of concupiscence tempts us like the serpent tempted Eve: “Did God really say ...?” (Gen 3:1.) It sparks a deep, concupiscent fear that God isn't who God says He is and thus, we aren't who God says we are and thus, God can't save us as God says and thus, death will consume us (Jer 17:5; Rom 8:38-39). Ergo, we must go it on our own and pridefully reject God and become our own god. Rarely is any of this consciously thought; instead, this temptation lurks beneath the surface like a choking weed, suffocating our divine life and capacity to breathe the breath God breathed into us into the world. Yet, by making ourselves our own god, we fall under the dominion of Satan, subjecting our small, lonely kingdom to Satan's rule for eternity.

26. Authority is God's alone to bestow. In the carnal world, for clarity's sake, power is earthly, carnal. God, of course, is omnipotent and omniscient and shares this through His authority. One's position may wield both authority and power, or one without the other, or neither.

27. All entrusted with authority bear a portion of the sins of those entrusted to them — except when they ardently strive to correct though faithful shepherding. A good shepherd can do no more than the Good Shepherd and must accept the free will of the sheep even as he fights for their salvation through sacrificial love, never abandoning them this side of death's veil (Rule of Saint Benedict, 2:1-10).

28. Concupiscence caved into is sin. Sin makes us deaf, blind, dumb, and stupid. The more we sin, the more our concupiscence grows, becoming our inner sinner. Sin begets more sin, just as holiness begets greater holiness (Ps 1-2).

29. A simple way of understanding all of salvation history is it is God restoring right relationship, found in the Garden of Eden. Thus, a key component of shepherding, and assessing how to shepherd, is to strive to heal broken relationship into right relationship.

30. Right relationship has four elements to it: relationship with God, self, others, and nature (Gn 1-2).

31. Emotions are barometers of right relationship — nothing more, nothing less.

32. Fear that God is not whom He claims and thus we are not who He claims, is the root emotion of broken relationship. Wounds from a broken relationship may deceptively appear in others, distracting us from the true source and leading us to harm those relationships while the true cause remains hidden. All disordered emotions are rooted in our soul's countenance as a strong temptation of at least one of the seven deadly sins — each a shadowed shape of fear At the root of all sin lies the fear that the foundational truths of Faith are not true, deceiving us into sin as we try to crown ourselves god.

33. 'Busy,' in modern usage, is nearly always a sign of putting a lesser good ahead of a greater good. Working toward right relationship is neither busy nor noisy. Thus, where busy or noisy occur, we're doing it wrong and headed away from Jesus, our Christ.

34. One definition of sin is putting a lesser good ahead of greater goods (Saint Augustine's Confessions). Restore proper order and one is no longer busy.

35. Jesus said “my yoke is easy, my burden light.” If we are burdened or heavy, we bear sin's yoke, not Christ's. Set down sin's yoke and take up Christ's (Mt 11:30).

36. Fear of anything less than God is idolatry. Fear of imminent death is an expression of love for the life God has given us; therefore it is also an expression of the fear of the Lord. Phobias, in contrast, are not the same and are rooted in fear of death itself and driven by a desire to be our own god — trusting in oneself rather than in the Holy Trinity.

37. Love is the root emotion of right relationship. Love only comes from God and never deceives us, though we can be deceived by what surrounds it.

38. Good shepherds always remember they are first sheep, subject to all the foibles and failings of sheep.

39. All truth is simple and all simple things are hard. Truth can be explained clearly in less than a minute, yet a lifetime is insufficient to understand its depths.

40. The surest way to know we love God is to love our neighbor. Sure ways to love our neighbor include the corporal and spiritual acts of mercy (Saint Teresa of Ávila, The Interior Castle 5,3,7-8).

41. The crucifix reveals how Jesus bridges the insurmountable chasm between our fallen world and heaven. Jesus hangs at the crux of the Cross, His Sacred Heart reveals that true Love is the union of love, truth, justice, and mercy. The horizontal beam of love and mercy, which by itself sinks into the miasma and quagmire of sin, must be joined to the vertical beam of truth and justice, which by itself is too steep to cling to for all but a few in salvation history. Only together are they lifted upright toward heaven, sanctified by Christ's death and resurrection to become the bridge of faith across the chasm of our fallen doom (Saint Catherine of Siena, Dialogue).

42. Good shepherds not only guide their peers and flock, but also, when needed, their shepherd where his faults harm his flock. The aforementioned Saint Catherine of Siena is one example, urging the pope back to Rome, among her many other upward shepherding actions. More common are the wives who aid their husbands to manfully grow into his vocational office to provide, protect, and discipline, or the parishioners who support their priest become a true pastor.

43. All faithful are called to obey the shepherd(s) entrusted with their care, obeying all asked of them, except where what is asked clearly contradicts God's will, even in the slightest. In such cases, the good sheep continue to obey in all else, honoring the office while seeking to correct in fraternal charity. This includes, when necessary, shepherding upward, enacting Matthew 18:15-17 including appeal to higher authority within the Church.

44. In conflict, the good shepherd encourages his flock to follow Matthew 18:15-17, and does so himself when his brother sins against him. If genuine reconciliation efforts fail, the good shepherd continues to pray for all involved and quietly, humbly, and diligently returns to the call entrusted to him by Christ.

45. Our sinner strives, in many forms, to make down seem up, wrong seem right, disorder appear normal. For example, one may be tempted to take on another's responsibilities while neglecting their own — sloth hiding as prudence. These distortions come in many flavors, all expressions of the seven deadly sins.

46. The heavenly virtues wage battle against the deadly sins, always defeating them when wielded with humble love. They offer a clear and simple lens to cut through the confusion and noise of sin and deception within the soul.

47. Where there is strife, there is sin. Strife due to nature, illness, or death reveals original sin, and sometimes personal sin. Strife in relationships always reveals personal sin. The good shepherd presumes the causal sin harming relationship is his own until proven otherwise, and even then, he examines how his sin may have contributed to or been inflamed by it. In shepherding others, he counsels those involved to do the same.

48. These rules are likely to agitate your sinner. Seek shepherding to aid you in this, and ensure you wield the salvation arts.

49. Some of the topics to be addressed in the full Rule of Shepherding include conservation of truth; soulscape and its geography; physics of the soul; biology of the soul; gender issues, including male and female breaths of God; marriage; parenting; science of shepherding; cultivating eyes of innocence.

50. If it isn't clear yet: it is all shepherding. Shepherd with love and abandon in Jesus our Christ!

Post Script

All that is contained in this quick reference is offered as truth, as received through the full revelation of Jesus our Christ — given in Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, the Magisterium, and the witness of the Saints. Any error is mine alone.

As we strengthen and revitalize the practice of shepherding, these principles should be refined and added to while ensuring continuity, not usurpation, of truth entrusted to the Church.

Resources:

• Book of Pastoral Rule by Saint Gregory the Great
• “Sermon on Pastors” by Saint Augustine (Sermo 46:1-2: CCL 41, 529-530)
• Pastores Dabo Vobis I will give you shepherds: Saint Pope John Paul II

#Catholic #Marriage #HumanEndeavor #Parenting #Shepherding #SpiritualDirection

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