Month: March 2021

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Give Us This Day – Servant of God, Thea Bowman

Thea Bowman was one of the great treasures of the American Catholic Church. Ablaze with the spirit of love, the memory of struggle, and a faith in God’s promises, she impressed her audiences not just with her message but with the nobility of her spirit.

Born in rural Mississippi, she converted to Catholicism while attending parochial school. Later, as a Franciscan nun, she found herself the only African American in a White religious order. But she had no desire to “blend in.” She believed her identity as a Black woman entailed a special vocation. She believed the Church must make room for the spiritual traditions of African Americans, including the memory of slavery, but also the spirit of hope and resistance reflected in the spirituals, the importance of family, community, celebration, and remembrance.  

She was a spellbinding speaker who preached the Gospel to audiences across the land, including the U.S. bishops. After being diagnosed with incurable cancer she bore a different kind of witness. She continued to travel and speak, even from her wheelchair. To her other gifts to the Church she added the witness of her courage and trust in God. “I don’t make sense of suffering. I try to make sense of life,” she said. “I try each day to see God’s will.” She died on March 30, 1990, at the age of fifty-two. Her cause for canonization is in process.  

“What does it mean to be black and Catholic? It means that I come to my church fully functioning. I bring myself, my black self, all that I am, all that I have, all that I hope to become.”  

—Servant of God Thea Bowman 

//Give Us This Day//

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Minute Meditation – The Pain of Betrayal

There is a poignant passage in the Servant Song from Isaiah that illustrates and prepares us for two betrayals that are about to happen: “I thought I had toiled in vain and uselessly, I have exhausted myself for nothing” (Isaiah 49:4). Surely that is the human feeling after someone we love turns against us. On some level, we all feel we have made some kind of contract with life, when life does not come through as we had hoped, and we feel a searing pain called betrayal. It happens to all of us in different ways. It is a belly punch that leaves us with a sense of futility and emptiness. And here it happens to Jesus from two of his own inner circle, both Judas and Peter. The more love and hope you have invested in another person, the deeper the pain of betrayal is. If it happens at a deep and personal level, we wonder if he will ever trust again. Your heart does “break.” It is one of those crossroad moments, when the breaking can forever close you down, or in time just the opposite—open you up to an enlargement of soul—as we will see in Jesus this week. What is happening is that we are withdrawing a human dependency, finding grace to forgive and let go, and relocating our little self in The Self (God), which never betrays us. It can’t! It might take years for most of us to work through this; for Jesus it seems to have been natural, although who knows how long it took him to get there. All we see in the text is that there are no words of bitterness at all, only a calm, unblaming description in the midst of the “night,” which is almost upon us. 

“Solitary Jesus, you get more alone as the week goes on, till all you have is a naked but enduring hope in God. Do not bring me to such a test, I would not know how to survive.”

— from the book Wondrous Encounters: Scriptures for Lent

by Richard Rohr, OFM

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Saint of the Day – March 30 – Saint Fergus of Scotland

St. Fergus of Scotland (d. 730 A.D.), also known as St. Fergustian or Fergus the Pict, Bishop of the Gaels, was a bishop serving in the north of Scotland. Little is known of his life. He is believed to have been trained as a bishop in Ireland, ministering there for many years before traveling as a missionary to Scotland. He went throughout the Scottish countryside preaching the Gospel, setting up churches dedicated to St. Patrick of Ireland, and working to convert the pagan people to Christianity. He also traveled to St. Peter’s Basilica to participate in the Council of Rome in 721 A.D. He died around the year 730 A.D. and is buried in Glamis, Angus, in Scotland. Nearby is St. Fergus’ Well. The site is believed to be where St. Fergus presided over religious services before the first church of Glamis was built. His feast day is March 30th.

//The Catholic Company//

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Verse of the Day – May God Give You a Spirit of Wisdom

“[I pray] that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in knowledge of him. May the eyes of [your] hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe, in accord with the exercise of his great might.” Ephesians 1:17-19

//The Catholic Company//

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Meditation of the Day – Every Good Thing Will Be Yours

“If you wish to explore the Holy Scripture, and you overcome your laziness and apply yourself, thirsting for the knowledge, then every good thing will be yours. You will fill your mind with the divine light. Then, when you apply that light to the doctrines of the Church, you will very easily recognize everything that is true and unadulterated, and lay it up in the hidden treasures of your soul.”— St. Cyril of Alexandria, p. 167

//The Catholic Company//

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Daily Message from Pope Francis – The Lord Makes Us Bear Fruit, Even When the Soil is dry

MONDAY, MARCH 29, 2021

“The Lord, with his grace, makes us bear fruit, even when the soil is dry due to misunderstandings, difficulty or persecution, or claims of legalism or clerical moralism… Precisely then, in trials and in solitude, while the seed is dying, that is the moment in which life blossoms, to bear ripe fruit in due time. It is in this intertwining of death and life that we can experience the joy and true fruitfulness of love.” Pope Francis

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Why Does God Allow Evil?

If God is all-loving and good, then why does He allow evil? Read more here.

Suffering and doubt often draw people away from their faith. It is so easy to think, “How could a merciful and loving God allow this to happen?”

If you have ever doubted God during hard seasons, you are not alone. From Job in the Old Testament to St. Thomas Aquinas, Christians throughout history have grappled with the problems of evil and suffering with a supposedly good God. Thankfully, early Church Fathers have shown us how to keep our faith in the midst of darkness.

In his book What To Say and How to Say It: Discuss Your Catholic Faith with Clarity and Confidence, bestselling author Brandon Vogt outlines “The Threefold Problem of Evil,” which consists of “The Logical Problem of Evil,” “The Evidential Problem of Evil,” and “The Emotional Problem of Evil.”

According to Vogt, the Logical Problem of Evil essentially asks, “Is there a logical contradiction between an all-good, all-powerful God and the existence of evil?” He explains that perhaps God is permitting evil and, by doing so, bringing about greater goods through suffering. Vogt explains:

But what kind of goods?… One answer is free will. It’s one of the most extraordinary gifts we’ve been given, the powerful to freely choose how to act. We know that free will means we can choose good or evil, and when faced with such a choice, we often choose poorly. Of course, God could simply prevent us from ever choosing evil, but think about what that would mean. If we could never really choose evil, then our freedom is not real freedom. True freedom requires saying yes or no, choosing good or evil, without constraint.

Evil is the absence of good, and it is the result of God’s gift of free will. God loves us enough that He allows us to choose to do good, rather than force us to do so. As a result, some will choose evil. Jesus Christ reminds us in the Beatitudes that those who choose God will have great rewards in eternal life.

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Will Fallen-Away Catholics go to Hell?

Will those who have left the Church go to Hell? It depends. Read more here.

While separation from the Catholic Church is an obstacle for those seeking Heaven, that does not necessarily mean that every person who denies the Catholic Church will go to Hell.

In his book What Catholics Really Believe: 52 Answers To Common Misconceptions About the Catholic Faith, Karl Keating answers this tough question.

He begins by citing Pope Pius XII’s 1943 encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi, translated to On the Mystical Body of Christ. This encyclical explains three aspects identifying a Catholic: valid baptism, participation in communion with the Church, and profession of the Faith.

Once someone is baptized, they are sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit, and original sin is washed away from their soul permanently. A person cannot be “unbaptized.” However, no one is forced to remain in the Catholic Church. Those who willingly disassociate themselves with the Church are no longer members.

Christians reject or leave the Catholic Church for many reasons—some have good intentions, some don’t. Sometimes people leave the Church and join a different Christian denomination for what they believe are good reasons. In other words, these Christians are more misguided than unfaithful. God alone can judge, for He alone knows their intentions—we are simply called to evangelize to these souls lovingly and truthfully.

Karl Keating explains how leaving the Church in good faith can affect one’s justification:

“[These Christians] remain related to the Church spiritually, even though they cease to be legal members of it. They still may achieve justification and salvation, but these are harder to achieve the further one distances oneself from the complete truth, found only in the Catholic Church, and the ordinary sources of grace, the sacraments. Leaving the Church, even with the best of intentions, is a great blunder because, all things being equal, the move diminishes one’s chances for heaven.”

However, if one leaves the Church in bad faith—knowing that Catholicism was founded by Jesus Christ and holds the ultimate truth—that person has knowingly abandoned the truth and would not enter Heaven.

At the end of the day, however, we as human beings cannot judge the interior state of someone’s soul. The best thing we can do is pray for their salvation.

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Did St. Patrick really drive snakes out of Ireland?

There are no snakes in Ireland – did St. Patrick actually drive them out?

It is true that there are no snakes in Ireland. Legend tells us that St. Patrick drove them away during his missionary journey around the fifth century. For this reason, many images depict St. Patrick crushing a snake with his foot.

But did St. Patrick really drive the snakes out of Ireland? While we know about his impact on the spread of Catholicism in Ireland, we don’t know many of the details of his life. St. Patrick is also a major symbol of Irish culture, so there are a lot of legends about his life.

St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland is almost certainly one of those legends. Yes, Ireland is snake-free, but most experts believe they never made it to Ireland in the first place. But St. Patrick did drive the metaphorical snakes of evil and paganism out of Ireland, converting an entire people to Catholicism. That is why the legend persists and why, while probably not literally accurate, it is spiritually true.

Before St. Patrick, pagan practices were rampant in Ireland. St. Patrick helped incorporate the Christian message into Irish culture to help the Irish people understand the Christian God and abandon their pagan practices.

So while St. Patrick likely did not physically drive snakes out of Ireland, we can say with certainty that he did have a major role in driving the Devil out of Ireland by converting the Irish to Christianity.

This Saint Patrick’s Day, in the midst of all the festivities, we should honor St. Patrick’s legacy by helping spread the Word of God to those who are unreached.

//The Catholic Company//