Still Running Off at the Keyboard

MORE FROM THE MAILBOX

Received from Robert Quinn:

Dec.18,2001

The Leaven of the World

"The Other Side of Christ"

by Fr.Robert D.Smith

A sense of fatalism has crept into the American Catholic clergy until it is now
widespread. "What can we do? Society itself is collapsing. We are doing our
best. We are teaching Christ correctly. We teach only in a positive way, about
the joys of union with Christ. We never mention the negative, never mention
God's just judgment, never mention Hell. But we are right in doing so. There is
a massive apostasy, few vocations, few converts, but this comes from the
effects of the corruption of society. It is the world that has gone mad. We are
teaching correctly."


Not so. In order to present only the positive side of Christ, they have quietly,
and often unwittingly, dropped as much as two-thirds of the Gospel message.
Huge sections of the words of Christ are glossed over or omitted altogether. In
fact, relatively few of Christ's words in the Gospels are exclusively positive. The
false teachers of Christianity solve this by speaking about the positive passages
all the time to the exclusion of all the rest. The Good Shepherd, the Good
Samaritan, the Beatitudes, those words about love that do not include a note of
warning-these are only a small portion of the words of Christ, yet they are
spoken of Sunday after Sunday, to the exclusion of the rest.


The full teaching of Christ has a much greater effect than does a small part of
it, even when it comes to correcting the world at large. We followers of Christ
are the leaven of the world (Matt.13:33). But that leaven, the teaching of Christ,
must be accepted totally and passed on totally before it can have any sub-
stantial effect on the world. In fact, Christ's words that most directly concern
turning from sin are the very words most ignored. Right now, a criminal who is
going around shooting people is all too likely, should he run into a priest ex-
plaining his religion, to find the priest talking about joyfulness in prayer and
nothing else. This would have no effect.


The only way to correct anyone is not by presenting the joys of prayer, but by
presenting the Cross of Christ. And this applies not just to hardened criminals,
but to everyone. Every renewal, great or small, turning from major sin or minor,
must begin with ideas of death and judgment, not of joy. The founder of the
Jesuits, St. Ignatius, had the correct Christian idea. His spiritual exercises,
the classic retreat manual of the Jesuits, begin not with dances of hand-
clasping joyfulness but with meditations on death and judgment, Heaven and
Hell.


And the greatest saints knew this, going right back to St.Peter and St.Paul.
And it comes in its strongest form in the very words of Christ Himself. Even
when Christ is correctly preached, He will still be rejected by many. But a
true apostolate, one that preaches Christ crucified (1 Cor.1:23), will never be
barren in the sense that the ministry of a good many American Catholic
priests is now barren.


Fr. Robert D.Smith
St.James Church
6 Cottage St., Haverhill, Mass. 01830-4920
Tel:978-372-8537

Fr. Smith is seriously ill at this time. Please add your
prayers to all the others being offered to God for him

"Well done, good and faithful servant"
Matt.25:21

FROM THE MAILBOX

Spirit & Life
"The words I spoke to you are spirit and life." (Jn 6:63)
Human Life International e-Newsletter
Volume 01, Number 60 | Friday, March 23, 2007
...................................................................................
www.hli.org

Hannity Lessons Learned

It is clearly time to get beyond the Sean Hannity controversy, but in doing so I also recognize that my March 9th interview with him tapped into a few currents of righteous indignation about issues relevant to our Catholic identity such as birth control and public dissenters, the silence of the clergy on fundamental matters and our deep love for the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church. I want to point out a few lessons learned from the Hannity interview:

First, faithful Catholics love the priesthood. They defended me personally against the aggressive attack-dog irrationality of Mr. Hannity, but they also defended, out of a profound respect, Christ's sacramental priesthood. No one can erase from the hearts of the faithful the intuitive love the Church has for those who bring Christ to them in the most tangible way possible, and when attacked, the faithful stand up and defend the priesthood.

Secondly, faithful Catholics love when people speak up unequivocally for the truth, and as a priest, that is what I am ordained to do! The expressions of gratitude for my standing up for the Church were just overwhelming perhaps because a vigorous defense of Church teaching from the ranks of the clergy is, shall we say, rare these days. However, the faithful are also called to this defense, and now I am convinced more than ever that there are many who are well-equipped for the task. I have always said that only the laity and the clergy working together will be a formula for positive change inside or outside of the Church.

One final lesson learned. There are literally millions of Catholics out there who, like Mr. Hannity, haven't the slightest idea about Church doctrine on critical issues and are living in a de facto state of contradiction concerning their own religious faith. I believe they fell through the cracks in the post-Vatican II malaise of religious education. These need to be reached. As the discussions on these issues continue, especially in the blogs and talk radio, the Church gets more opportunity to explain her teaching on contraception and its consequences - something Mr. Hannity did not give me a chance to do! I do think we now have what Fr. Richard John Neuhaus would call a "Catholic Moment," that is, a chance to seize the opportunity of public interest on these issues and run with them.

To aid this effort, in the next few weeks I will send out a series of brief video email presentations on certain aspects of the contraception issue in order to give you some tools to help others understand the issue more clearly. Send them to family and friends just to get the message out more widely. Below I attach the upcoming schedule, and I look forward to assisting you in the evangelization of our whole society:

* March 30: Does birth control really prevent abortion? (video email)
* April 6: Holy Thursday - the Gift of the Priesthood (regular written Spirit and Life format)
* April 13: NFP: Is this Catholic birth control? (video email)
* April 20: Is the world overpopulated? (video email)
* April 27: Why should we deny Communion to dissenters on Church doctrine? (video email)

God bless you and thank you for being a faithful member of the Church Militant!

Sincerely Yours in Christ,


Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer
President, Human Life International

A QUESTION

Has anyone ever heard of eyebrow templates, and where can I get one? I'm the world's worst make-up artist!

JEWISH SHAMANISM

According to RABBI GERSHON'S OHR SHEKINAH TEACHINGS

According to Walking Stick Foundation

According to "The Jerusalem Post"

According to the Jewish Catholic Witches who offer praise "to Allah and the Children of Satan" on the website

According to Leah Weisman, a lifelong apprentice of Jewish Shamanism mysticism, at the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia

According to Tel Shemesh

Judaism is not monolithic. No one speaks exclusively for Judaism.

STATISTICS

For some unknown reason an unsolicited email has appeared in my mailbox from reports@sitemeter.com, which includes statistics on this blog. Here is what they sent:

--- Visits this Week ---
Day
Hour 3/16 3/17 3/18 3/19 3/20 3/21 3/22 Total
---- ----- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ -------
1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
11 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
12 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
13 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
14 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
15 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
16 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
17 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
18 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
19 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
21 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
22 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
23 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
24 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ -------
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0


--- Page Views this Week ---
Day
Hour 3/16 3/17 3/18 3/19 3/20 3/21 3/22 Total
---- ----- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ -------
1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
11 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
12 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
13 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
14 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
15 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
16 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
17 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
18 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
19 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
21 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
22 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
23 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
24 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ -------
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

The zeros are supposed to line up under the date columns at the top, and the hours run down the left side. In other words, according to sitemeter.com no one visited Running Off from 3/16 to 3/22. What do you guys think? Especially those of you who put up those 47 comments during this time period? Did you know that you really weren't here according to the statistics keepers? Is this an example of the credibility of the sitemeter data? Or is it just that someone doesn't like my blog enough to try to sabotage it? Hmmmmm. Inquiring minds would like to know.

CANCER JOURNAL - I'M BACK

Ahhhhh...that was certainly fun! My daughter and I spent four days in Columbus shopping and eating international cuisine. The charge card is still warm!

Four malls down there put too many miles on our shoes and blisters on my feet, but I was able to find a dress for an upcoming wedding and bought it in three sizes so one of them is sure to fit when it's time to go, no matter what the chemo does to my body. The clearance sales were spectacular. We loaded the car with bags, and my husband didn't even throw a fit. (Yup, cancer has its up side!) I have a new winter wardrobe at pennies on the dollar, and will simply have to be here next winter to wear the stuff. Columbus is such a lively place with sunshine instead of this gloomy northeast Ohio weather that we came home to.

We ate Italian food at California Pizza Kitchen, Irish food at Fodo, and Turkish food at Cafe Istanbul. The Bloody Mary at my favorite Columbus restaurant, Spagio's, was memorable (Are they always that strong? That one was my first). But best of all were the cream puffs from Schmidts, and the chocolate mousse cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. The best part about eating out with my daughter is that we both order something different and then split our dinners so we get to taste two dishes instead of just one.

I see that the blog counter must have reset itself yet again while I was gone, and my email account is not accessible today, so if anyone sent me email, don't be surprised if I don't answer right away.

Talked to our lawyer yesterday and learned that he has a Power of Attorney for Health Care but not a Living Will. His reasoning...he doesn't trust the doctors. He admitted that after I told him I didn't want to end up like Terri Schiavo, and he fully agreed that what happened to her was awful. So we tore up the Living Will, and that's the end of that.

Got the last scan done yesterday afternoon. The chemo port went in this morning. Now I'm good to go for chemo next week. My hats arrived in today's mail, and the wig should be in any day now. (If I learn to like not having hair, can I keep it shaved? Believe it or not I've discovered there are some advantages to not having any.)

CHECKING OUT FOR A LITTLE WHILE

Playtime will commence in a few hours. See ya later! Don't do anything you'll regret while I'm gone!