昔日文章

  Over the last few weeks, I have written on various practices of the Church. Since I was not raised Catholic, I had no idea there were so many of them. It was not until I became a priest and encountered them in parish life that I discovered these, as I call them, treasures of the Church.  A few years ago, I came upon a book that I found most useful and informative. It is entitled “Catholic Source Book”, by Fr. Peter Klein, published by Our Sunday Visitor.  One seller describes the book this way:  “…. the essential teachings and basic texts of Catholic beliefs, prayers, practices and traditions. ….. this is the one Catholic reference book that every home, parish and classroom needs. … all find this book interesting, informative and essential both for reading and reference.”  Another vendor describes it this way:  ‘Fr. Peter Klein gathered this comprehensive collection of information to help people of faith learn, renew, teach, and live the risen life of Jesus Christ in the Catholic Church. The book is divided into ten chapters, "Prayers," "An Overview of the Tradition," "Scripture," "Church," "Liturgy," "The Liturgical Year," "Devotions in Catholic Tradition," "Veneration of Saints and Heroes," "Catholic Symbols," and "Word and Phrase Origins."’  Two books by Peter Kreeft I recommend: “Because God Is Real”, published by Ignatius Press and “Jesus Shock” by St. Augustines Press.  Dr. Kreeft is a convert to the Catholic Church. He has a Ph.D. in Philosophy and teaches in a Catholic University. He writes many books on why the Catholic Church is the only authentic Christian church. They are very thorough but not always easy to read by regular readers. However, these two books are wonderfully written with young people in mind.  “Because God is Real”  A seller describes it this way:  ‘Atheistic and agnostic wr i t e r s a r e a g g r e s s i v e l y attacking traditional religious beliefs. Philosopher and prolific writer Peter Kreeft is up to the challenge in this work of popular apologetics aimed at both teens and adults. … Kreeft tackles sixteen crucial issues about the deeper meaning of life … range from, "Is faith reasonable?”, "Can you prove there is a God?", and "Why is Jesus different?," to "Why is sex so confusing?," "Why is there evil?", and "Why must we die?" Kreeft provides thoughtful, lucid, and persuasive answers for believers, unbelievers, and seekers to consider. …. This book is ideal for those exploring faith for the first time, as well as for confirmation and religious education classes. It's an intellectual and spiritual feast!’  The second book is “Jesus Shock”  A seller describes it this way:  “The life of Jesus Christ is indelibly engraved upon history….. Some people thought he was crazy; others considered him a misfit, a troublemaker, a rebel. He was condemned as a criminal, yet his life and teachings reverberate throughout history. He saw things differently, and he had no respect for the status quo. You can praise him, disagree with him, quote him, disbelieve him, glorify him, or vilify him. About the only thing you cannot do is ignore him, and that is a lesson that every age learns in its own way. You can’t ignore Jesus, because he changed things. He is the single greatest agent of change in human history. He made the lame walk, taught the simple, set captives free, gave sight to the blind, fed the hungry, healed the sick, comforted the afflicted, afflicted the comfortable, and in all of these, captured the imagination of every generation. But who is Jesus today? Who is Jesus to you? Get ready to discover Jesus like you have never known him.”  Next week I will recommend more from my list of favorite Catholic books. 

     Two more systems of thoughts worth mentioning: Individualism and Totalitarianism. Individualism aims at focusing on the person. In recent history, this emphasis on individual rights has brought about great changes in society, many of them very good. The most memorable for us Chinese is the TianAnMen Massacre (六四事件). The courage of one person can change world opinions and events. Since the 16th century, the awareness of the dignity of the individual person has led to changes throughout the world. The rise of the middle class as the backbone of society is indisputable. It is no longer acceptable for power and wealth to be controlled by just a few families. Cooperative democracy has been the moving force everywhere throughout the world for the last two hundred years. This is particularly evident in both the American and the French Revolutions. It has brought about great moments of heroism and beauty of personal virtue. This ideology came to an abrupt end in the 1960’s when personhood became lopsided. Personal rights rose above the consideration for the good of society. The Civil Rights Movement in the 1950’s in the United States morphed into the Women’s Right Movement and the rights to abortion. Currently the debates over gay rights, same sex union and other well-meaning but misdirected “human rights” movements are examples of imbalance. Following the struggles to change society in the 1800’s came the pain of dreams unfulfilled. The chaos of the 19th century and the reluctance of those in power to let go, brought rise to the notion of Totalitarianism, epitomized by Communism. Both the Soviet Union and the Chinese People’s Republic are attempts to galvanize individuals for the good of the nation. It is almost a Christian notion that one should be willing to sacrifice oneself for the good of others. This particular thought went wrong when the idea became coercive, when the individual no longer has the personal freedom to make sacrifices voluntarily and it is imposed by law. The fall of the Soviet Union and the current experimentations in the economics of China show how Totalitarianism fails. As a philosophy, it stifles individual dignity and the enthusiasm for self improvement. Yet, whenever there is an unreasonable imbalance of wealth, the same ideas rise up again to justify government central power, all in the name of helping the poor. This is partly the struggle currently in the United States over universal health care. Where does the Church stand on this? Simply, on neither side. On the one hand, the Church condemns the excesses of greed in the personal accumulation of wealth at the expense of the poor under capitalism and consumerism as well as the dehumanizing of the individual under Communism. Unfortunately, most Catholics side with many of the issues without taking time to truly study what is at stake. I recommend reading the sections on the fourth (CCC 2234-2246) and the seventh Commandments (CCC 2401-2449) in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. After getting used to terminology and wordings, I recommend other wr i t ings such as Pope Piux XI I I ’s “Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor”, the documents of Vatican II – especially “Gaudium et Spes”, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, and the writings of Popes John Paul II, Benedict and Francis. Within the balancing act of the good of the individual and the good of the whole, the Church tackles weighty issues like just wage, right to work, ecology, human trafficking, economic slavery, and so on. Happy reading.  

     Having taken a couple of articles to lay the foundation on truth, it is time we turn toward the topic of morality. For many people, to be moral means doing the right thing and avoiding the wrong things. This is important to Catholics and non- Catholics alike. Every culture and philosophy has almost the same moral laws. It is wrong to steal, to kill, to lie, to break a promise, to dishonor your parents and so on. To us Christians, however, morality is about whether what I do leads me to God who is Love. The focus is not just about me and how I act. It is about the relationship we have with God, how I respond to God who took the initiative to reveal Himself to us, to tell us not only about being right or wrong, but to let us know what is important to Him. Morality is personal. The story of the Prodigal Son, Lk 15: 11- 32, exemplifies this relationship. In this parable, the main character is the father. The younger son, the prodigal son, did the unthinkable, asking the father for the inheritance intended for him. Basically, he does not care if his father is dead or alive. He only wants what he considers his, right now. In Chinese, it is not only 不順（disobedient）, we call it 不孝（un-filial）. It is worse than rude. It is an insult to the dignity of the father. It is unconscionable（無良心）. It would not be unkind if the father disowns the son and banishes him from the family. That would be justice, the right punishment for such a son.（ To be honest, I have a few words in my mind that is difficult to translate into English, such as 「反骨」、「忤逆」、「無可救藥」. ） Yet, the father waited for the son by the gate. That is the mercy of the father. All he wanted was for the son to come home, to be loved and appreciate his love. On the other hand, the elder son does everything right. But he misses the point of the father’s love. He wants the brother to be punished and banished. He thinks that being right is the most important thing. He had behaved as he thought was expected of him. But for the father, that is not enough. He wants his sons to be loved and to love one another as he loves them. That is the Christian foundation of morality. A n o t h e r w a y o f p u t t i n g it, morality is about building up relationships, cultivating a community of fraternal charity （brotherly love）. It is not enough to not do wrong. It is about going beyond the call of duty. That is what Jesus’ dying on the Cross is about. “For Christ, while we were still helpless, yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly. Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” Rom 5:6-8. This is why, as Catholics, if we say we love someone, it is not enough that we do not wrong them or lead them to do wrong. Ezekiel 3:17-21 goes so far as to say that we are responsible for their sins if we have not attempted to prevent them from doing wrong. In the next articles, we will look deeper into Christian morality.  

   Last week, we focused on Truth, specifically Objective Truth, truth as it is regardless of our thinking about it. We will continue this week with the relationship between science and faith.  Some people mistakenly think that religion is not about science and science is not about religion. They cannot be more wrong. Let’s take a look, this week, on the most fundamental scientific truth that came from the father of modern science, Isaac Newton.  Newton lived in the 18th century. Every student knows that Isaac Newton discovered gravity and formulated the laws of physics.  Do you remember Newton’s first law of physics? The Principle of Inertia, which states that an object at rest remains at rest, and an object in motion remains in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force.  Did Newton somehow invent this law? NO. He merely discovered it, and not totally out of the blue.  Here comes St. Thomas Aquinas.  St. Thomas lived in the 13th century, 500 years BEFORE Newton. He is famous for his philosophy, particularly his philosophical proof of existence of God, one of which states:  Principle of causality: Everything is caused to exist by an uncaused causer. The uncaused causer we call God. (very simplified for our discussion)  Interesting how Newton SCIENTICALLY proved Aquinas’ position. In fact, Aquinas did not come up with his proofs either. He relied on Aristotle who lived around 300B.C., 1500 years earlier.  What we see is that science is a TOOL for what the mind has perceived. Science does not and cannot come up with something new by itself no more than calculus or algebra created the universe.  Now comes Monsignor Georges Henri Lemaitre, a priest from Belgium. He was a professor of Physics in the 1930’s when the scientists of the time, (led by John Hubble from whom the Hubble space telescope was named) observed that the universe was expanding. Lemaitre then theorized that the universe must have expanded from an earlier time and size. This expansion, this force that made the universe expand, is now commonly called the Big Bang. With subsequent studies, scientists now calculate that the universe is around 13.8 billion years old.  Do you know that Einstein actually disagreed with Lemaitre?  Fascinating!  Human knowledge takes a long time to come up with what God has done and put in place. It is the same in ALL fields of science. It takes humility to acknowledge that we are creatures and to be awed by the immensity of God. Science is important to the Church. A closer look at history will tell us that, in fact, the Church has not only encouraged scientific discovery, she has been behind it all the time. Universities were founded and financed by the Church. Scientists were supported in their research. It would be wrong to think that the Church gets in the way of science. (In another article I will write about the Galileo controversy.)  What about miracles? It is precisely to avoid superstition that the Church relies upon science to verify the claims of miracles. It is only after all possible explanations have been exhausted that the Church would declare something miraculous has occurred. Take for example the hundreds, if not thousands, of miraculous claims made at Lourdes. Only 70 or so of them have been accepted by the Church to be truly miraculous. But even that is amazing by itself.  You see, the Church does not want us to base our faith on miracles. It would not be advisable. Our faith depends on God who IS, regardless of our thinking about it.