Plenty of Lenten Videos

For the past 10 days or so, I have been on the road, visiting Texas A&M University to give a talk, meeting with the friars under five years solemnly professed in St. Petersburg, FL, and attending the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress in California. It’s been a bit of a run… and as a result, it appears that I have forgotten to share a few videos with you!

Last Friday I announced a Lenten Series based on my book Let Go. Each Friday I’ll offer a reflection on something that I feel we as Christians need to let go of. Here’s the trailer:

On Monday, I released Catholicism in Focus video about the Rite of Penance. As the lenten season is a popular time to go to confession, I thought it was a good idea to explain what exactly it is that we go to do (or, at least, what we should go to do!) Here’s that video:

And finally, hot off the press today, is a video I recorded while at LA REC last week, in which I asked many of the spiritual leaders present to answer a simple question: What should people ‘Let Go’ of this Lent. Their responses were diverse and wise:

 

 Posted on February 26, 2020 by

 Catholicism In Focus, Video

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Fasting Before Communion?

It is a very strange situation to be in: you’re standing outside of mass greeting people as they arrive, and someone walks in drinking coffee or finishing some food. It’s rare, but it happens. Far more common is chewing gum while walking into mass, something that I see on a regular basis.

These things, to be clear, are not allowed.

While the Church does not require heavy fasting today like it did for centuries, the Tradition has not changed: fasting is required prior to receiving communion. As with the rule of fasting on Fridays, the Church of the 20th century realized that certain age-old rules were irrelevant or burdensome to some, and so looked to the people of God to act as mature adults and choose for themselves what seemed most appropriate. In the case of fasting on Fridays as well as fasting before mass, this effectively meant that most people abandoned the rule completely.

The Church wanted to make the fast clearer and easier, not nonexistent. There is still a required fast prior to receiving communion. The 1983 code of canon law states three directives:

  • §1. A person who is to receive the Most Holy Eucharist is to abstain for at least one hour before holy communion from any food and drink, except for only water and medicine.
  • §2. A priest who celebrates the Most Holy Eucharist two or three times on the same day can take something before the second or third celebration even if there is less than one hour between them.
  • §3. The elderly, the infirm, and those who care for them can receive the Most Holy Eucharist even if they have eaten something within the preceding hour.

How did we get here, and why does it matter? All of this is answered in this week’s Catholicism in Focus.

 Posted on February 18, 2020 by

 Catholicism In Focus, Video

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Did the Exodus Really Happen?

Could there be any more important story in the whole Old Testament than the Israelite exodus from Egypt? In it, God rescues his people through his miraculous power; the people are give faith and God establishes a covenant with them; he fulfills his promise from long ago, showing his immense fidelity. All throughout the Old Testament, in almost every book, we hear the biblical writer saying, “Remember that you were once slaves in Egypt.” It is the foundational event that gives meaning to everything else that happens.

And yet… there are many who wonder whether it ever even happened.

As is the case with all ancient stories, our modern world is concerned with one thing, and one thing only: the facts. Who, what, where, when, and why? No embellishment. No commentary. No opinion. What actually happened? It is a mindset that is particularly helpful in crime solving, but ill-suited for theological reflection.

In this week’s Catholicism In Focus, I suggest that there are two extreme approaches to reading Scripture that we want to avoid: the strictly literalist, that takes every word at face value and does not consider science, history, or reason, and the strictly mythological, that focuses solely on the meaning of the story with no regard for historical evidence. Both of these approaches are prominent in our world, and both of them are seriously flawed.

Instead, what we must do is recognize that what makes the Bible the Word of God is not that it is a dictation of God from heaven, word-for-word how it happened, but rather a theological reflection on lived experiences people had of God. The focus is absolutely on the “truth” of the events, but without any “facts”—without an actual event to reflect on—there can be no truth.

 1 Comment

 Posted on February 11, 2020 by

 Catholicism In Focus, Video

Do Catholics Worship Idols?

Fundamentalist Christians don’t have a lot of nice things to say about Catholics. According to them, we know nothing of the Bible, create false doctrines, are wolves in sheep’s clothing while being the embodiment of whore of Babylon, run a secret society in league with the Free Masons and Satanists, and of course, we’re idolaters.

Pretty impressive résumé if you ask me.

Sadly, we cannot take credit for any of these things as they live more in the imaginations and misconceptions of our literalist and pre-critical brothers and sisters in Christ. They are based on misinformation, fear, and downright disdain, rather than the facts, and serve to galvanize their own people against a common enemy.

And it’s effective. Surely, it is. When you can look to a popular and successful entity and explain away their success by undermining their credibility, one can feel much better about their own efforts. When there is someone to blame for the problems of the world (especially when that someone is incredibly influential and ever-present) responsibility for such evil is greatly lessoned. What can we really do when they are doing so much evil?

Of course, we are not their enemy. As brothers and sister in Christ, we may have a different approach to some things, but we are still one in baptism and so one in the Lord. We are not their enemy.

In this week’s Catholicism in Focus, I look at one of the greatest points of conflict between fundamentalists and Catholics, the use of images in worship. Largely the result of major misconceptions, I hope to shed light on what we really believe in order to show our critics that we are on the same team, that this is not the first time we have faced this issue, and the Church has answered it clearly.

For more information on the topic of supposed idolatry in Christianity, the name of this criticism is called “Iconoclasm” and it was addressed in the Second Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 787.

 Posted on February 4, 2020 by

 Catholicism In Focus, Theology, Video

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What Makes Something a Sin?

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, sin is “an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as ‘an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law.'”

And as far as definitions go, that’s great, very clear. Except…

All are sins the same? When is something a sin and when is it not? Are there exceptions? Are we always responsible for sin?

The fact of the matter is that sin is a very murky subject, filled with ambiguity and requiring much critical thought. In this video, I look at what the Church says about the morality of human acts in article 4 of the Catechism’s chapter on the Dignity of the Human Person. According to the Church, there are actually three factors that go into the evaluation of morality: object, intention, and circumstances.

 Posted on January 29, 2020 by

 Catholicism In Focus, Theology

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Breaking In The Habit

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