Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration (continued)

Twelve Reasons From The Teachings of the Church For Wanting To Spend One Hour With Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament

1.  You are greatly needed!
“The Church and the world have a great need of Eucharistic Adoration.”  (Pope John Paul II, Dominicae Cenae)

2.  This is a personal invitation to you from Jesus.
“Jesus waits for us in this Sacrament of Love.”  (Pope John Paul II, Dominicae Canae)

3.  Jesus is counting on you because the Eucharist is the center of life.
“Every member of the Church must be vigilant in seeing that the sacrament of Love shall be at the center of the life of the people of God so that through all the manifestations of worship due Him shall be given back ‘love for love’ and truly become the life of our souls.”  (Pope John Paul II, Redeemer of Man)

4.  Your hour with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament will repair for evils of the world and bring about peace on earth.
“Let us be generous with our time in going to meet Jesus and ready to make reparation for the great evils of the world.  Let your adoration never cease.”  (Pope John Paul II, Dominicae Cenae)

5.  Day and night Jesus dwells in the Blessed Sacrament because you are the most important person in the world to Him!
“Christ is reserved in our churches as the spiritual center of the heart of the community, the universal Church and all humanity, since within the veil of the species, Christ is contained, the invisible Heart of the Church, the Redeemer of the world, the center of all hearts, by Him all things are and of whom we exist.”  (Pope Paul IV, Mysterium Fidei)

6.  Jesus wants you to do more than to go to Mass on Sunday.
“Our communal worship at Mass must go together with our personal worship of Jesus in Eucharistic adoration in order that our love may be complete.”  (Pope John Paul II, Redeemer of Man)

7.  You grow spiritually with each moment you spend with Jesus!
“Our essential commitment in life is to preserve and advance constantly in Eucharistic life and Eucharistic piety and to grow spiritually in the climate of the Holy Eucharist.”  (Pope John Paul II, Redeemer of Man)

8.  The best time you spend on earth is with Jesus, your Best Friend, in the Blessed Sacrament!
“How great is the value of conversation with Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, for there is nothing more consoling on earth, nothing more efficacious for advancing along the road of holiness!”  (Pope Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei)

9.  Juts as you can’t be exposed to the sun without receiving its rays, neither can you come to Jesus exposed in the Blessed Sacrament without receiving the Divine Rays of His Grace, His Love, His Peace.
“Christ is truly the Emmanuel, that is, God with us, day and night, His is in our midst.  He dwells with us full of grace and truth.  He restores morality, nourishes virtue, consoles the afflicted, strengthens the weak.”  (Pope Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei)

10.  If Jesus were actually visible in church, everyone would run to welcome Him, but He remains hidden in the Sacred Host under the appearance of Bread, because He is calling us to faith, that we may come to Him in humility.
“The Blessed Sacrament is the ‘Living Heart’ of each of our churches and it is our very sweet duty to honor and adore the Blessed Host, which our eyes see, the Incarnate Word, Whom they cannon see.”  (Pope Paul VI, Credo of the People of God)

11.  With transforming mercy, Jesus makes our heart one with His.
“He proposes His own example to those who come to Him, that all may learn to be like Himself, gentle and humble of heart, and to seek not their own interest but those of God.”  (Pope Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei)

12.  If the Pope himself would give you a special invitation to visit him in the Vatican, this honor would be nothing in comparison to the honor and dignity that Jesus Himself bestows upon you with the invitation of spending one hour with Him in the Blessed Sacrament.
“The Divine Eucharist bestows upon the Christian people the incomparable dignity.”  (Pope Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei)

More tomorrow night!

Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration

What is Eucharistic Adoration? Catholics believe that during the Mass which we attend each week (for some of us daily), the priest (during the consecration) speaks these words as he holds the communion host, “…He took bread and gave you thanks.  He broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said:  Take this all of you, and eat it:  this is my body which will be given up for you“.  When the priest says “this is my body“, it is at that instant when, through the miracle of transubstantiation, the bread and wine which we offer as the bloodless sacrifice to our Lord truly become the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus.  It is His true Presence in the form of bread and wine.  It is Christ.

Perpetual Adoration is when the priest takes a consecrated host, such as the one described above, and places it in a monstrance.  (monstrance comes from the Latin “monstrare” to show, to expose to view.)  The monstrance is then placed in front of the tabernacle (an ornate box which holds the monstrance and any consecrated hosts) or on the altar of the church or chapel for adoration.

What do you actually do during adoration? You may sign up to be an “adorer” which allows you to schedule yourself for one or more hours per week to pray before the very presence of Our Lord, exposed in the monstrance.  It means that you can have some time alone with Jesus to recite your favorite prayers, read the Bible, contemplate acts of faith, hope, charity, thanksgiving, reparation, pray a Rosary or do whatever type of prayerful devotion that suits you before Our Lord.  You can just sit and say nothing simply keeping Him company, just as you would with a dear friend.

More tomorrow night!

Prayers for a Peaceful Spirit

Slow me down, Lord.
Ease my pounding heart,
Quiet my racing mind,
Steady my hurried steps.

Amidst the confusion of my days
Give me the calmness of the everlasting hills
Help me to know the magical
Restoring power of sleep.

Teach me the art of taking time off
Of slowing down to look at a flower,
To chat with a friend,
To read a few lines from a good book.

Remind me each day
That there is more to life
Than increasing its speed.

Let me look upwards
Into the branches of a towering oak,
And know that it grew great and strong
Because it grew slowly and well.

Slow me down, Lord.
Teach me to be gentle and humble of heart,
So that I may find rest for my soul.

Taken from The 4 Keys to Heaven:  Mary’s Call.  Page 64.

Monday Morning & Evening Prayer Reflections (Week IV)

Morning Prayer Reading:  Judith 8:25-27

We should be grateful to the Lord our God, for putting us to the test, as he did our forefathers.  Recall how he dealt with Abraham, and how he tried Isaac, and all that happened to Jacob in Syrian Mesopotamia while he was tending the flocks of Laban, his mother’s brother.  Not for vengeance did the Lord put them in the crucible to try their hearts, nor has he done so with us.  It is by way of admonition that he chastises those who are close to him.

Every day of our lives, we get up in the morning.  We get ready, eat breakfast, brush our teeth, and head out to our everyday locations, such as work or school.  There may be people at work or school that may irritate you, or maybe someone talked behind your back.  Sometimes we are overwhelmed with loads of work at school or work.  We have our good days and we have our bad days.  It is a part of our everyday life that we have our good days and bad days.  Is God punishing us on our bad days?  Sometimes I think so.  But no, God does not punish us on bad days.  It just happens.  But when we have our bad days, that’s when our faith is put to the test.  When someone talks behind our back, what do we do?  Whatever you do, you definitely don’t be an ass about it and try to beat the living crap out of that person.  Instead, approach the situation with charity (love) and try to find out why.  It does depend on the situation.

We need to remember to be loving at all times, even on our bad days.  Just remember, as Christians, we are called to be like Christ.  That’s what being a Christian is all about, trying to be more like Christ.  In regards to loving, this takes us to our evening prayer reading.

Evening Prayer:  1 Thessalonians 3:12-13

May the Lord increase you and make you overflow with love for one another and for all, even as our love does for you.  May he strengthen your hearts, making them blameless and holy before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his holy ones.

Love is used in such a twisted form today.  I remember listening to an audio CD by Christopher West where he shares an experience he had in college.  He was sleeping in a neighbor’s dorm and the owner’s dorm brought in a girl with him.  Needless to say, they were about to get busy.  She said, “I will only do this if you love me.”  The young man replied, “I love you, I love you.”  And proceeded to have his way with her.

Was this love?  Did this guy really love her?  No.  He didn’t.  He just wanted to have his kicks.  How do we know that he didn’t love her?  He didn’t even know her name.  So what IS love?  Love is about being kind, and compassionate.  It’s about sacrificing for one another.  Love is being patient with one another, and not using one another.

An excellent example of love?  Look at a crucifix.  THAT is true love.  Because God IS love.  Realize that and understand that and apply it to your everyday life.

God bless.

Conversation of the Merciful God with a Sinful Soul

Imagine this:  You have just committed a variety of shameful sins (e.g. had sex, cheated on a boyfriend/girlfriend, stole something, lied to parents, got drunk, etc.)  All of a sudden, Jesus Christ Himself comes before you.  This is what the conversation would be like:

Jesus:  Be not afraid of your Savior, O sinful soul.  I make the first move to come to you, for I know that by yourself you are unable to lift yourself to Me.  Child, do not run away from your Father; be willing to talk openly with your God of mercy who wants to speak words of pardon and lavish his graces on you.  How dear your soul is to Me!  I have inscribed your name upon My hand; you are engraved as a deep wound in My Heart.

You: Lord, I hear your voice calling me to turn back from the path of sin, but I have neither the strength nor the courage to do so.

Jesus: I am your strength, I will help you in the struggle.

You: Lord, I recognize your holiness, and I fear You.

Jesus: My child, do you fear the God of mercy?  My holiness does not prevent Me from being merciful.  Behold, for you I have established a throne of mercy on earth – the tabernacle – and from this throne I desire to enter into your heart.  I am not surrounded by a retinue or guards.  You can come to me at any moment, at any time; I want to speak to you and desire to grant you grace.

You: Lord, I doubt that You will pardon my numerous sins; my misery fills me with fright.

Jesus: My mercy is greater than your sins and those of the entire world.  Who can measure the extent of my goodness?  For you I descended from heaven to earth; for you I allowed Myself to be nailed to the cross; for you I let my Sacred Heart be pierced with a lance, thus opening wide the source of mercy for you.  Come, then, with trust to draw graces from this fountain.  I never reject a contrite heart.  Your misery has disappeared in the depths of My mercy.  Do not argue with Me about your wretchedness.  You will give Me pleasure if you hand over to Me all your troubles and griefs.  I shall heap upon you the treasures of My grace.

You: You have conquered, O Lord, my stony heart with Your goodness.  In trust and humility I approach the tribunal of Your mercy, where You yourself absolve me by the hand of your representative.  O Lord, I feel Your grace and Your peace filling my poor soul.  I feel overwhelmed by Your mercy, O Lord.  You forgive me, which is more than I dared to hope for or could imagine.  Your goodness surpasses all desires.  And now, filled with gratitude for so many graces, I invite You to my heart.  I wandered, like a prodigal child gone astray; but you did not cease to be my Father.  Increase Your mercy toward me, for You see how weak I am.

Jesus: Child, speak no more of your misery; it is already forgotten.  Listen, My child, to what I desire to tell you.  Come close to My wounds and draw from the Fountain of Life whatever your heart desires.  Drink copiously from the Fountain of Life and you will not weary on your journey.  Look at the splendors of My mercy and do not fear the enemies of your salvation.  Glorify My mercy (1485).

Taken from God Who is Rich in Mercy:  Meditations and Prayers to The Divine Mercy.  Fourth Edition.  Cracow:  “Misericordia” Publication.  Published in 2004.  ISBN 83-919455-3-7.  Pages 63-65.

Nihil obstat:  Rev. Jan Machniak
Imprimatur:  Metropolitan Curia  Cracow, February 11, 2004
Bishop Kazimierz Nycz – Vicar General
Rev. Jan Dyduch – Chancellor

Just Look

The picture on this page is an untouched photograph of a being that has been within its mother for 20 weeks.  Please do me the favor of looking at it carefully.

Have you any doubt that it is a human being?  If you do not have any such doubt, have you any doubt that it is an innocent human being?

If you have no doubt about this either, have you any doubt that the authorities in a civilized society are duty-bound to protect this innocent human being if anyone were to wish to kill it?

If your answer to this last query is negative, that is, if you have no doubt that the authorities in a civilized society would be duty-bound to protect this innocent human being if someone were to wish to kill it, I would suggest—even insist—that there is not a lot more to be said about the issue of abortion in our society.  It is wrong, and it cannot—must not—be tolerated.

But you might protest that all of this is too easy.  Why, you might inquire, have I not delved into the opinion of philosophers and theologians about the matter?  And even worse:  Why have I not raised the usual questions about what a “human being” is, what a “person” is, what it means to be “living,” and such?  People who write books and articles about abortion always concern themselves with these kinds of things.  Even the justices of the Supreme Court who gave us “Roe v. Wade” address them.  Why do I neglect philosophers and theologians?  Why do I not get into defining “human being,” defining “person,” defining “living,” and the rest?  Because, I respond, I am sound of mind and endowed with a fine set of eyes, into which I do not believe it is well to cast sand.  I looked at the photograph, and I have no doubt about what I saw and what are the duties of a civilized society if what I saw is in danger of being killed by someone who wishes to kill it or, if you prefer, someone who “chooses” to kill it.  In brief:  I looked, and I know what I saw.

But what about the being that has been in its mother for only 15 weeks or only 10?  Have you photographs of that too?  Yes, I do.  However, I hardly think it necessary to show them.  For if we agree that the being in the photograph printed on this page is an innocent human being, you have no choice but to admit that it may not be legitimately killed even before 20 weeks unless you can indicate with
scientific proof the point in the development of the being before which it was other than an innocent human being and, therefore, available to be legitimately killed.  Nor have Aristotle, Aquinas or
even the most brilliant embryologists of our era or any other era been able to do so.  If there is a time when something less than a human being in a mother morphs into a human being, it is not a time that anyone has ever been able to identify, though many have made guesses.  However, guesses are of no help.  A man with a shotgun who decides to shoot a being that he believes may be a human being is properly hauled before a judge.  And hopefully, the judge in question knows what a “human being” is and what the implications of someone’s wishing to kill it are.  The word “incarceration” comes to mind.

However, we must not stop here.  The matter becomes even clearer and simpler if you obtain from the National Geographic Society two extraordinary DVDs.  One is entitled “In the Womb” and illustrates in color and in motion the development of one innocent human being within its mother.  The other is entitled “In the Womb—Multiples” and in color and motion shows the development of two innocent human beings—twin boys—within their mother.  If you have ever allowed yourself to wonder, for example, what “living” means, these two DVDs will be a great help.  The one innocent human being squirms about, waves its arms, sucks its thumb, smiles broadly and even yawns; and the two innocent human beings do all of that and more:  They fight each other.  One gives his brother a kick, and the other responds with a sock to the jaw.  If you can convince yourself that these beings are something other than living and innocent human beings, something, for example, such as “mere clusters of tissues,” you have a problem far more basic than merely not appreciating the wrongness of abortion.  And that problem is—forgive me—self-deceit in a most extreme form.

Adolf Hitler convinced himself and his subjects that Jews and homosexuals were other than human beings.  Joseph Stalin did the same as regards Cossacks and Russian aristocrats.  And this despite the fact that Hitler and his subjects had seen both Jews and homosexuals with their own eyes, and Stalin and his subjects had seen both Cossacks and Russian aristocrats with theirs.  Happily, there are few today who would hesitate to condemn in the roundest terms the self-deceit of Hitler, Stalin or even their subjects to the extent that the subjects could have done something to end the madness and protect living, innocent human beings.

It is high time to stop pretending that we do not know what this nation of ours is allowing—and approving—with the killing each year of more than 1,600,000 innocent human beings within their mothers.  We know full well that to kill what is clearly seen to be an innocent human being or what cannot be proved to be other than an innocent human being is as wrong as wrong gets.  Nor can we honorably cover our shame (1) by appealing to the thoughts of Aristotle or Aquinas on the subject, inasmuch as we are all well aware that their understanding of matters embryological was hopelessly mistaken, (2) by suggesting that “killing” and “choosing to kill” are somehow distinct ethically, morally or criminally, (3) by feigning ignorance of the meaning of “human being,” “person,” “living,” and such, (4) by maintaining that among the acts covered by the right to privacy is the act of killing an innocent human being, and (5) by claiming that the being within the mother is “part” of the mother, so as to sustain the oftrepeated slogan that a mother may kill or authorize the killing of the being within her “because she is free to do as she wishes with her own body.”

One day, please God, when the stranglehold on public opinion in the United States has been released by the extremists for whom abortion is the center of their political and moral life, our nation will, in my judgment, look back on what we have been doing to innocent human beings within their mothers as a crime no less heinous than what was approved by the Supreme Court in the “Dred Scott Case” in the 19th century, and no less heinous than what was perpetrated by Hitler and Stalin in the 20th.  There is nothing at all complicated about the utter wrongness of abortion, and making it all seem complicated mitigates that wrongness not at all.  On the contrary, it intensifies it.

Do me a favor.  Look at the photograph again.  Look and decide with honesty and decency what the Lord expects of you and me as the horror of “legalized” abortion continues to erode the honor of our nation.  Look, and do not absolve yourself if you refuse to act.

Edward Cardinal Egan
Archbishop of New York

Original source:  www.cny.org/archive/eg/eg102308.htm

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Praying People into the Confessional by Father Roger Landry

Taken from http://www.catholicity.com/commentary/landry/00790.html

Last week, we examined one of the reasons why St. John Vianney’s confessional became the most besieged one in the history of the Church:  he prayed and sacrificed so much for sinners that that God, it seems, not only heard but rewarded those prayers, drawing hundreds of thousands of penitents from all over France to confess to a priest who shared his own zeal to reconcile his prodigal sons and daughters.

While prayer should always be the first act of a Christian, it’s not meant to be the only action.  Accordingly, the patron saint of priests did not stop at praying for sinners, but constantly labored to invite, persuade, and, when the circumstances demanded it, push and pull people to take advantage of God’s great sacrament of mercy.

Whenever he heard that there was someone in need of the sacrament who was reluctant to come, he went out in search of him.  Once a wife who had brought her ill boy to him told him that her husband was standing at the door, unwilling even to enter the Church.  The Curé of Ars left the sacristy and started calling for him by name, asking others to bring him to him.  At the third call, the husband entered the Church and approached the saint, who grabbed him by the hand and led him behind the altar where there was a special confessional normally reserved for bishops and priests.  He pointed to the confessional and said, “Put yourself there.”  “I don’t feel like it,” the husband replied.  The priest looked at him and with loving firmness said, “Begin.”  At that point, overcome by the supernatural force of the emaciated cleric, the man began and the saint helped him make his first confession in 14 years.

On another occasion, he heard of a boatman who had transported a large group of penitents but who refused to accompany them to the Church because, he told them, he was a hardened sinner with no intention of changing his behavior.   The pastor of Ars went to see him at his hotel room. “I have not come here to play the devotee,” the boatman said to him after opening the door.  “Leave me in peace! I am anxious to be off.”  St. John Vianney grabbed his hand and with tender concern said, “So you do not want to have pity on your soul, my friend?”  The saint left, but his words continued to resonate in the heart of the boatman.  The following morning the boatman was in line for confession.

A third occasion shows how creative St. John Vianney could be in trying to meet sinners where they were at and lead them back to the Father’s house.  A young man tried to persuade his friend to come with him to confession in Ars.  The friend replied that he would accompany him, but, insofar as he had no desire or need to confess, stated that he would go hunting while the other was in line for the sacrament.  When they arrived in the village, St. John Vianney was crossing the square.  He stopped before the friend, who had his rifle in one hand and the leash to his hunting dog in the other.  St. John Vianney looked at the dog and then turned to its owner.  “Monsieur,” he said, “would that your soul was as beautiful as your dog!”  The vain young man blushed.  After some time reflecting on the saint’s words, he entrusted his gun and pet to townspeople, entered the Church and with great tears, made his confession.  His conversion was so thorough that, a few years later, he himself was captured by the Hound of Heaven and became a Cistercian monk.

The most notable means St. John Vianney’s used to draw people to the confessional, however, was through regularly preaching about the need for the sacrament in the pulpit.  His customary style would be to speak about God’s mercy; when times warranted, however, he could also thunder with the fierceness of an Old Testament prophet.

He would generally begin with a focus on what a great gift the sacrament of confession is.  “My children,” he preached once, “we cannot comprehend the goodness of God towards us in instituting this great Sacrament of Penance.  If we had had a favor to ask of our Lord, we should never have thought of asking him that.  But he foresaw our frailty and our inconstancy in well-doing, and his love led him to do what we should not have dared to ask.”

The essence of the sacrament, he continued, is an encounter between God’s mercy and our misery, where the love of God “heals the wounds of our soul.”  He labored to eradicate the popular Jansenist conception of an angry God, an image that would scare people away from the sacrament.  “The good God will pardon a repentant sinner,” he countered, “faster than a mother will grab her child out of a fire.”  In the sacrament, he said, “it’s not the sinner who comes back to God to ask for forgiveness, but God himself who runs after the sinner to make him return.”  The Father of the prodigal son “comes after you, he pursues you after you have abandoned him. “  Basing himself on Jesus’ words about the great eruption of joy in heaven for one repentant sinner, St. John Vianney stressed, “God’s greatest pleasure is to forgive us.”

Anticipating almost verbatim some of what Christ himself said to St. Faustina a century later about his Divine Mercy, he continued, “How good God is! His good heart is an ocean of mercy.  Even though we can be great sinners, we should never despair of our salvation.  It is so easy to be saved!”  God’s mercy is much greater than our misery.  “What are our sins,” he asked, “if we compare them to God’s mercy?”  This mercy extends not just to the past but to the future:  “The good God knows all things.  It knows that after you confess, you will sin again, but he will pardon you.  What love God has that he will even voluntarily forget the future to forgive us.”

But there were times when the honey of God’s mercy was not enough to attract people to the sacrament.  On those occasions, he didn’t hesitate to resort to fire-and-brimstone to let his parishioners know the consequences of sin and the failure to come to have sins forgiven.  “Scaring them” into the sacrament was preferable to letting them live and die without it.  He preached about the realities of the Last Judgment and Hell just like Jesus himself frequently did before him.  Sometimes he would describe what sinners were doing to themselves, like carrying their souls to Hell by unnecessary work on Sunday.  At other times, he would beg those who refused to repent at least to “commit as few mortal sins as possible, so as not to add to their everlasting punishment.”  Most often he would just start sobbing in the pulpit, for as much as 15 minutes at a time, contemplating the fate of damned souls, and saying, “Cursed by God! Cursed by God!  What a pity!”

It was almost impossible not to be moved.  He would always conclude his homilies by inviting his listeners to action.  “If the poor people who are damned had the time that we lose,” he said once, “what good use they’d make of it!”  He would remind them of the words of “God does not will the death of the sinner” and call them to take advantage of the means they have to meet the mercy of God in confession before they meet his justice at the judgment.  Most did.  “Without the sacrament of penance, it would be fitting to weep,” he said; because of God’s love in founding the sacrament, however, there was an opportunity to turn those tears into joy.

In sum, St. John Vianney was not content to remain in the confessional waiting for people to come, but actively went in search of Christ’s lost sheep to bring them home to God.  His courageous example of holy preaching and persistent personal invitation remain an imitable lesson for all priests and faithful today.

Updated Video Pages

Just added a large number of videos.  Check them out!  God bless.

• Apologetics Videos
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  • Baptism: Symbolic or Necessary for Salvation?
  • Call No Man Father?
  • Do Catholics Add Man-Made Traditions to the Bible?
  • Do Catholics Have to Believe All that the Church Teaches?
  • Do Catholics Interpret Scripture Literally?
  • Eat My Flesh & Drink My Blood: Literal or Symbolic?
  • Faith Alone VS. Faith & Works
  • Mary, Queen of Heaven: Idolatry?
  • Prayer to Mary and the Saints: Contrary to Scripture?
  • Rapture and Left Behind
  • Should We Confess Our Sins to a Priest?
  • The Immaculate Conception of Mary: Contrary to Scripture?
  • The Perpetual Virginity of Mary VS. The Brothers of Jesus
  • Why Have a Crucifix?
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Updated Devotional Pages: The Holy Rosary

Good evening brothers and sisters in Christ!  I just revised and added numerous reflections regarding the Holy Rosary.  I found these reflections in a book I just purchased entitled God Who is Rich in Mercy.  Please check out the newly revised Holy Rosary pages.

Why You Matter: A Reflection of Human Dignity by Rev. John Bartunek, LC, STL

Long ago, a Frenchman incurred the displeasure of the emperor Napoleon.  He was thrown into a dungeon, forsaken by his friends, and forgotten by everyone in the outside world.  In loneliness and near despair he took a stone and scratched on the wall of his cell, “Nobody cares.”

So many forces in today’s world want us to reach the same conclusion, to think that we don’t really matter, at least not very much.  But these forces are craftier than Napoleon.  Instead of locking us in a literal dungeon, they scorn us indirectly.  They tell us, for example, that our looks, bank account, career, clothes, résumé, talents, and self-esteem are most important.  In short, they put the spotlight on all kinds of different things about us, but they ignore us. And when this message tirelessly bombards us, from every form of media, it has its effect.  By overvaluing those good things, we end up undervaluing the most important thing, our very self that resides beneath all the stuff and all the to-do list items.  And when that happens, we also start to undervalue other persons, other selves.

This is the root of today’s cultural campaign against human dignity.  Something people can have, like health, is given more importance than what people are – so we are willing to dispose of people, starting with human embryos, in order to use their stem cells to search for cures for diseases.  And when health begins to wane, assisted suicide is offered as a “medical treatment” to terminate life (in several countries and U.S. states).

Something people do, like having sexual relations, can fully reflect their dignity as human beings.  In marriage, husbands and wives are able to give themselves completely – body, soul, mind, and heart – exclusively, and for the rest of their lives.  But when sex itself is elevated above the dignity of the persons involved, it becomes more a way of taking physical pleasure from one’s partner rather than giving a gift of one’s whole being.  When people use each other for sexual pleasure, their dignity is obscured, which can lead to abuse, abortion, sexually transmitted diseases, and pornography.

Something people are meant to enjoy, protect, and develop, like the natural environment, can turn into an idol.  Some people value trees more than children, and favor drastically limiting births so fewer human beings will infest an otherwise pristine paradise.

In contrast Jesus taught that what matters most is, precisely, ourselves – our personhood, body and soul:

A leper now came up and bowed low in front of him. “Sir,” he said “if you want to, you can cure me.”  Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him and said, “Of course I want to! Be cured!”  And his leprosy was cured at once (Matthew 8:1-3).

Did you ever wonder why Jesus cured the leper by touching him?  Jesus could have cured the leper with a word or a wave of his hand.  That would have been much more pleasant than touching him.  The bacterial skin infection of leprosy starts small, but it soon spreads, rotting the victim’s extremities (fingers, nose, lips…) and issuing a thoroughly repugnant odor.  Lepers were excluded from society and left to die a slow, painful, humiliating death.  To come into contact with a leper was to make oneself ritually unclean, since their disease, it was believed, was a sign of God’s punishment.  Lepers were prohibited by law from coming within 100 yards of healthy people.  When it came to lepers, it was true: nobody cared.

And yet, this leper broke the rule and approached Jesus.  He came right up to him.  The leper must have sensed that Jesus would not be repulsed by his disgusting disease, that he would see the person beneath the putrefaction.  And he was right.  Jesus not only smiled and healed him, but he actually reached out and touched him – something no one else would do.  That touch made all the difference.  It restored his health, his status in the community, and, most of all, it restored his dignity.  The leper knew then for certain that someone did care about him, that he mattered.

The subtle lies of today’s culture of death are a plague of spiritual leprosy, reducing the value of human persons to some arbitrary standard that changes like fashions.  They wound us and wear us down.  They make us think that we truly are, underneath it all, lepers.  And so we live in bustling cities surrounded by millions of people, while in our little apartment we cry lonely tears.  But Jesus is nearby, waiting for us to approach him and ask for a cure.  He touches us still, if we let him, especially in the Sacrament of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.  To the world around us, what matters is what we possess, but to the Lord, we matter because we are his beloved children, created in his image, for whom he died, and with whom he wants to live forever in heaven.

Lately, some scientists have been spending a lot of time and money trying to show the contrary, that animals and people and even machines are pretty much all the same – just different combinations of the same material elements.  It’s interesting to note that none of the animals or machines that they have been experimenting with have given any evidence of doing similar experiments on the scientists.  That’s because human beings are different; their God-given dignity makes them so.

Discovering how much we matter frees us from the slow death of spiritual leprosy.  It also shows us how to live.  As St Paul put it, “You should befriend each other, then, as Christ has befriended you” (Romans 15:7).  This is the game plan of all the saints.

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta executed this plan beautifully.  Once she was staying with a community of sisters working among the Aborigines in Australia.  She visited an elderly man who lived in total isolation, ignored by everyone.  His home was a filthy wreck.  She told him, “Please let me clean your house, wash your clothes and make your bed.”  He answered, “I’m OK like this.  Let it be.”  She said, “You will be still better if you allow me to do it.” He finally agreed.  While she was cleaning, she discovered a beautiful lamp, covered with dust; it looked like it hadn’t been used in years.  “Don’t you light that lamp?” she said, “Don’t you ever use it?”  He answered, “No.  No one comes to see me.  I have no need to light it.  Who would I do it for?”  Mother Teresa asked, “Would you light it every night if the sisters came?”  He replied, “Of course.”  From that day on, the sisters committed themselves to visiting him every evening.  Mother Teresa left Australia.  Two years passed.  She had completely forgotten about that encounter.  Then she received a message from him: “Tell my friend that the light she lit in my life still continues to shine.”[1]

You matter.  That’s why Christ came into your life, cleaned your soul, and lit the lamp of faith in your heart.  If ever the lamp goes out, he is always there to light it again.  And while it shines, it should inspire us to roll back the dark lies of the culture of death and spread the light of Christ’s love to everyone we can, because they matter too.

Even Napoleon’s prisoner discovered this.  One day a green shoot came up through the cracks in the stones on the dungeon’s floor.  It began to reach up toward the light in the tiny window at the top of the cell.  The prisoner used some of the water brought to him each day to pour on the tiny sprout.  It grew slowly until at last it became a plant with a deep blue flower.  As the petals opened in full blossom, the solitary captive crossed out the words previously written on the wall.  “God cares,” he scratched instead.

Father Bartunek, LC is a Legionary of Christ priest and author of The Better Part and Inside the Passion.

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[1] This anecdote is recorded in more detail in Voices of the Saints by Bert Ghezzi.

Uganda Photo: Sean Sprague/Painet Inc.

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