Digital Areopagus

There really are no words to describe this so I'll let it speak for itself.

I try to go to daily mass a few times a week, I don't always make it but I always feel better when I do get to go. Given the number of different Masses I've attended both on Sunday and during the week it's inevitable that you'll hear a bad homily or two. Sometimes a homily just doesn't speak to you or half way through you wonder where Father is trying to go with this. I never fault anybody for swinging and missing, at least they gave it their best shot. What frustrates me, and everyone out there will have to let me know if they've ever experienced anything like this, is when you can tell that the priest just didn't really put any effort into it. I remember a couple of times sitting there after the homily was over and thinking "that's it?". I think it's even more fustrating when the homily doesn't actually have anything to do with the reading for the day.

Oh well, I guess I didn't have any real point...just wanted to rant.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI has appointed U.S. Archbishop
Raymond L. Burke of St. Louis to head the Vatican's highest court.

The Wisconsin native replaces Italian Cardinal Agostino Vallini who was
appointed by the pope to replace Cardinal Camillo Ruini, who is retiring as
papal vicar for Rome.

Click here for the rest of the story

This is wonderful news for Holy Mother Church. I'm sure there are plenty of people in St. Louis who will be saddened by this news but for the Universal Church it's a great move.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Receiving the Eucharist on the tongue while kneeling
before the pope will become the norm at papal liturgies, said the Vatican's
liturgist.

Sounds like a good idea to me...

Kneeling and receiving Communion on the tongue highlights "the truth of the real
presence (of Christ) in the Eucharist, helps the devotion of the faithful and
introduces the sense of mystery more easily," he said in a June 26 interview
with the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano.

Exactly, we as Catholics need to come back to the understanding of what the Eucharist is. It is not just a symbol, it is truly the body and blood of our Lord.

Click here to read the whole story

“Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old,” he said. “I am
going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I
don’t want them punished with a baby." --Barack Obama

I can't see how anyone can vote for a man who sees a child as a punishment. What's interesting to me is that he said I'll teach my daughters about values and morals but somehow murder of a child isn't included in that lesson.

If this guy gets into office come November God have mercy on all of us.

I didn't used to be a big listener of religious radio. That was until I started listening to Relevant Radio here in Austin, from there I started listening to EWTN radio and Catholic Answers. After that I was hooked, I think it's a great tool for the new evangelization and it has helped me to learn much more about my faith than ever before.

Rome apparently shares my sentiments:

Prelate Sums a First-of-Its-Kind Symposium

Archbishop Celli told Vatican Radio that an awareness of the role of radio
in evangelization was one of the important conclusions from the symposium.

"One of the riches of this congress has been bringing us to rediscover
that, beyond technology and professionalism, there exists a gift of God in
announcing the Word; there is a grace of preaching," the prelate said. "It is
God who intervenes in the heart of man to welcome the Word.
"This means that
when one sets out to announce the Word through radio, he should have this
awareness and this deep humility at knowing that he is the messenger of
something bigger than himself."

Thus, the Vatican official affirmed, the work of Catholic radio "is not
propaganda, but rather testimony and being aware that what is announced is the
word of life, and this must be energetically emphasized."

So if you've never listened to Catholic radio even if you're not Catholic give it a try...you might like it.

Can I put God in a box and bring him to show and tell? Not likely, but using a bit of logic and a lot of help from people much smarter than I am I’ll do my best to show that this being called God exist.

Before I get into this issue from an impersonal level I’d like to talk about it on a personal level. I was raised Catholic and lived as a not very good one for many years. I was what most people now a day’s call a Cafeteria Catholic, I picked and chose what I wanted to believe and lived a very relativistic lifestyle. Then a few years ago I had what most Evangelicals would call a “born-again” experience, what I call it is God hitting you square in the face with a 2x4 and telling you to get your shit together. So I started a two prong attack of prayer and study, I reconnected with the faith of my youth and started to develop this relationship with Jesus and his Church. I don’t know if I ever fell into thinking that God didn’t exist, but I guess I felt that as long as I wasn’t hurting anyone I could do pretty much whatever I wanted and let the chips fall where they may. What I quickly learned was that my actions were hurting people and more so they were hurting my relationship with the one person who had given up everything, even death on a cross to save me. So people ask me how can you believe in something/someone who may or may not have been who he said he was. I believe because I know him, I speak with him; I have a relationship with him. As sure as I know my wife and child exist because I love them and have a relationship with them, I know Jesus exist and is alive because he loves me, cares for me, listens to me and speaks to my heart every day.

Obviously, my personal view on this may have little impact on someone who does not believe there is a God one way or another. For those reasons we’ll move forward with a bit of help from Saint Thomas Aquinas and the good people at Catholic Answers:

I’m going to start off with the “Brain in a Vat” scenario. In the interest of people’s short attention spans I’ll do my best to summarize it. If you’d like to read the full article you can find it here: http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2006/0605uan.asp

Let’s start by taking a position of radical doubt. Suppose for a moment that you are not really a human being with an actual body. In reality, you are nothing more than a brain floating in a vat of fluids, with electrodes attached to various parts of your exterior that allow evil scientists to manipulate you into thinking that what you perceive is actually there, when in fact it is nothing more than an imaginary world constructed by the scientists. Right now, they are making you think that you are reading this article when in fact you are not.

1. One cannot deny one’s own existence -- Even if you’re just a brain in a vat, your own existence can be verified simply by the fact that you perceive
2. There is at least one thing that exists -- If nothing you think exists actually exists—you still must exist. Entity is the word we have for anything that exists. You exist, so you are an entity.
3. There is such a thing as existence -- As Aquinas would say, there must be an "act of being" in which all entities participate. This act of being must itself exist; it must be an entity. Thomas calls this entity esse, which is Latin for "to be" or "to exist."
4. The nature of esse is actuality. -- Now that we have established that esse is an entity, we must ask: What is the nature of this entity? What is its definition? Actuality is the fullness of existence. So, again, taking the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis, you know that you are actual, even if nothing else you perceive exists.
5. Esse is nothing but pure actuality -- Thomas argues that all entities participate in esse insofar as they are actual. Therefore, that in which they participate—esse—must be actual.
6. Esse not only does exist but must exist -- Existence itself is pure actuality, with no potentiality in it. This means that the essence of existence is nothing other than existence. Existence is its own essence. From this it follows that esse itself must exist, for if it did not, it would violate its own essence, which is
impossible.
7. Esse is distinct from everything else that exists -- You can know from step 1 that you exist, and we know from step 3 that esse exists. But we also know that the two are not identical.
8. Esse must be one -- Since esse is pure actuality, it has no limitations, which means there is no distinction in esse. Therefore, there is only one esse.
9. Esse must be immutable -- Since esse is purely actual, it has no potential to change. Therefore, esse is unchanging.
10. Esse must be eternal -- Because esse does not change, it does not change from the future to the present to the past. It must be outside the realm of time, which means that there is no future, present, or past with esse. In other words, esse is non-temporal, or eternal.
11. Esse must be infinite -- Because esse is immutable, it must be outside the realm of space. It has no spatial constraints—that is, esse is infinite.
12. Esse must be omniscient -- Even if you’re a brain in a vat, you can perceive that you have the capacity to know. Because you are only partly actual, and esse is purely actual, esse must know all there is to know. That is, esse is all-knowing, or omniscient
13. Esse must be omnipotent -- You can perceive that you have the capacity to do some things that are logically possible. Since you are only partly actual, and esse
is purely actual, esse must be able to do all things that are logically possible. That is, esse is all-powerful, or omnipotent.

Thus proving the existence of a being (esse) that not only does exist but must exist and is one, unchanging, eternal, infinite, omniscient, and omnipotent. This matches the definition of God.

We can conclude, then, that even if all of your sense perceptions are false, even if you are nothing but a brain in a vat being manipulated by scientists into believing that you are reading this article right now when in fact you are not, there are two things you can know with absolute, 100 percent certainty: (1) You exist, and (2) God exists.