REASON AND FAITH

1. There is so much talk about reason and faith among Catholic intellectuals. But much of them are easily misunderstood or misinterpreted precisely because there is no right reasoning; and the sad consequence? There is no faith.

2. The Catholic Church is the only institution that loves to use right (or sound)reasoning, and preserves it. Other philosophies or pseudo-religions either hate it or forbids the use of it. If a philosophy or religion is suspected of error, its promoters will forbid the use of reason lest their errors be discovered. Sometimes this prohibition comes in the form of forbidding their followers to analyze their beliefs. Or sometimes they forbid them to study other beliefs. Or some resort to downright threat of capital punishment for wanting to discover the truth or analyze one's error. Now that is terribly unreasonable!

3. Fortunately, (though unfortunately for many), Truth is supernatural, i.e. it is over and above natural human reason. Commonly referred to as Divine Revelation, we would need divine grace to know and obey it. But we need a functioning reason to receive this grace. Considering that man has a fallen nature due to original sin; he is ruled by concupiscence which constantly tries to over-rule reason. In fact, it is the rule of rational psychology that concupiscence and reasoning cannot function at the same given time.

4. As long as man is ruled by fallen human nature, concupiscence dominates him . He will begin to reason rightly only after he has overcome concupiscence through repentance. Repentance is the main message of the Old Testament which was perfected by Christ in the New Testament. After repentance, man becomes poor in spirit and receives the gift of the Holy Spirit called the Fear of God; and only then does he receive the grace to reason reasonably or think rightly.

5.Thus, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, because that is the only time man begins to use reason: this is the beginning of faith. Thus faith is built on reason. Man cannot think of Divine revelation unless he frees himself from his fallen human nature. Man cannot make an act of faith unless he uses his reason, because faith is an assent of his reason to the truths of faith. And he needs grace to be able to go deeper into the knowledge of God. In fact the first act of reason is to know God, commonly called the preamble of faith.

6. Man, as long as he is ruled by his fallen nature (which for many would be their entire life) cannot think rightly. (This is why it is impossible to talk about the true God except between thinking individuals.) That's why no one can talk about the true God with just anyone. Discussion must be among thinking individuals. The very act of belief is an act of syllogism.

7. Pope Benedict is right when he says that there is no hope in any discussion unless we begin with the premise that reason must be the basis of discussion and reason must prevail. Otherwise, concupiscence, that dark inner self in man which St. Paul describes as the source of all evil, will prevail. (Picture is fragment of painting of St. Thomas of Aquinas.)

ST. JOSEPH, Protector of the Church.

Whenever the Church has a problem, She only has to look at how God solved Her problems in the past and then solve it in exactly the same way. After all it was God who established Her.

When Joseph, Mary and Jesus were Her only members, She had a problem: Herod was after the Child. And who was instructed to do something about it? St. Joseph. An angel told him to take the Mother and Child and escape to Egypt. The Holy Family, the Church, fled to Egypt. When it was safe for the Child and Its Mother to return, whom did the angel instruct? St. Joseph. The Church returned but since it was not safe to return to Judea because of Archelaus, Joseph was instructed to return to Nazareth instead. There St. Joseph continued as protector of the early Church in Jesus and Mary.

Pope Pius IX had problems during his Pontificate. The Catholic laymen were up in arms against the Papacy. Austrian and Italian Bishops and Cardinals were both trying to influence the Pope. They were taking sides in the ongoing political struggle. The Pope was caught in between. He sees the Church being hurt in the contentions and he sees the Church needing help. He made a wise move as Popes always do. He called on St. Joseph to protect the Church, eventually declaring him as Patron and Protector of the Church. As if moved by grace he summoned Vatican I. Ecumenical councils do not really cure the defects of the Church; it merely makes the heretics and schismatics stand out so to be easily identified and corrected. It segregates those who are outside the Church.

Whether Pope Pius IX singled out the traitors within the Church wasn't clear. Antonio Rosmini seemed to have pointed out a few to him. But then, the men of the Church pounced on him in order to silence him. But St. Joseph was protecting the Church as he still does. Rosmini continued to write. And his writings fell into the hands of Pope John XXIII. Moved by efficient grace, he in turn summoned Vatican II. Pope Paul VI began to pinpoint the enemies from within. He died knowing that, though he tried to cleanse the men within the Church, he wasn't able to complete his task. He worried for the next pope.

Pope John Paul II's main concern was gathering and leading other sheep into the fold and encouraging those within. (The job of checking the ones within the fold if they were sheep or goats fell onto the lap of Pope Benedict XVI.) From the very beginning of Vatican II, the colors began to show: those who were for Christ and those who were against Christ. And this has been continuing up to the present. And apparently, a polarization was taking place, or shall we say, a great apostasy was on the rise? The sheep were standing on one side; the goats on the other.

St. Joseph did not convert Herod just as Christ did not cure Judas. Ecumenical Councils do not cure deviates. It can only make them stand out for what they are. That is how St. Joseph protected the early Church in (the person of) the Holy Family. The danger was pointed out to him and he merely shielded or protected the Holy Family from its enemies.

Sheep, like Christ, show the singular quality of obedience, "He was obedient unto death". Joseph, who was obedient to the Mosaic law, first wanted to divorce Mary; but he obeyed the angel and instead took her as his wife. Mary was obedient with her "fiat." Though she wanted to remain a virgin, she consented to be the wife of Joseph in obedience to the angel. Obedience is a sign of the presence of the theological virtues of Faith and Charity in the true follower of Christ.

On the other hand, disobedience is the sign of satan. Lucifer and Adam and Eve were disobedient. Disobedience to the declarations of the Holy Father is rampant. Some have even considered it as a new right akin to the right of choice.

Christ did not solve the problem of Judas. Neither did Joseph the problem of Herod. Neither will Pope Benedict who knows that the enemies of the Church are within her, even in the Curia, as Judas was in the Apostolic college. Like Christ, Pope Benedict would simply say: what you intend to do, do quickly, if you are thinking of disobeying, do so now so that the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, may know where you stand and correct you charitably. Fraternal correction is a duty of the Church. These evils are part of God's providence because He can get a greater good out of it. Thus Christ's action must be ours. God has allowed the evils in the Church for a greater good that is not evident to us right now. So let it be, that the greater good may be accomplished.

This is the way St. Joseph protects the Church. And we see his hands even now. (Isn't the Pope's name Joseph?)(Painting is "Mary wedded to Joseph" by Michael Pacher, Vienna, 1495)

EVANGELIZATION

The late Pope John Paul II, being a pastoral pope, made Evangelization the core of his pontificate. And understandably so because that is the primary role of a Pope and of the Church according to the words of Christ in His Apostolic Commission: first, to teach all His commandments and how to observe them; and secondly, to administer the Sacraments. 'Evangelization', 'Conversion', 'Reform' and 'Renewal' all mean the same thing, bestowing truth and grace, as the Gospel of John states.

Pope Benedict, even before his election to the papacy, wrote many articles on evangelization. As Pope, his addresses to bishops in their "ad limina" visits are almost all on evangelization. His talks in Brazil and to his own Curia were on evangelization.

The entire world has heard of the Christian truths from both Catholics and other christian sects and, in general, through mass media. The New Testament and religious books are available to everyone for the asking. Why the need for evangelization? There is a difference between informing and evangelizing. Information can be given by anyone. But true Evangelization can only be done by the Church.

The need for continuous Evangelization is based on Ecclesiology's observation that the Faith can disappear in a locality within three generations. This observation is based on the story of St. Francis de Sales, a doctor of the Church, who arrived at Chablais, a locality that was Catholic three generations ago but at his time only 27 remained Catholic out of 72,000 former Catholics.

The proposition that the Catholic Faith could disappear in a locality within three generation is expected even more so today. Before, persecution and fines caused the loss of Catholics from the Church. Today materialism, skepticism and hedonism are more potent factors in making Catholics lose their faith. A father is helpless in keeping his children Catholic because of school atmosphere. These children, becoming fathers themselves, would eventually lose their children from the faith. It is easy to see how in three generations the Catholic Church can disappear in a locality if not from an entire diocese. We are not speaking of persecution or fines. Only of default, the inability of the older generation to instill the Faith in their children. Sadly this situation is made worst by our pagan environment.

A great consolation, however, is that St. Francis de Sales (in his book the "Great Controversies") showed that faith could be re-established in four years with 72,000 becoming Catholics in Chablais and only 27 remaining Calvinists.

The apostles, the foundation in which Christ built His Church, would one day die. And the Church would need continuous Evangelization. The internal mechanism of the Church, the presence of Christic Charity (the soul of the Church) among her members will accomplish this.

Evangelization consists in the Church using her two Christ-given powers, namely that of Jurisdiction and of Orders: powers to bring souls to be completely Catholic through the four stages of Repentance, Faith, Hope and Charity. St. Francis enumerates these stages in his strategy in the re-conquests of Chablais and the Calvinist stronghold Geneva. He said, we must first live a life of repentance to reach Faith, thus entering the Catholic Church. Then we must grow in our faith and reach Charity before we can storm Geneva with Love.

The commands of Christ is the way to these four stages of Repentance, Faith, Hope and Love of God and neighbor. Evangelization, therefore, is teaching all the commands of Christ and how to observe them, thus giving us the proper disposition to be able to worthily receive the graces from the Sacraments.

Pope Benedict XVI had been hinting that the Catholic world today is similar to Chablais. The cause, he states in his "New Evangelization," being that there is error in the contents and method in teaching Catechism recently. ( This is not so in the Catechisms of Cyprian, Augustine, Thomas of Aquinas up to Trent and John Vianney.) He does not say 'how recent.' If it has been for more than three generations then the Church would have disappeared in most localities, if not in many nations.

The Pope's actions attest to this fact. He rewrites the Catechism of the Catholic Church with his 'Compendium' and writes 'Deus Caritas Est' followed with 'Spe Salvi.' This is what St. Francis de Sales did in Chablais and Geneva. 'The stronghold of Geneva can only be conquered with Love.' The stronghold of the world, the devil's dominion, can only be Evangelized with Love.
And those who must conquer must know the science of Divine Love, like St. Therese.

St. Francis de Sales conquered Geneva becoming its bishop. How many generations was that ago. More than three generations. And Geneva is again gone from the Church.

Charity is the soul of the Church. She does not have to be told to Evangelize. She Evangelizes everywhere she is through her members and does it very well. Where is our Francis de Sales or better still where is the Church?

VICTORY IN A Losing Battle

It is said that in the last war, England lost all the battles but won the war. The same may be said with the war against abortion. With the way things are going, we are likely to lose all battles; but in the end we will see that we were the winners.

Everything in the world is the result of the on-going warfare between good and evil. The good is fighting to regain the true freedom of the children of God lost by Adam and Eve in Paradise. Today, the Catholic Church is at the helm of a battle in which the intellect tries to regain control of man.

Evil is fighting on the side of the serpent who tempted Eve in the garden. And evil is seated in man's concupiscence whose end is to enslave man and make him rebel against the intellect, which is God's last thread of influence in man. Man's natural tendency to be a slave of his animal concupiscence, being common to all men, seems to have taken the upper hand today.

The Church seems to be losing its battle to give men true freedom (that freedom which is to be had since only truly-free souls can merit the kingdom of heaven), amidst the crowd of robot slaves that has engulfed society. True freedom is being overwhelmed by slavery. Hilaire Belloc had once surmised on the probability of the return of slavery and paganism with a vengeance. We are indeed back to the times of human sacrifices in Mexico, and the Carthaginians' worship of Moloch in Africa. We are losing the battle to regain our true freedom as children of God; instead we are gaining the freedom of --- animals.

In such an atmosphere, it's almost impossible to raise children up to be good Catholics. The light of the Catholic Church could dim due to lack of infusion of new souls.

But victory of good will be accomplished by the Woman crushing the head of the serpent. The serpent might seemingly be winning all the battles, but the Church, signified by the woman in Genesis and the Apocalypse, will eventually crush the serpent's head.

The war on abortion is waged in three levels; the supernatural, the natural and the unnatural. It is now being waged in the unnatural level into which the human race have descended.

To stop abortion we must raise people to the supernatural level or at least to the natural level. But to attain to either, we need graces. Supernaturally we must say "Children are given to us by God to raise them up for the kingdom of heaven." If everybody is in this level, we would have no problems, and this would be a wonderful world to live in and raise children. But we need supernatural grace for this, the kind that God does not ordinarily give to everybody. This grace is what impels the soul to think, to will and to act toward our supernatural end.

If man hasn't yet been raised to the supernatural level, he should aim at least at the natural good of the children, which is to take good care of their physical well being. But even this would need some kind of grace, often referred to as the concurrence of God. This is given to all but is temporary, and easily lost or most often rejected by many.

All men are in the level of the unnatural due to original sin. He cannot think, nor will, nor do any good. It is for this reason that abortion has become very common.

Grace is needed to treat every child as a child of God. Grace is needed to treat every child as a human being. Grace is the only solution to the abortion crisis. We need grace to know the reason why a child is given to us by God; and grace to love that child.
Then we need grace to see how evil abortion is. We need grace to see how inhuman abortion is. We cannot avoid the evil of abortion without grace.

But then we live in an age where grace is rejected, where man is ignorant of the necessity of grace; in which case, there is no way we can stop abortion.

But wait... there is something yet that we can do. Grace can be asked of God through prayer. We can pray to God to grant the world the grace to see the supernatural reasons why we are pro-life. But that will need lots of prayer, almost unceasing prayer. But who has the time for unceasing prayer amidst a life of unceasing activity? Looks like the babies have no chance.

When God threatened to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham begged God to spare the city. God agreed if a certain number of people could plead with prayers for His mercy. Abraham could not even find a handful. Today, our problem is that there are few people praying.

What can a Catholic do? Part IV of the Compedium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church by Pope Benedict XVI teaches us. Then go to your room, lock the door and pray in secret to your Father in heaven, to have mercy on those children, to whom He is also a Father, to whom He will certainly show mercy because they were deprived of mercy on earth. Also pray for the abortionist to whom God will show His justice. Our victory will be when we see those children, whom the abortionists killed, in Heaven.

Though this is a losing battle, we must go on and fight .... to save souls, the abortionists' souls. How can they repent? Many of them do not believe in repentance, in the sacrament of confession, in the virtue of penance and absolution. They do not believe in the Pope who has reserved this sin. It is for these souls that we are fighting for. Because many of them are Catholics. And the Catholic Church always prays for her own .......and we are Catholics. ('The murder of the Innocents' by Giotto)

SIGNUM MAGNUM-The Church

"Behold a Great Sign appeared in heaven: a Woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet....and being with child....And behold a great red dragon...And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven... he stood before the woman."

This is the Introit for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe where it showed that Mary was the woman of the Apocalypse. The feast is describing both an eschatological and ecclesiological phenomenon : the Apocalyptic Woman.

The Catholic Church has many regimes - - different stages in her development from the garden of Paradise until the end of the world. She looks different at every stage. These are often called "types". We saw her in the Old Testament (in the Chosen People); and in the time of Christ (in the first disciples). But few know her after Pentecost, the beginning of the Church of the Apocalypse.

From Adam and Eve, through the old testament, through the New Testament and Pentecost, this Bride was conceived, established, grows and becomes more beautiful as she matures.

A child growing up with his parents to maturity will always know his parents. But if he hasn't lived with his parents for many years, he will hardly recognize them. He who is not in the Church will not recognize her in her different regimes.

The Catholic Church has been prepared for the coming of Christ. She received the fullness of Christ during his lifetime; and the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, receiving the power to extend that fullness of Christ throughout the world. Today, the Church looks quite different.

The problem of Evangelization, (already noted by Pope Benedict XVI, first in his circular " The New Evangelization," and in his address to the Brazilian Bishops, and repeated in his address to the Curia, and then completed by a memo of the Congregation on the Doctrine of the Faith on Evangelization), is clear. But many are still unable to point to the true Church. Many parishes, dioceses, and even religious orders are unable to prove their Catholicity.

The Fathers of the Church never hesitated to describe the Woman of the Apocalypse as the Blessed Virgin Mary. But it wasn't a popular idea. The Woman was always described as the Church, which she was. But Mary wanted to point out in Guadalupe that She was the woman of the Apocalyse, as if saying: "That's really me and don't ever doubt that." In 1531 we have entered into the era of the Apocalypse, "novissimis."

The steps toward Christian perfection are : repentance, faith, hope then charity. The story of Fatima showed the inability of Christians to repent. Without repentance souls cannot have faith and enter the Church. No repentance, no faith, no Catholics. Both Vatican I and II were working on ecclesiology: what is the Church and how does one enter the Church? Both questions were anwered by "Lumen Gentium" and Chapter 12 of the Apocalypse. The feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe where she appeared as "Signum Magnum" is important because it teaches us that in the final regime of the Church on earth, she will have the added characteristic of being Marian. St. Robert Bellarmine mentioned so even before Vatican II. But we need faith to see it. The Church of the Apocalypse is a sight only for true Catholics.

IT IS NATURAL TO BE CATHOLIC.

G. K. Chesterton once said something to the effect that if everybody would just sit down, be quiet and think, the whole world would become Catholic. But the world won't sit down, won't be quiet and won't think. No wonder the world is in a mess; it has not turned Catholic; and the Catholics are, instead, becoming worldly.

Pope Benedict has repeatedly echoed the same thing, especially at Regensburg. Even Pope John Paul II's "Fides et Ratio" said the same thing.

God created man with a mind, an intellect. And He filled this intellect with ideas (an entity separate from the intellect) containing His truths. God wanted to make sure that we get the right idea about God and His truths. But our intellect has to read these truths, by an act of thinking, in order to know them. In fact the first act of thought is for the intellect to acknowledge these truths. These God-given innate ideas, accessible to the intellect by thinking, are the margins within which the natural truths of the Catholic Religion are enclosed. Therefore it should be natural for all to be Catholic.

Think of these innate God- given ideas as in the form of a pyramid. At the top of the pyramid are the preambles of faith. The base could be the whole summa theologica of St. Thomas. It is a matter of reflecting on the preambles to know the Summa. After all, where else could St. Thomas have gotten his Summa if not by reflection on the preambles of faith. God gives the preambles; but we have to extract the entire Summa from them through reflection.

The Catholic faith is founded on the natural. Faith begins with the assent of the natural mind on natural truths before it rises to the supernatural theological virtue of Faith, making man a Catholic. All men are born with the natural truths of the Catholic Church (called natural theology); so why did they fail to reflect on them?

Man is a rational animal. He is part spiritual and part animal. The pagans knew this. So they portrayed men as centaurs and women as mermaids. He thinks and wills. Call this the faculties of the soul. His animal side is the seat of his instincts or concupiscence. This latter is what prevents man from thinking!

We cannot serve two master, since we will love one and hate the other. If we hate our selfish selves (concupiscence) we would love to think and love what we are thinking. If we love ourselves (our concupiscence) we would hate to think, thus preventing us from becoming naturally Catholics.

When man acknowledges the God-given innate ideas in him, he knows the truth. When his free will accepts the truth, he knows he loves the truth. God is both truth and good. So man, by nature, even from his conception, possesses what it takes to be a Catholic who knows and loves God, thus becoming a saint, as Chesteron has observed: "If all man would just sit down, be quiet and think, they would all become Catholics" and we may add "become saints."

This is the goal of Fides et Ratio and all the declarations of the Church on the importance of reason for the act of faith. It is what Pope Benedict XVI was hoping to accomplish in his Regensburg address and which he reminded the Diplomatic corps in his "State of the World" address of 2006. THINK, and we will solve all the problems of the world (without saying why...."because we will all become Catholic.")