Liberty is subjection to God

Dominique Barthélemy's book "God and His Image" is filled with striking passages, so much so I almost want to copy the entire chapter I'm reading now. Chapter 4, "A People Condemned to Liberty", is about the implications of the Hebrews being subjected to God alone. As usual, the story of the Jewish people is a type of the story of each individual soul. Our liberty as human beings depends on our subjection to God, and God alone. When we throw off God's yoke, another and much more onerous yoke must inevitably take its place. From page 73ff:

Only he who made man enables him to fulfill himself truly. It is in his hands that man passes from the germinal state of a dreamed-of destiny to birth, fulfillment and fruition. It is in these same hands that he proceeds on his way, and if he does not try to escape from them, man will achieve his liberty. If he abandons them, he finds himself in a state of privation and distress. For man must never imagine that what he needs is to be his own master. The only man to let himself be deceived by such a dream is the slave of false masters, even though the influence of the false master has been as discreet as that of the tempter himself. What man really wants is to be in the hands of a master who has real rights over his being, who does not usurp this almighty sovereignty. If a man finds he has no master once he has driven out the false masters he very soon discovers he is like a demagnetized compass and that any harvest he gathers is worthless. Not knowing the true fruit that it should be his to bear, man once again looks for other masters who, even if they fail to bring him real and total fruitfulness for his perfection, help him nonetheless to drive out a certain anxiety and fear of emptiness that assail him. At least these other masters will enable him to realize something, even if illusory and inauspicious, which will save him from being an isolated atom and will incorporate him into some organism that works and from which there comes a certain dignity that he likes to think of as influential. And that "something" which is preferable to solitude may be the grinding system of the totalitarian state. Even if it crushes him, it frees man from that obscure giddiness of his useless nothingness.

Impressive! A single paragraph that analyses the false appeal of existentialism and atheism and all the other ism's; and provides the real solution, the one real thing that we only find when we turn to our loving God and Father. "Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee" (St. Augustine).

Retreat, Day 2 - 4:00 PM "Frequent Confession"

Friday at 4:00 PM; this talk was by the retreat master (a lay person), not the priest that gave the preached meditations.

Frequent confession. How could so many putative Catholics vote for such a dedicated abortionist? Have they - materially or formally - cooperated with evil? Perhaps their consciences have been blinded or obscured so they imagine that economic issues are more important than killing babies.

In fact we do have a duty to act according to our convictions; even our erroneous and mistaken convictions. But this does not absolve us from our sinful actions - since we have a prior duty to form our consciences and shape our convictions in the light of God's revelation. So voting for a dedicated baby killer is not the immediate problem. The immediate or deeper problem is having a conscience formed in such a way that such a vote seems reasonable.

Frequent confession and a firm purpose of resolution against habitual, willed venial sin is a powerful means to reform our conduct, shape our conscience, and love God more every day.

My letter to Barack Obama

Below is the text of the letter I wrote to Barack Obama at his transition web site: http://www.change.gov/page/s/yourstory:

Dear President-Elect Obama,

You have been in my daily prayers since you won the election. I pray for you to have a change of heart with regard to the right to life. Please reconsider your support for the Freedom of Choice Act which seeks to override the conscience of thousands of caregivers at hundreds of Catholic hospitals across the country, as well as pharmacists and many others.

You have spoken eloquently about the audacity of hope and the need to protect our country's most vulnerable citizens. Please consider that no person is so vulnerable as an unborn child in its mother's womb. A mother's right to choose to have an abortion has to be outweighed by the child's right to life. The right to life is the fundamental right. If an unborn child has no right to life, then none of us has any rights.

Please prayerfully reconsider your support for FOCA in particular, and abortion in general. I used to be a died-in-the-wool Democrat; the party's support for this one issue has caused me to become a died-in-the-wool Republican.

Thanks for your attention,
David Miller

God is with us: Retreat Day 2, 11:30 AM

My notes from Day 2 of my retreat, Friday at 11:30 AM:

God is with us. Each of us is worth so much to God that He gave His life for us; even if only I were to ever be saved, He would have done the same. The central fact about ourselves is that God is our Father. This is true for everyone! Everyone is worthy of the dignity of sons of God.

How do we help others? By being one - "at-one-ness" - with God; our sanctity (which is a gift from God) connects us to God Who connects us to everyone. Our love for ourselves, for our neighbors, and for God are all connected. They grow and shrink as one. If I don't love my neighbor, I can't love either myself or God.

So our life is to grow in love for God - and help others to do the same. Sanctity in how we rest; we don't rest from our families, we rest with them. Sanctity at work where everyone is an image of God. Sanctity in our country - we must strive to bring about a culture of life and combat the evils of the present day. Sanctity in our eating and drinking. Be God for your fellows. Remember they are the image of God. Strive to ignite in them the spark which you have received.

Fight FOCA

FOCA is the Freedom of Choice Act; an Act that would sweep away all restrictions on abortions, all parental notification laws, all rights of hospitals and doctors to not perform abortions.

It is the duty of every Christian to resist the enactment of this brutal, vile piece of legislation.

Fight FOCA is a good place to start. Over 250,000 people have signed their petition so far.

This post from the "Between Two Worlds" blog shows a graph comparing the increase of abortions in Maryland (which passed its own version of FOCA in 1991) with the nationwide decline of abortions.

Americans United for Life's page on FOCA is another required read.

Never again can we doubt the impact of a President on the number of abortions. It turns out FOCA has been around for years - over a decade. Only with the election of a President that would sign the thing, has it become a major issue. Even Bill Clinton's public stance was to keep abortions "safe, legal, and rare". That is our President-Elect for you: even worse than Bill Clinton.

Retreat, Day 2 - 8:40 AM

My notes after the first preached meditation at my retreat, given at 8:40 AM on Friday (day 2):

Grow in God - in knowledge of Him, in understanding and love. We can always know, love, and serve God better - we can always grow in Him. God is my Father - directly and personally, most interested in me - He lives in my soul, so long as I don't evict Him by mortal sin. God never abuses our freedom... Trust in God - negativity and unhappiness are signs of something - lack of faith? Lack of trust in God? God's providence and will are what counts.

Remember the parable of the invited guests who chose to look after their cow - their farm - their bride instead of attending the banquet. Do not let material comfort or the press of life lull you into slumber, or passivity. Remember divine filiation - you are a son of God.

Retreat, Day 1

I went to my first retreat last weekend: Thursday night, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning. Two and half days of prayer, preached meditations, rosaries, examinations of conscience, and (it goes without saying) daily Mass and opportunities for confession.

What a great experience. How many times do you get such a break from daily life to concentrate on God? To really sink into prayer, to lift your heart up to Him who deserves all our love?

After so many years of growth the knowledge and practice of the Faith it is still very hard to believe in my heart that Jesus loves me personally by name; obviously I know this with my head but in my heart I can't draw a picture of Jesus reaching out to save me like He reached out to Peter when Peter failed to walk on the water. During one the prayers at this retreat I may have had a breakthrough. I pictured myself talking to Jesus like I would talk to my father, and said that I loved Him and wanted to love Him more, and I heard Him tell me that He loved me.

God as loving Father was a major theme of the retreat; that He feels for us all the tender love, the deep concern, the personal interest that our fathers had in us when we were infants.

Anyway I took notes after each of the preached meditations... not during the meditation, as if the meditation was a lecture in college; but later on, back in my room, after I'd had time to reflect. I want to post each of my notes just the way I wrote them on paper.

Following are my notes after the first preached meditation, given at 9:30 PM on Thursday night:

Friendship with God - intimacy with Jesus. Being with Him all the time - not once a week, not once a day, not even 10x a day - constantly. He wants to talk with us about our struggles, plans, fears, & much else besides.

Abortion - Barack Obama - Cdl. George's letter to the President-Elect - "abortion kills Constitutional order". Our duty to resist FOCA. The coming horrors - our responsibility to grow in sanctity.

Page 52 of "God and His Image": "Man prefers this hand that destroys and this mouth that promises but does not promise for the immediate future, that does not promise something to fill man with joy today, but will dig deep into him so that there may be born in him the man whom God intends eventually to shower with gifts. This is the hand man loves better than any other known to him."

Later I will post my other notes.

Summa Theologica and Man and His Image

These are the Catholic books I'm reading now. The Summa, and God and His Image.

Everyone has heard of the Summa. It reads very well, after getting used to the rhythm of the language (and the century-old translation). I've gotten so used to the precision and logic and depth of treatment that it is almost hard to read less well-structured books. They just seem less solid than the Summa. It requires a definite time commitment - I started this thing over a year ago and it'll probably take another year anyway to finish - just reading about 20 minutes a morning, over breakfast.

God and His Image is a wonderful book by a very well known Old Testament scholar. It is about the history of man's relationship with God. He feels the Fall changed our concept of God from loving father to unforgiving taskmaster - a change that still echoes to our own day. Richard Dawkins' atheist group's fundraiser in England involved a poster with the message "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy yourself." This reflects just the same mistaken image of God as unforgiving judge that the author of this book describes from the earliest beginnings of the Hebrew people. He then goes on to trace the story of salvation as God's efforts to lead people to the fuller understanding espoused by the Church today. It is people that turn away from God; He never turns His back on us.