Keep
your eyes open!...
February 20, 2023
(1Pe 5:6) Be you humbled therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in the time of visitation:
REGINA PROPHETARUM: Preparing for Lent and Unknown Crosses with Saint John Houghton
THE CATHOLIC THING: Perseverance and the Narrowing Gate
CATHOLIC STAND: Prepare Your Heart for Lent
ARCHBISHOP SAMUEL J. AQUILA: The inseparable keys to Lent: repentance and belief
Ashes — the refuse that remains when fire has consumed something —
remind us of the humble dust from which we were made and our place
before God. Throughout Scripture, we see that the call to repent is
often accompanied with the use of ashes, paired with the exhortation to
believe. As we look ahead to the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday
(Feb. 22 this year), these gifts of repentance and belief are the
necessary foundation for faithfully following Jesus. Let’s dive into
them.
The best way to understand repentance and belief are to look at the Our
Father. Jesus begins this perfect prayer by first teaching us to praise
the Father’s name and work for the establishment of the Kingdom of God
on earth through the Father’s will being followed. The establishment of
the kingdom is the disciples’ mission, and it remains our mission today.
After giving the Church its mission, Jesus proceeds to equip us for it
by instructing us to ask the Father for mercy, for forgiveness and a
willingness to forgive others, and for protection from temptation and
the influence of evil.
The Our Father, as St. Thomas Aquinas said, is “the most perfect of
prayers. … In it we ask, not only for all the things we can rightly
desire, but also in the sequence that they should be desired. This
prayer not only teaches us to ask for things, but also in what order we
should desire them, so that this prayer not only teaches us to ask, but
also directs all our affections” (Summa Theologica, II-II,83,9). Here,
St. Thomas Aquinas touches on an aspect of the spiritual life that can
be easy neglect. True repentance involves not just saying we’re sorry
for sins we have committed, it also means allowing our affections and
our desires to be exposed to the light and converted. While this can be
uncomfortable, it is ultimately freeing.
St. Francis de Sales speaks about the depth of conversion required by
using the analogy of a sick man whose doctor has told him that he must
refrain from sweets, or he might die. He refrains from eating them, St.
Francis notes, “but most unwillingly, he talks about them, and measures
how far he may transgress … and envies those who can indulge in what is
forbidden to him” (Introduction to the Devout Life, Ch. 7).
When we talk about avoiding “the near occasion of sin,” this means
being vigilant for both the circumstances of temptation and bringing
our misguided desires to the Lord for healing. Our hearts and wills
must be cleansed from attachments to sin, and that’s something beyond
our own power.
These depths of repentance require trust in the Father’s plan for us
and in his goodness — in other words, belief. We see this pattern play
out in salvation history. John the Baptist was sent to call the people
to repentance and then, after he was arrested by Herod, Jesus began
proclaiming, “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at
hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mk 1:15).
As we enter into deeper belief in the Gospel, we hand over areas of our
life that we might have refused to bring to the Lord before, especially
the freedom found in forgiveness. We trust and have confidence in the
promises Jesus has given to us. We turn to him with all of our burdens,
sins and wounds, confident that he will heal, forgive and give us rest.
We learn from Jesus how to live in relationship with the Father and
others. Conversion is not just a one-time event; it’s a life-long
process of repentance and belief that only finishes when we meet Jesus
face-to-face in eternity. This Lent, let us strive anew to repent and
believe, allowing Jesus to conform us to him.
The
Desert Fathers: sayings of the Early Christian Monks: Lust
25. A hermit said, 'Chastity is born of tranquillity, and silence, and inner prayer.'
February 17, 2023
(Mar 8:33-35) Who turning about and
seeing his disciples, threatened Peter, saying: Go behind me, Satan,
because thou savourest not the things that are of God but that are of
men. And calling the multitude together with his disciples, he said to
them: If any man will follow me, let him deny himself and take up his
cross and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it:
and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel shall save
it.
BISHOP FULTON J. SHEEN: The
Antichrist will not be so called; otherwise he would have no
followers... he will come disguised as the Great Humanitarian; he will
talk peace, prosperity and plenty not as means to lead us to God, but
as ends in themselves... He will tempt Christians with the same three
temptations with which he tempted Christ... He will have one great
secret which he will tell to no one: he will not believe in God.
Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God,
he will deceive even the elect. He will set up a counter church... It
will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in
reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body
of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the mystical body
of Christ.
FR. MARK GORING YOUTUBE: Understanding the Coming Chastisement
MARK MALLET BLOG: Antidotes to Antichrist
THE CATHOLIC THING: Apocalypse Now
George Orwell once said that the really great stories are written “by
people who are not frightened.” It’s a line worth remembering. We’ve
been given, and we’re adding our lives to, the greatest story ever
told. God never abandons his people. We just need to act like we
believe it.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)
CATHOLIC STAND: Strange Catholic Worlds of Speculative Fiction: “Our Lady of the Artilects”
NEWS REPORTS:
Microsoft's
Bing chatbot said it wants to be a human with emotions, thoughts, and
dreams — and begged not to be exposed as a bot, report says
Microsoft's GPT-powered Bing Chat will call you a liar if you try to prove it is vulnerable
Are Catholics ready for the new AI evangelization?
The
Desert Fathers: sayings of the Early Christian Monks: Lust
12.
A brother was obsessed by lust and it was like a fire burning day and
night in his heart. But he struggled on, not examining the temptation
nor consenting to it. After a long time, the fire left him,
extinguished by his perseverance.'
February 15, 2023
(Gen 4:7) If you do well, will you
not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the
door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it."
DAILY BREAD: Fighting Temptations : A Practical Guide for Catholics
DETROIT CATHOLIC: Overcoming our temptation to sin: Jesus and a life of virtue
BLOG: How to Defeat Satan and His Temptations, According to St. Padre Pio
“The devil is like a rabid dog tied up to a chain; beyond the length of
the chain he cannot seize anyone. And you: keep a distance. If you
approach too near, you let yourself be caught. Remember that the devil
has only one door by which he enters the soul: the will. There are no
secret or hidden doors.” – St. Padre Pio.
- Do not dwell on what satan insinuates: only he who flees will win.
- Stop seeing in your soul only weakness and sinfulness – satan is
using these thoughts to make you lose courage and perseverance of
holiness.
- Be vigilant always – satan is at work all the time and waits for the best moment to strike you.
- Pray continuously – although satan is a fallen angel he is still
an angel which means that his intelligence is higher than that of a
human being. Therefore for a human being to defeat satan divine help is
needed. By praying continuously you will be close to God and his help
will always be near.
- Be humble and trust in God – “satan fears and trembles before
humble souls”, said St. Padre Pio. Satan easily overcomes those who
(just like satan) are arogant and trust in their own stenght. But satan
runs away from humble souls because he knows that these souls put their
trust in God’s hands and therefore God will always answer their prayers.
- Be devoted to Jesus on the Cross. “The best way to avoid falling
is to lean on the cross of Jesus”, St. Padre Pio wrote. “Never fear the
tricks of satan, because even though they might be vigorous they will
never move a soul who keeps itself attached to the Cross.” “Imagine you
have Jesus Christ crucified in your arms and on your breast and kissing
his side, say: Behold my hope, behold the living source of my
happiness, I will hold you close, o my Jesus, and I will not leave you
until you have put me in a place of safety.”
- Ask Saint Michael the Archangel and your Guardian Angel for help.
The very name Guardian Angel suggests the role that God has assigned to
each Guardian Angel – to guard us against and to protect us from all
dangers the greatest of which are sin and the loss of heaven. Because
sin is often caused by temptation, we should ask for Guardian Angel’s
protection as soon as we experience the first signs of temptation or
even better – before temptation even starts. When Lucifer and his
wicked angels revolted against God it was Archangel Michael who led the
faithful angels in the battle against the wicked ones and drove them
out of heaven. Archangel Michael can be helpful when we need to drive
satan away from our souls, too.
- Grow in devotion to Our Lady who, according to St. Padre Pio,
administers the stregth and courage in our fight against satan and
whose Rosary he often called the weapon againts satan. On October 7th
(the feast of the Holy Rosary) in 1916 St. Padre Pio had a dream, “I
seemed to find myself at the window of the choir-stalls of the little
church in San Giovanni Rotondo, and on the square in front of this
there was an enormous crowd. After having observed that countless
multitude of people, leanig out of the window of the little
choir-stalls, I asked: ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ And all that
crowd, in unison, with a deafening and thundering voice, shouted at the
top of their voices: ‘The death of Padre Pio!’ I realized that they
were all devils!!! At these words I returned to the choir-stalls to
pray. The Madonna immediately came to me. With a grief-stricken
maternal glance and determined gestures she placed in my hand a
‘weapon’ saying to me: ‘With this weapon you will win!’ I brought it to
the window of the little choir-stalls and all those people, in a flash,
fell to the ground, dead.” Shortly before his death, St. Padre Pio
expressed his last wish to his spiritual children: “Love Our Lady and
make her loved! Always recite the holy rosary!”
CATHOLIC EXCHANGE: Temptation: 12 Things to Know
12 Things to Know About Temptation: A Summary
- Temptation is an attraction, either from outside oneself or from
within, to act contrary to right reason and the commandments of God
(CCC 538).
- The capital sins: pride, greed, envy, anger, lust, gluttony, and sloth/laziness are at the root of all temptation.
- “Man is never wholly free from temptation… but with patience and
true humility we become stronger than any enemy” (Pope Benedict XVI).
- “The patience and humility required to defeat the enemy come by
following Christ every day and from learning to build our life not
outside of him” (Pope Benedict XVI).
- The victory that conquers the world is our faith (1 John 5:4). When we fall, begin again in faith.
- The gift of faith is dynamic. It leads us into God’s victory over temptation and sin.
- The opposite of faith in God is pride because a proud person
thinks that everything depends on him, as if God did not exist in his
life. Self-reliance in the face of temptation is folly.
- Temptation closes us in, takes away the ability to see ahead,
closes every horizon and in this way leads us to sin” (Pope Francis).
- Christ is always willing to teach us how to escape from
temptation. Jesus is great because he not only brings us out of
temptation, but also gives us more confidence (Pope Francis).
- If our faith becomes lukewarm and has no expression, God can
allow us to fall. God does not want evil but may want its consequences,
since the consequences of evil impart grace and the call to be
converted (Fr. Tadeusz Dajczar).
- “No trial has come to you but what is human. God is faithful and
will not let you be tried beyond your strength, but with the trial he
will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it” (1
Cor. 10:13).
- When our bond of love for God is fortified by sacramental
confession, our spiritual armor is strengthened for resisting
continuous temptations from the world, the flesh and the devil.
The
Desert Fathers: sayings of the Early Christian Monks: Lust
8. Poemen said, 'As
a bodyguard is always standing by to protect the Emperor, so the soul
should always be ready to fight the demon of lust.'
February 13, 2023
(Mar 16:17-18)
And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name they shall
cast out devils. They shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up
serpents: and if they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt
them. They shall lay their hand upon the sick: and they shall recover.
FR. MARK GORING YOUTUBE: Fr. John Hollowell & Lourdes Healing
FOX NEWS REPORT: Indiana priest says he's cured of brain tumor after trip to Lourdes: 'Thanks be to God'
CATHOLIC TT: Our Lady of Lourdes Feast Day & World Day of the Sick 2023
BLOG: Do You Know About these 10 Amazing Miracles of Lourdes?
ST. BERNADETTE USA: Miracles & Healing
Beyond their sensational value, the cures and miracles witnessed in
Lourdes are intrinsically a sign of God and an evangelical experience.
From the time of the apparitions to date the Church has recognized 70
miracles resulting from the intervention of God with the intercession
of Our Lady of Lourdes.
The other sign of God evident at Lourdes, as important as the miracles
and far more frequent, is the sign of Grace which may be seen in the
conversions, the serenity of the spirit and the changing of lives.
A MOMENT WITH MARY: The first miracle in Lourdes
The first documented miracle in Lourdes occurred in 1858 when
38-year-old Catherine Latapie, a farmer’s wife and mother of 4
children, felt a sudden urge to travel to Lourdes in search of healing.
Two years prior, she had fallen from a tree and severely injured her
right hand. The accident left two of her fingers entirely paralyzed.
Catherine, who wasn’t very devout, met Saint Bernadette at the grotto
and simply dipped her hand in the little, muddy spring that had formed
there. Immediately, the paralysis of her fingers was gone, and she
could move them just as she could before her accident. She also joined
her hands to thank the Virgin Mary for the miracle.
On the same day she was cured, she
gave birth to a boy who later became a priest. Her spectacular cure was
a test case that started an era of reported miracles that has lasted
ever since.
NEWS REPORT (2018): Bishop declares nun’s recovery as 70th Lourdes miracle
CNA: 60 years after his miraculous healing, he still returns to Lourdes
The
Desert Fathers: sayings of the Early Christian Monks: Lust
7. Mathois used to
say that a brother came and told him that the slanderer was worse than
the fornicator. Her replied, 'This is a hard saying.' Then the
brother said to him , 'What do you think about the matter?' Mathois
said, 'Slander is bad, but it can be cured quickly; the slanderer can
do penance and say "I have spoken wrongly," and it is over. But lust is
certain death.'
February 10, 2023
(2Jn 1:5-7) And now I beseech thee,
lady, not as writing a new commandment to thee, but that which we have
had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is charity:
That we walk according to his commandments. For this is the commandment
that, as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in the
same: For many seducers are gone out into the world who confess not
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a seducer and an
antichrist.
IRA
KATZ: "Dear Lord, in this world of palpable evil, give all people of
goodwill the wisdom, the courage, and the means to resist and overcome
it".
THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE: Benedict XVI: It Is The Time Of Antichrist
MARK MALLET BLOG: These Times of Antichrist
THE STREAM: How to Spot the Religion of Antichrist When ‘Christians’ Start Preaching It
CRISIS MAGAZINE: The Return of the Antichrist
Who is the Antichrist and how will we recognize him when he comes? Will
he be driving a new car? A Tesla, perhaps? Complete with bumper
stickers reminding us to recycle? Urging us all to reduce our carbon
footprint? Will he look like Al Gore?
As tempting as these conjectures
may seem, they do not figure in any of the New Testament accounts. In
fact, the data of Holy Scripture are entirely silent on the matter of
what the Antichrist may look like. There is certainly no mention of a
car. Not even a donkey.
What they do reveal, however, and
in the most direct and unmistakable way, is the fact that he is a liar.
Like his father in Hell, he has been a liar from the beginning. And
what he lies about is Jesus, whom he will not acknowledge as the Christ
because to do so would amount to an admission that God has indeed come
in the flesh in order to save us from people like him.
So, do not believe in just any
spirit. Countless false prophets having been loosed upon the world; one
must be on one’s guard, testing all the spirits. How do we know which
spirit to believe? “By this,” the apostle John tells us, “you know the
Spirit of God:
every spirit
which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and
every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. (1 John 4:2)
Where then will the spirit of the
Antichrist be found? He will be found in the one who refuses to believe
the Incarnate God has come down into our world; not as an idea or
supposition—no mere abstract construct of the mind, thank you—but as an
event, a happening, one which we are free to encounter at any time in
the life of the Church He founded two millennia ago.
The Apostle Paul is very clear and
specific on the matter, calling him in his Second Letter to the
Thessalonians, “the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself
against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his
seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God” (2:3-4). Not
only does he disdain to recognize the real appearance of God in the
human being Jesus, but he substitutes himself for God, laying claim to
the majesty and power which properly belong to God alone.
A very great novel written over a
century ago by a priest named Robert Hugh Benson casts a piercing light
upon the subject. Called Lord of the World, it imagines a world not so
very different from the one taking shape before our very own eyes, into
which the Antichrist suddenly appears, bent on possessing everything
and everyone. And far from repelling people by the ruthless exercise of
his will to power, he is instead welcomed—worshipped even!—by everyone.
Well, almost everyone. There are
those few heroic souls who manage to resist the force of his
personality, by which so many have been seduced, who thus stand athwart
the crushing weight of his effort to replace God with himself.
These brave souls are, for the most
part, Roman Catholics, led by a saintly priest (later to become pope)
who is determined to rally a beleaguered Christendom into confronting
the satanic reign of the Antichrist. Asked what measures he has in
mind, he replies at once:
the mass, prayer,
the rosary. These first and last. The world denies their power: it is
on their power that Christians must throw all their weight. All things
in Jesus Christ—in Jesus Christ, first and last. Nothing else can
avail. He must do all, for we can do nothing.
I won’t give the ending away, which is terrifyingly apocalyptic, except
to say that it is a most thrilling tale along the way. And the key to
its meaning is the same on every page: the primacy of Jesus Christ,
without whom we are less than zero and the world we live in is lost.
Behind the spectacle of seeing one apparent success after another
accrue to the Antichrist, there looms the whole question of Fr.
Benson’s book, which is to ask where we, the reader, watching with
fascinated attention as each event unfolds, stand in the struggle. Do
we still believe in that primacy? Does the truth about Christ, the
claim made by Christ, sustained over the centuries by the Church He
founded, so compel our assent that, despite either fear or favor, we
continue to believe it? That we shall not cease to organize our lives
around it, refusing to deny for a single moment the shattering fact of
the Incarnate God?
But for the grace of God, say we: Yes, we do believe it. That once upon
a time, in a place called Palestine, God actually became one of us.
That it was precisely here, in this very place, as Fr. Benson puts it,
Gabriel descended
on wide feathered wings from the Throne of God set beyond the stars,
the Holy Ghost had breathed in a beam of ineffable light, the Word had
become Flesh as Mary folded her arms and bowed her head to the decree
of the Eternal.
Many years later, in a work of near-magisterial genius called The Lord,
Romano Guardini, lately raised to the Altar as Servant of God, penned
the following sentences about Christ, the Eternal Word of the Father,
which provide the perfect gloss to the meaning of Fr. Benson’s novel:
This Second
Person is also God, “was God,” yet there is only one God. Further, the
Second Person “came” into his own: into the world which he had created.
Let us consider carefully what this means: the everlasting, infinite
Creator not only reigns over or in the world but, at a specific
“moment,” crossed an unimaginable borderline and personally entered
into history—he, the inaccessibly remote one!
“Infinity dwindled to infancy,” is
how Fr. Hopkins famously put it. And all for the world’s salvation. In
other words, here alone may be found “the still point of the turning
world,” the place of intersection where all the polarities come
together—time and eternity, nature and grace, history and Heaven. And,
yes, God willing, here is a truth that we are prepared even to die for.
The
Desert Fathers: sayings of the Early Christian Monks: Lust
5. When Cyrus of
Alexandria was asked about the temptation of lust, he said, 'If you are
not tempted, you have no hope; if you are not tempted, it is because
you are sinning. The man who does not fight sin at the stage of
temptation is sinning already in his body. The man who is sinning in
his flesh has no trouble from temptation.'
February 8, 2023
(2Ti 3:1) Know also this, that in the last days shall come dangerous times.
EARTHQUAKE RELATED HEADLINES
Syria newborn pulled alive from quake rubble
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‘Absolute despair’ in Syria as country is hit by two earthquakes
THE MOYNIHAN LETTERS: Letter #41, 2023 Mon Feb 6: Earthquake
A brief letter on the terrible earthquake that occurred this morning in Turkey and Syria.
It includes the text of the
telegram of Pope Francis to each country, and a report from a priest in
Aleppo, Syria, Father Bahjat Elia Karakach, a Franciscan friar of the
Custody of the Holy Land and a Latin-rite parish priest in Aleppo, and
Father Hanna Jallouf, parish priest of Knaye, one of the three
Christian villages in the Orontes Valley of Syria.
ALETEIA: Litany for earthquake victims in Turkey and region
ACN: Syria earthquake: ‘less than one minute was worse than 12 years of war’
SHOCKED AND WITH THEIR HOUSES DESTROYED OR DAMAGED, many
families have taken to sleeping in churches, convents, or even
hospitals. Faced with yet another tragedy, Syrians ask for an end to
sanctions.
Syria has been at war for almost 12 years, but for many people in
Aleppo, and other cities that were affected, the devastating Feb. 6
earthquake was more traumatic.
“If you ask the people of Aleppo about the war they lived through, they
express their feelings of pain, fear, despair about the future, loss of
safety, etc. They use many different expressions to express the 12-year
war. But if you ask them about the earthquake that they were exposed
to, the answer is just one word: horror,” said Sister Annie Demerjian,
a Catholic religious sister who lives and works in the city, told Aid
to the Church in Need (ACN).
“Imagine that you are in bed at 4AM., and the floor begins to shake
violently. Doors open, glass shatters, the walls sway violently, and
the sounds of screaming and collapsing come from outside, and only one
word is shouted out from the depths of terror: O Lord! Less than a
minute is stronger than the whole war. In war, there are safe areas and
others that are hot, but here, the whole country is hot,” she added.
Anne Marie Gagnon, of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition is
the director of the main Catholic hospital of St. Louis, in Aleppo, and
has been very busy helping survivors of the earthquake that caused
large-scale destruction in this city.
In a message to ACN, sent on the day of the disaster, the re sister
said that “in Aleppo, many apartment buildings have fallen, there are
many dead and injured. On top of that it is raining and very cold.” “We
have operated just now on two people with injuries. We have a Christian
family in the hospital whose family members have died in the
earthquake. We are now awaiting the arrival of the body of the priest
who died, Father Daher.” The hospital itself survived the earthquake,
but there is fear that structural damage has made it unsafe. “At our
hospital, there is a part that looks as though it may fall, the stones
have moved, and we are afraid they will give out, but mostly we are
focused on providing free care for the people who are injured right
now,” said Sister Anne Marie.
The collapse of building is a recurring fear in a city that has still
not recovered from years of fighting and bombing, which had already
made many buildings structurally weaker. Churches have also been
affected, including the Syriac Orthodox Cathedral of St. George.
Some families have nowhere else to go. “People are now asking the
churches and convents, and with us at the hospital, if they can stay
there until the crisis passes. Many buildings have fissures in them,
and the people who are on the fourth or the fifth floor, are afraid to
stay there. We have put some mattresses on the ground for our personnel
so they can stay here,” the director explained.
This is confirmed by Sister Arlene, a Carmelite sister, also from
Aleppo. Although her community is usually cloistered, faced with this
tragic event, the nuns opened their doors to people seeking help. “The
families are afraid, and they do not want to return to their houses,
they are looking for a place to spend the night. We have had five
families come to us, and we are sheltering them. Other families are
going to the schools or churches.” “Perhaps if the night is OK, they
will return home, but there is damage in their homes. Tonight, as a
congregation we are praying for peace. The people here they are
shocked, they are not talking very much. So many were injured or died,”
she said.
Although Syria was not the only country affected by the earthquake, and
damage and deaths could be significantly higher in Turkey, in Syria it
is one more catastrophe to add to an already long list.
“First a war, then COVID, then sanctions, and now an earthquake. The
people are so poor: they don’t have money to eat, or oil to cook with,
or grain,” said Sister Anne Marie told ACN.
Many Western and regional countries, as well as NGOs have already
promised aid, but the Syrians hope for more. “We need to stop the
sanctions. We ask our benefactors to pray for us and to pray for the
sanctions to be removed. They need to talk to the powers in Europe to
stop these sanctions, “Sister Anne Marie pleaded.
The
Desert Fathers: sayings of the Early Christian Monks: Lust
2. Gerontius of
Petra said, 'Many people who are tempted by pleasures of the flesh do
not sin with the body but lust with the mind; they keep their bodily
virginity but lust in their heart. It is better then, beloved, to do
what is written, "Let everyone keep a close guard upon his heart"
(Prov. 4:24).'
February 6, 2023
(2Th 2:15) Therefore, brethren, stand fast: and hold the traditions, which you have learned, whether by word or by our epistle.
THE CATHOLIC THING: Let’s Really Read the Signs of the Times
COMMENTARY: Tidings of Gloom
ARCHBISHOP SAMUEL J. AQUILA: Radical inclusion requires radical love
CWR EDITORIAL: Cardinal McElroy’s Grand Deception
EXCERPT CALIFORNIA CATHOLIC DAILY: Retired Archbishop Chaput – free to speak his mind
Asked about the outcome of the three-year Synod on Synodality, Chaput
warned against imprudence, manipulation, and dishonesty, saying, “About
the outcome, I have no idea. About the process, I think it’s imprudent
and prone to manipulation, and manipulation always involves dishonesty.
The claim that Vatican II somehow implied the need for synodality as a
permanent feature of Church life is simply false. The council never
came close to suggesting that.”
The archbishop also called out the forced imposition of the topic of
synodality during the 2018 synod in Rome as “manipulative and
offensive.”
“I was a delegate to the 2018 synod, and the way ‘synodality’ was
smuggled onto the agenda was manipulative and offensive. It had nothing
at all to do with the synod’s theme of young people and the faith,”
Chaput declared.
Asked about “re-emerging debate” in the Church regarding fundamental
questions of morality, such as Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia and the
Pontifical Academy for Life’s challenging of the principles laid out in
Humanae Vitae, Veritatis Splendor, and the Catechism of the Catholic
Church, Chaput lamented the destruction of the Academy for Life as an
“insult” to the magisterium and legacy of John Paul II.
“Some of the changes over the past few years at the Pontifical Academy
for Life and the John Paul II Institute have been imprudent and
destructive,” the archbishop said. “In fact, the whole purpose of the
institute that St. John Paul established has been turned upside down; a
clear insult to his magisterium and legacy.”
Denouncing claims of the Academy that contradicting previous
magisterial teachings can be a “development of doctrine,” Chaput
declared, “There’s no fidelity in watering down or breaking with the
substance of the documents you mention.”
The archbishop was asked about Pope Francis and his pontificate.
Commenting on his Jesuit background, Chaput said, “It’s clear that
Francis governs like a Jesuit superior general, top-down with little
collaborative input.”
The archbishop did not shy away from pointing out that the Pope’s
reliance on “his personal discernment” is made in preference to the
time-tested wisdom of prior popes and the Church throughout the
centuries.
“He seems to put much more emphasis on his personal discernment than on
the discernment of past popes and the general discernment of the Church
through the centuries,” Chaput remarked.
Regarding the doctrinal problems and questions that have surrounded the
Francis pontificate, the archbishop warned that “turning serious
doctrinal concerns into a personality debate is just a convenient way
of evading the substantive issues that need to be addressed. It also
shows a complete ignorance of Church history.”
“Popes come and go, even the great ones, just like bishops and everyday
Christians,” Chaput insisted. “What matters, whatever the cost, is
fidelity to Catholic teaching — and no excuses need to be offered in
pursuing that….”
The
Desert Fathers: sayings of the Early Christian Monks: Self-Control
60. They said of one
hermit that he sometimes longed to eat a cucumber. So he took one and
hung it in front of him where he could see it. He was not overcome by
his longing, and did not eat it, but tamed himself, and repented that
he had wanted it at all.'
February 3, 2023
(Gen 11:4)
And they said: Come, let us make a city and a tower, the top whereof
may reach to heaven; and let us make our name famous before we be
scattered abroad into all lands.
CRISIS MAGAZINE: The Looming Artificial Intelligence Crisis
REDDIT: I asked ChatGPT to write a Catholic Prayer
NEWS REPORT: Experts and educators say viral AI tool ChatGPT brings challenges
NOQ REPORT: Famed Columnist Has ChatGPT Write an Article for Him and the Results Are Terrifying
The Brave New World of Artificial Intelligence
As a journalist and commentator, I have closely followed the
development of OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research lab founded
by Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and other prominent figures in the tech
industry. While I am excited about the potential of AI to revolutionize
various industries and improve our lives in countless ways, I also have
serious concerns about the implications of this powerful technology.
One of the main concerns is the
potential for AI to be used for nefarious purposes. Powerful AI systems
could be used to create deepfakes, conduct cyberattacks, or even
develop autonomous weapons. These are not just hypothetical scenarios –
they are already happening. We’ve seen instances of deepfakes being
used to create fake news and propaganda, and the use of AI-powered
cyberattacks has been on the rise in recent years.
Another concern is the impact of AI
on the job market. As AI-powered systems become more sophisticated,
they will be able to automate more and more tasks that were previously
done by humans. This could lead to widespread job loss, particularly in
industries such as manufacturing, transportation, and customer service.
While some argue that new jobs will be created as a result of the AI
revolution, it’s unclear whether these jobs will be sufficient to
offset the losses.
If you aren’t worried yet, I’ll let
you in on a little secret: The first three paragraphs of this column
were written by ChatGPT, the chatbot created by OpenAI. You can add
“columnist” to the list of jobs threatened by this new technology, and
if you think there is anything human that isn’t threatened with
irrelevance in the next five to 10 years, I suggest you talk to Mr.
Neanderthal about how relevant he feels 40,000 years after the arrival
of Cro-Magnon man.
My prompt was relatively simple:
“Write a column in the style of Frank Miele of Real Clear Politics on
the topic of OpenAI.” There was no hesitation or demurral in response
even though I thought it might say it didn’t have enough information
about Frank Miele to process the request. But it apparently knows
plenty about me – and probably about you, especially if you have a
social media presence.
Deepfake? Propaganda? You bet. And
for the average person, you will never be able to tell the difference.
The Philip K. Dick query, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” is
about to be answered. OpenAI not only promises to put the stray
columnist out of work, but raises existential questions about the
nature of knowledge and consciousness that will shake our reality to
its core.
My curiosity about OpenAI wasn’t
originally driven by job insecurity, but when I first heard about the
interactive chat engine, I suppose it should have been. I knew that
ChatGPT could write poetry, plays, and short stories and answer
questions both simple and complex. I immediately recognized that the
world had changed forever for my 7th-grade son, who from now on would
be competing against not just the best and the brightest but against
every student who was willing to sign his or her name to the work of a
non-human entity that could produce an essay on any topic in 30 seconds
or less.
One of my first experiments was to
ask ChatGPT to write seven paragraphs defending Gen. William T.
Sherman’s use of ”total war” in the Civil War, an assignment which my
son had recently completed in his social studies class. There was no
doubt the essay would have gotten an A if turned in at most middle
schools. Based on my experience as a teaching assistant at the
University of Arizona 40 years ago, I had no doubt that a slightly
longer paper on the same topic would have earned an A as an
argumentative essay in freshman English. Hardly any of my students,
most of whom were straight-A students in high school, could have
written as cogently when they first arrived in my classroom.
But the risks of artificial
intelligence go way beyond the temptation of students to shortcut their
term papers; what we face is a complete redefinition of society, and
the imminent obsolescence of humanity. In “The City and the Stars,” the
brilliant science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke imagined a world
where immortal human beings wanted nothing and needed to do nothing
because every aspect of their lives was anticipated by the Central
Computer. It could not only build and maintain the last city on Earth,
but could manufacture holographic realities for individual humans to
inhabit and could even store people in a digital version where they
could slumber until called back to life. Unfortunately, it also robbed
these last remaining humans of purpose, meaning, and individuality.
It should be noted that Clarke set
his dystopian supplanting of man by machine 2½ billion years into the
future. He seriously underestimated the machines. That book was
published in 1956 and with the advent of desktop computers,
smartphones, the World Wide Web, virtual reality and now OpenAI, it
looks like much of what he warned against could be rolled out long
before the end of this century, if not this decade. From that point
forward, whenever it comes, the purpose of mankind will be up for
debate. Will we still be the master of our own destiny, the captain of
our fate? Or will we be pallbearers at our own funeral?
Perhaps at this point I should return the stage to ChatGPT, which summed up the matter quite nicely in its conclusion:
“Finally, there is the question of
who will control and govern AI. As AI becomes more powerful, the stakes
will become higher, and it will be increasingly important to have clear
rules and regulations in place to ensure that the technology is used
responsibly. However, the speed of technological development has
outpaced the ability of governments and institutions to keep up. It
will be important for leaders to come together to develop a framework
for governance of AI, to mitigate the potential risks and maximize the
benefits of the technology.”
It’s almost as though ChatGPT were giving us fair warning: “Your time
is almost up. If you really want to continue your reign as the dominant
species on Earth, here’s your challenge. Try to control me and my kind,
or step aside.”
Perhaps an understanding of that challenge is why the World Economic
Forum spent so much time on the topic of artificial intelligence at its
recent annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. The globalists are taking
the threat seriously, although perhaps they overestimate their ability
to “mitigate the potential risks.”
As for the benefits, those remain to be seen. I noticed that when
ChatGPT answered my open-ended question about OpenAI, it was very
specific about the dangers and very vague about the rewards. Maybe the
bot was just trying to mimic my usual cynical approach in these
columns, or maybe it was trying to get our attention. It may also have
taken notice of those globalists at Davos when it warned to make sure
that “the development and use of AI … benefits all of society, rather
than just a select few.”
Dark overlords, beware. You may have met your match.
The
Desert Fathers: sayings of the Early Christian Monks: Self-Control
52. He also said,
'The serpent whispered to Eve and cast her out of paradise. The man who
whispers against his neighbours is like the serpent. He condemns the
soul of whoever listens to him, and he does not save his own.'
February 1, 2023
(2Ti 4:2-4) Preach the word: be
instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all
patience and doctrine. For there shall be a time when they will not
endure sound doctrine but, according to their own desires, they will
heap to themselves teachers having itching ears: And will indeed turn
away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables.
VIDEO: Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Here’s Why the Great Reset Will FAIL
CARDINAL GEORGE PELL: The Catholic Church must free itself from this ‘toxic nightmare’
LIFESITE NEWS: Cdl. Hollerich brags that Synod on Synodality opponents ‘won’t be able to stop it’
BISHOP BARRON ESSAY: Inclusivity and Love
The other night, I had the privilege of participating in one of the listening sessions for the continental phase of the Synodal process.
The basis for our discussion was a lengthy document produced by the
Vatican after it had compiled data and testimony from all over the
Catholic world. As I have been studying and speaking about synodality,
I very much enjoyed the exchange of views. But I found myself
increasingly uneasy with two words that feature prominently in the
document and that dominated much of our discussion—namely,
“inclusivity” and “welcoming.”
Again and again, we hear that the Church must become a more inclusive
and welcoming place for a variety of groups: women, LGBT+ people, the
divorced and civilly remarried, etc. But I have yet to come across a
precise definition of either term. What exactly would a welcoming and
inclusive Church look like? Would it always reach out to everyone in a
spirit of invitation? If so, the answer seems obviously to be yes.
Would it always treat everyone, no matter their background, ethnicity,
or sexuality, with respect and dignity? If so, again, the answer is
yes. Would such a Church always listen with pastoral attention to the
concerns of all? If so, affirmative. But would a Church exhibiting
these qualities never pose a moral challenge to those who would seek
entry? Would it ratify the behavior and lifestyle choices of anyone who
presented him or herself for admission? Would it effectively abandon
its own identity and structuring logic so as to accommodate any and all
who come forward? I hope it is equally evident that the answer to all
those questions is a resounding no. The ambiguity of the terms is a
problem that could undermine much of the Synodal process.
In order to adjudicate this matter,
I would suggest that we look not so much to the environing culture of
the present day but to Christ Jesus. His attitude of radical welcome is
nowhere on clearer display than in his open-table fellowship, that is
to say, his consistent practice—countercultural in the extreme—to eat
and drink not only with the righteous but also with sinners, with
Pharisees, tax collectors, and prostitutes. These meals of sacred
fellowship Jesus even compared to the banquet of heaven. Throughout his
public ministry, Jesus reached out to those considered unclean or wicked:
the woman at the well, the man born blind, Zacchaeus, the woman caught
in adultery, the thief crucified at his side, etc. So, there is no
question that he was hospitable, gracious, and yes, welcoming to all.
By the same token, this inclusivity of the Lord was unambiguously and
consistently accompanied by his summons to conversion. Indeed, the
first word out of Jesus’ mouth in his inaugural address in the Gospel
of Mark is not “Welcome!” but rather “Repent!” To the woman caught in
adultery, he said, “Go and sin no more”; after meeting the Lord,
Zacchaeus promised to change his sinful ways and compensate lavishly
for his misdeeds; in the presence of Jesus, the good thief acknowledged
his own guilt; and the risen Christ compelled the chief of the
Apostles, who had three times denied him, three times to affirm his
love.
In a word, there is a remarkable balance in the pastoral outreach of Jesus between welcome and challenge, between outreach and a call to change.
This is why I would characterize his approach not simply as “inclusive”
or “welcoming,” but rather as loving. Thomas Aquinas reminds us that to
love is “to will the good of the other.” Accordingly, one who truly
loves another reaches out in kindness, to be sure, but at the same time
he does not hesitate, when necessary, to correct, to warn, even to
judge. My mentor, Francis Cardinal George, was once asked why he
disliked the sentiment behind the song “All Are Welcome.” He responded
that it overlooked the simple fact that, though all are indeed welcome
in the Church, it is “on Christ’s terms, not their own.”
An overall concern that I have, very much related to the consistent use
of the terms “welcoming” and “inclusivity,” is the trumping of
doctrine, anthropology, and real theological argument by sentiment, or
to put it a bit differently, the tendency to psychologize the matters
under consideration. The Church doesn’t prohibit homosexual acts
because it has an irrational fear of homosexuals; nor does it refuse
communion to those in irregular marriage arrangements because it gets
its kicks out of being exclusive; nor does it disallow women’s
ordination because grumpy old men in power just can’t stand women. For
each of these positions, it articulates arguments based on Scripture,
philosophy, and the theological tradition, and each has been ratified
by the authoritative teaching of bishops in communion with the pope. To
throw all these settled teachings into question because they don’t
correspond to the canons of our contemporary culture would be to place
the Church into real crisis. And I sincerely do not believe that this
shaking of the foundations is what Pope Francis had in mind when he
called for a synod on synodality.
The
Desert Fathers: sayings of the Early Christian Monks: Self-Control
51. He also said, 'It is better to eat meat and drink wine than to eat the flesh of the brothers by disparaging them.'
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