How often in Scripture we find violence mingled with love, like water mingled with wine: in the Song of Songs, the watchmen beating the lover as she searches the city for her beloved; in Genesis, Abram’s knife poised over Isaac’s breast. Yet it is friendship that features most prominently in this strange dynamic of love and violence. It is most explicitly and insistently linked to death and sacrifice.

Two great instances of the love of friends meeting the sting of death are found in the story of David and Jonathan and in the immortal words of Jesus, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

St. Aelred calls on these passages to explain the concept of spiritual friendship. In analyzing the love between Jonathan and David, Aelred emphasizes how much Jonathan gives up for his friend. The king’s son willingly cedes his claim to the throne, which costs him his father’s favor and, therefore, his physical safety. Jonathan goes from beloved prince to insulted and threatened enemy, yet never wavers in his devotion to David—which is the soft, subtle shadow cast by his hard-edged and unyielding love of God. His father wants him to be king, but God has other plans: Jonathan’s vocation is not kingship or
even leadership but friendship.

Jesus, of course, makes an even greater sacrifice—the greatest—in order to save us and restore us to friendship with God. Aelred isn’t shy about the implications of Jesus’ words. He argues that a true friend loves, humbly and honestly, even to the point of crucifixion. He can exalt friendship to extraordinary heights because he believes it makes us capable of extraordinary sacrifice.

Is this Biblical perspective realistic or helpful today? What did Aelred, a cloistered monk who was menaced more by arthritis than by threats of martyrdom, gain from applying these suspense stories of loyalty, escape, pursuit, and violence to his own life? Is the idea of loving a friend as Jonathan loved David simply melodramatic?

While those in the military may have endured visceral experiences at the intersection of friendship and death, for civilians like me, the idea of seriously sacrificing for a friend means something less gory but no less potent.

For Aelred, honesty is one of the central elements of true spiritual friendship. A friend should practice humility by refusing to color the truth or hide his weaknesses. He should expose his failings, accept correction, and trust his friend to meet his shame with tenderness.

Catholics may get a sense of how frightening this is by realizing that spiritual friendship may demand much of the raw vulnerability of the confessional without the screen, the seal of confidentiality, or the psychological distance created by the knowledge that the priest is acting in persona Christi. This kind of intimacy requires immense trust: not only trust that one’s confidences will be respected, but trust that the friend will stand by you despite your sins and failures. I have a strong sense of privacy and a firm over-investment in my self-image. Being honest with my closest friends about my weaknesses has been immensely difficult for me. It has meant the shattering of the image I had built up to protect myself.

Other forms of sacrifice are also available to us. Most of us know what it’s like to be “on call” for our best friends, to respond to
their needs in a crisis, to put aside as much as possible our own tiredness, worries, or desire for solitude.

Fewer of us know what it’s like to care for a friend’s physical needs, but given the realities of an aging society and relatively unstable family structures, we may find ourselves caring for aging or ailing friends much as one would care for a parent or spouse. Ask yourself whether you would be willing to take on that level of obligation and also whether you’d be able to accept it if it were offered to you in your own time of need.

Receiving help, especially physical help of the kind often needed in illness or old age, brings its own humiliations. Every vocation, every form of love, comes with certain characteristic forms of joy and loneliness, which combine to yield holiness. It may help to ponder the humiliations of caring for vomiting, querulous, or bedridden friends, and the humiliation of being cared for by a friend when we’re in that state ourselves, as part of the cross borne by those whose love is poured out in friendship.

We may be afraid to commit to this kind of friendship. Such commitment may seem to threaten the many obligations we already have as parents, spouses, children of aging parents; obligations to work and to various forms of ministry may also seem to crowd out friendship. We may begin to view friendship as at best an accessory for life, helpful and pretty but not essential, and at worst as a threat to other relationships.

This kind of zero-sum thinking distorts the reality that love takes on myriad forms. Our time is limited, but pouring out love strengthens and renews us rather than depleting us. The only child isn’t five times as loved as the kid with four siblings; the couple with no children does not therefore love each other more than the couple with many. And yet we often view love as a competition or budget. We view love as a liquid that can drain away, rather than a gas which expands to fill however much space we give it.

Far from competing with a spouse, a deep friendship can strengthen your marriage. This is why your friends gathered at your wedding in the first place: to witness and to offer their support for the times when you feel as though you’re carrying the marriage alone. If you make sacrifices for your friend’s needs, she will return those sacrifices if she can. And if she can’t—well, that’s why we call it love and not justice.

Our society is bereft of models of amicable sacrifice.  So let us look to Holy Scripture! Jonathan’s actions and Jesus’ words give us a window into sacrificial friendships. How would our own lives change if we thought own friendships had the potential to be as deep and relentless as theirs?

Jonathan and Jesus have another, crucially important commonality: They saw their vocations to friendship as part and parcel of God’s will. Their love for their friends was embedded within and inextricable from their love of God. When seeking to discern their vocations, they asked the Father, and listened to Him rather than to their society, the impulses of their own hearts, or even their own most basic needs. (“My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will.”)

Saul lost his son, and Jonathan his father, because although Jonathan was willing to let God shape and direct his love and his vocation, Saul was not. Jonathan’s story shows how surrender to God can strengthen those relationships which are God-centered, like Jonathan and David’s.

Aelred, too, writes for monks, for friends whose hands may be linked but whose eyes are turned toward Christ. He offers advice on dealing with a sinful friend, but the question of a friend who simply does not share one’s own faith never crosses his mind.

This remains one of my own most urgent questions about spiritual friendship. My closest friend is not a Christian. This rift has caused tension, for I have given in to spiritual pride and tried to evangelize her, speaking to her from a position of presumption and assumed superior knowledge rather than from vulnerability and humility. I was trying to put God first, but I ended up putting myself first, largely out of well-meaning vanity. I was the Saul: willing to hurt someone I loved because I was convinced that I was right.

But even if I have managed to put that particular form of sin behind me, there will be other challenges specific to love between someone with faith in Christ and someone without. My next article will look at depictions of this kind of friendship, as friends whose faith is shaky at best find themselves caring for and then mourning friends who died with faith. It’s hard to pray in a hospital; there are ways in which it might be even harder to watch someone you love pray there.

The Franciscan University of Steubenville announced it will not furnish students with health care coverage effective this fall, specifically citing the HHS mandate as the reason.

“The Obama Administration has mandated that all health insurance plans must cover ‘women’s health services’ including contraception, sterilization, and abortion-causing medications as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA),” a statement posted on its website states. “Up to this time, Franciscan University has specifically excluded these services and products from its student health insurance policy, and we will not participate in a plan that requires us to violate the consistent teachings of the Catholic Church on the sacredness of human life.

“Due to these changes in regulation by the federal government, beginning with the 2012-13 school year, the University 1) will no longer require that all full-time undergraduate students carry health insurance, 2) will no longer offer a student health insurance plan, and 3) will no longer bill those not covered under a parent/guardian plan or personal plan for student health insurance.”

The rising premiums that attend a greater government role in health care were another reason for the cancellation. “Additionally, the PPACA increased the mandated maximum coverage amount for student policies to $100,000 for the 2012-13 school year, which would effectively double your premium cost for the policy in fall 2012, with the expectation of further increases in the future,” the statement said.

The college located in eastern Ohio, which is ranked one of the best private college values by Kiplinger, noted its current student health insurance plan will expire on August 15.

On September 29 the university was one of 18 Catholic colleges to write a letter asking the Obama administration to rewrite the mandate, noting they were “being forced to choose between offering such coverage, paying a fine, or offering no coverage at all.”

An employee of the university, Tom Crowe, wrote his employer’s message was brisk and clear: “We. Will. Not. Comply. And our students are the first one who will feel the pinch.” He added that the university is not self-insuring and would not have been exempt from the mandate, adding such an exemption exists “on paper only.”

Catholics universities are not the only religious institutions poised to take drastic action as a result of the Obama administration’s abortifacient decree.

Chicago’s Francis Cardinal George has warned all Catholic hospitals will close in two years unless the religious exemption is expanded. Together, the nation’s Catholic hospitals account for 13 percent of the nation’s hospitals.

If these hospitals closed it would create a supply shortage, with the likely effect being government programs will be forced to pick up the slack.

South Carolina Congressman Trey Gowdy said at a House Oversight Hearing on February 16 that closing religious hospitals and schools, or forcing them to end health care coverage, “means government is gonna get bigger, because they’re going to have to fill the void…and maybe that’s what they wanted all along.”

“Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself, O God of Israel, the Savior” (Isaiah 45:15).

Man is haughty and prideful, and in his conceit he constructs deities to suit his temperament: deities regal and terrible, blazing with fierce glory and swollen with righteous strength. It is not therefore surprising that so many fail to find the Divine, for the True God as revealed in and by Jesus Christ is altogether different. Those looking for a king will not pause to examine the servant standing right before their eyes.

God is not regal but humble. He is not terrible but merciful. He is glorious, strong, and righteous, but His glory is manifested in simplicity; His strength in weakness; His righteousness in tender concern. God is most perfectly revealed in the Pierced One: every other Biblical theophany must be seen in light of the cross.

This is the scandal of our faith. “For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (I Corinthians 1:22-24).

The “Greeks” are those enlightened men who see the cosmos as a vast mechanism: cold, impersonal, disinterested. If they are religious (a big “if”), then their deity is a sort of First Mover, an abstract principle rather than a dynamic hypostasis. They cannot accept a personal God—if they accept any god at all—who identifies with humanity as Father, Brother, and Helper.

The “Jews,” meanwhile, are those pious souls who entertain man’s natural religious impulses and so view God primarily as powerful and just, a scrutinizing lawgiver and judge. They cannot embrace a God of weakness, a God who suffers and dies. Their deity is too proud for such humiliation. He is a master, not a servant.

To this day, most people are Greeks or Jews. They are blind to the gentle splendor of the Living God, for whom “strength is made perfect in weakness” (II Corinthians 12:9). This reality proves difficult even for Christians. How often we lament spiritual dryness while smugly walking about, self-satisfied and self-righteous, condemning the faults of others while ignoring our own engorged egos. Pride is blinding.

The Lord tells us, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). In this world, the kingdom of heaven is not a place; it is peaceful and loving communion with the Trinity. We possess the kingdom of heaven—that pearl of great price—as part of our inheritance as sons of God. Yet we are only sons of God if we allow the Spirit to transform our souls after the image of the Son of God. Saint John writes, “He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked” (I John 2:6).

How walked the Lord? We have His own words, “I am meek and humble of heart,” (Matthew 11:29). Saint Francis sang, “You are love; You are wisdom; You are humility.”

The God-Man’s divine humility is summed up by Saint Paul thusly:  “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:5-8).

Let this mind be in you. The Christian faith is concerned with one thing: the transfiguration of sons of men into sons of God. This demands self-emptying, self-sacrificial love: love working through and manifested in forgiveness, meekness, mildness.

This call to sanctification or “theosis” is daunting. Yet we need not fear, for the Paraclete dwells inside our hearts. “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (II Corinthians 3:18).

Isaac of Syria, the seventh century ascetic and bishop of Nineveh, wrote: “No one has understanding if he is not humble, and he who lacks humility lacks understanding.” If a man desires to know God—not as abstraction but as reality, not as idea but as Person—he must enter through the door of self-emptying love. This door was opened by Jesus atop the hill called Calvary—and Jesus stands open-armed on the other side.

Walk through that divine door, fellow Christian, and meet your gentle Savior!

In fact, this book is so “deep” and filled with Mystery that the Church only reads it during the Paschal season (there are no catechumens left, all having been baptized on Holy Saturday), as it should not be shared with the uninitiated.

It shows an absolute disregard for the sanctity of the scriptures (and a lack of understanding or historical grounding) that people would today use this particular Gospel as an “evangelization tool.” But, I digress.

One of the central themes (and it would be easy to identify dozens of “central” themes) of this Gospel is that Jesus Christ has recreated the Temple in Himself (and therefore in the Church, as the Body of Christ). There are many scholarly places where this subject has been poured over in great detail (listed at the end of this post for further reading, should you so desire). As usual, my hope is to “boil it down” for everyone to see and understand as easily as possible.

In John’s Gospel, we not only see the Temple recreated through the ministry and miracles of Christ, but also a fulfillment of the three great feasts of the Temple’s liturgical, annual cycle: Pentecost, Passover and Tabernacles (in addition, the feast of Dedication, which began in the time of the Maccabean revolt). It is during these great feasts that Christ performs the seven “signs,” and each of these signs in turn teach us about both Baptism and the Eucharist, as well.

The Temple was the center of Judean worship and life in the time of Christ. Men from all over would make pilgrimages to Jerusalem in order to participate in the three great feasts, and these were all occasions where the men had to be baptized (a washing for ritual purity), offer sacrifice, and then feast on the meat, bread and wine of the Temple sacrifice (and all for the forgiveness of sins). To miss the connection here with Christian worship would be a grave injustice to holy scripture. Christian worship has not “done away with” the Temple worship, it has fulfilled it (or “Christened it”) in Christ. Worship comes from God alone, and is eternally binding (as the scriptures teach about these festivals and celebrations). These ceremonies were taken up by the apostles and their successors and then “baptized” into the Christian and new covenant context (not abrogated or eliminated).

These festivals are all mentioned in the Gospel at successive times, and it is during them that Christ performs his seven “signs,” with each one being a fulfillment of the teaching and liturgical/scriptural readings of the feasts themselves. The order goes as follows:

• Passover (St John 2:13-3:21)
  • Passover was a national celebration, and was intimately dependent upon the Temple and its priests
  • Christ begins his ministry in John’s Gospel by “cleansing the Temple” and driving away the money changers, saying that a “sign” he will show the Judeans is rebuilding the Temple in three days — John gives us a hint, adding “He spoke about the Temple of his body”
  • All of Christ’s ministry is now linked with “Temple cleansing”
  • Passover as a festival was a reminder of both death and God’s mercy towards His people — Christ has now linked Passover with his own death and resurrection and the recreation of both Passover and the Temple in Himself
• Passover (St John 6:1-71)
  • Christ speaks of Himself as the true bread from heaven, a fulfillment of the Passover festival (which involved bread and wine), and also revealed the Eucharistic festival to his followers before the time for such a feast had come (whereby his followers were to eat his body and drink his blood if they wanted to have eternal life, a fulfillment of the mercy of God and life shown to His people in the Passover meal)
• Tabernacles (St John 7:1-10:21)
  • During Tabernacles, the priests would pour many gallons of water from the Pool of Siloam upon the altar steps while also keeping the Temple courts lit all day long
  • Jesus goes into the Temple and begins teaching during the festival, saying “If anyone is thirsty, come to me and drink. From within whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, will flow rivers of living water!” (St John 7:37-38), which is connected with the water poured out upon the steps from the Pool of Siloam
  • In connection with the lighting of the Temple courts, Jesus soon after teaches “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.” (St John 8:12)
• Dedication (St John 10:22-39)
  • This feast was a reminder of the re-consecration of the Temple by the Maccabees while under foreign rule (cf. 1 Maccabees, chapter 4)
  • During this festival, Jesus calls himself “consecrated” by the Father, as he is walking through Solomon’s porch in the Temple
• Passover (St John 11:55-20:31)
  • When the sacrifice was made on the altar, the blood from the sacrifice would flow through holes in the southwestern corner of the altar, down through a water channel and into the brook of Kidron; In other words, at the time of the sacrifice, blood and water would pour out of the Temple itself
  • In St John 19:34, we read: “One of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and immediately, blood and water came out.”

As an aside (and as someone interested in the canon of scripture), I must point out to our evangelical friends that Jesus participated in and performed miracles during the feast of Dedication, a festival that is recorded in the book of Maccabees — a series of writings that Protestants do not hold to be inspired scripture. This creates a problem for their canon, to say the least.

The clear connection between Jesus and the Temple is not limited to these festivals alone, but can be found throughout John’s Gospel as well as in other scriptures (e.g. St Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews). St John writes of the Logos that “became flesh and tabernacled among us” (St John 1:14), a clear indication of Christ’s mission, as well as “you shall see angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (St John 1:51) which reminds us of both Jacob’s sanctuary and the presence of God in the Holy of Holies.

One might say that all of Christ’s life as recorded in this Gospel does the work of mystagogy; that is, the “revelation of mysteries” (or the “explanation” of the reality of things). While showing Himself to now be the true Temple, Christ has fulfilled and given true meaning behind the Temple itself. This is why the eastern churches much prefer the word “mysteries” for things like Baptism and the Eucharist, I think, rather than “sacraments.” Sacrament usually speaks of the bread, water or wine, while “mystery” speaks to the heavenly reality of such things — in other words, what bread, water and wine truly are, in eternity.

For more reading on this subject, consult the following:

• Temple, Sign, and Sacrament: Towards a New Perspective on the Gospel of John (Scott W. Hahn) — This was very helpful in the writing of this very, very brief post on the subject
• God Dwells With Us: Temple Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel (Mary L. Coloe)
• Jesus as the Fulfillment of the Temple in the Gospel of John (Paul M. Hoskins)
• The Temple of Jesus’ Body: The Temple Theme in the Gospel of John (Alan Kerr)

“When a child reaches the age of 18, they [sic] become a full legal adult in most U.S. localities. That may not be the case in overseas environments, where the age for acquiring adult status under another country’s jurisdiction may differ significantly.

“In any event, those turning 18:

“Need to be encouraged to register to vote in U.S. local, state and federal elections.

“Can join the military, receive medical care, get married and receive a number of other adult privileges and responsibilities without parental consent (emphasis mine).

“Need to be reminded, if they are male, to register for the Selective Service.”

Our judicial system may need to set specific ages for certain laws, but the term “without parental consent” raises a threatening red flag. A government-defined age for adulthood suggests a hands-off policy for parents that can lead to increasingly more serious problems. Already, we’re seeing state laws that allow minors access to birth control and even abortion without their parents’ knowledge, much less their consent. What’s next?

Even more, I see parents incorporating the government’s concept of adulthood into their parenting styles — with devastating effects. I see parents with 18-and-older children throwing up their hands and surrendering their parenting authority and responsibility when their kids make decisions that are dangerous to their physical, emotional and/or spiritual well-being.

“He/she’s over 18! There’s nothing I can do about it,” they lament. They stand back while their children destroy their human and possibly eternal lives. It’s painful to watch.

Parenting does not stop when a child turns 18. Indeed, it continues for all eternity, as Blessed Pope John Paul II said in his “Letter to Families” on Feb. 2, 1994:

“Even when they grow up and set out on their own path, young people remain intimately linked to their existential roots (emphasis original).

“Against this background, we can see the meaning of the Fourth Commandment, ‘Honor your father and your mother’ (Exodus 20:12). … The commandment of the Decalogue calls for a child to honor its father and mother. But, as we saw above, that same commandment enjoins upon parents a kind of corresponding or ‘symmetrical’ duty. Parents are also called to ‘honor’ their children, whether they are young or old.”

Parents have both the right and obligation to continue to guide their children throughout their lives. That guidance comes in many ways, but they all begin with a solid relationship that includes open communication, mutual respect and rightful authority. If parents surrender their authority to the state, all will be lost.

The parent-child relationship is vital and irreplaceable, even into adulthood. Young adults are forging their own way and need the advice and counsel of their parents.

The faith foundation parents provide their children should help them along the way, but the varied important choices and decisions — in the midst of a culture that is so often opposed to Judeo-Christian values — need parental support. This is particularly true if those young people are straying from Catholic morality.

Parents should remain as involved in their children’s lives as possible, not in a controlling way, but in a sincerely interested, encouraging, loving and hope-filled way. It’s important to let them know when they’re making good choices and wrong choices alike. It’s important to guarantee them unconditional love. But loving them is not the same as approving all of their actions.

Don’t sit back. Speak up in charity. Reiterate Church teaching. Discuss important issues.

Above all, parents must diligently pray, fast and offer sacrifices for their children (regardless of their age), because this is the ultimate parental authority and responsibility. By interceding for their children before God, parents exercise an unparalleled good for their children.

The government can legislate an arbitrary age for adulthood, but it cannot legislate the role of parents — unless we allow it to.

I am frustrated because I realize I might not be articulating the distinction well enough.

Some argue that to defend the difference between therapy and enhancement, the Church has to define what is considered “normal” which is, of course, difficult to impossible.  To decide who qualifies for therapy, they contend that somehow the Church has to decide what is considered “healthy” and what is not.

But the Church doesn’t need to do anything of the sort.  Here is an analogy I think illustrates the Church teaching on many medical interventions, not just genetic engineering.  Take “birth control.”  A chemical concoction if taken by a healthy woman to thwart her natural fertility (making it no longer function properly) it is unethical.  If taken as medicine to treat a significant pathology (a side effect being temporary sterility) then it is morally acceptable.  It is all in the intent not the effect.

In no way does the Church need to define what is a normal level of fertility.  It simply draws the line between when a chemical is used to pervert a normal human function (fertility) and when the same one used to treat a medical condition.

I think that same applies to genetic engineering.  When a manipulation of the human genome is done to treat a genetic pathology, to improve life for or save the life of a patient and bring them back to a more normal human functioning, then it is morally acceptable.  When the genetic engineering is done to pervert a system that is already functioning to enhance beyond what is possible by that individual’s nature, then it is immoral.

Will there be some seemingly gray areas?  Likely.  When is a pathology a pathology or just a variation?  One person’s pathology maybe another’s variation. But that is why we have priests and bishops: to guide us in our individual situations.

I think when we focus on the minutia of every little nuance of every possibility we lose sight of the greater picture.  Keeping genetic engineering in the realm of therapy (which is exactly where it currently resides), we can prevent some truly horrifying and unnatural modifications of the human genome.  We will prevent the mixing of human and animal DNA and the tinkering with otherwise healthy offspring without their consent.  Two things that clearly fall in the “immoral” box.

Just remember that science and academia are already toying with enhancements. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded Maxwell Mehlman, director of the Law-Medicine Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, $773,000 to develop standards for tests on human subjects in genetic-enhancement research. Research that would take otherwise normal humans and make them smarter, stronger or better-looking. If the existing human-trial standards cannot meet the ethical conditions needed for genetic-enhancement research, Mehlman has been asked to recommend changes.

And a recent paper in the journal Ethics, Policy & Environment, S. Matthew Liao, a professor of philosophy and bioethics at New York University, explored ways humanity can change its nature to combat “climate change.” One of the suggestions Liao discusses is to genetically engineer human eyes to be like cat eyes so we can all see in the dark.

The intent of genetic manipulation needs to be therapeutic in nature.  That principle alone rejects all manner of crazy and immoral ideas of what we can (but should not do) to ourselves and our offspring while still allowing for the possibility of healing and amelioration of suffering.

Since his quest to win the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois in 2004, Barack Obama’s faith has provoked controversy. In that campaign, his Republican rival Alan Keyes—a black Catholic—accused Obama of stressing his faith only “when it’s convenient to get votes.” When faith must be followed, explained, and serve as a basis for policies, Keyes protested, Obama pled the “separation of church and state”—a concept that was neither constitutional nor scriptural. “Christ would not vote for Barack Obama,” Keyes asserted, because his behavior was so contrary to that of Christ’s.

These charges prompted Obama to reassess how his faith related to his approach to politics. He concluded that his typical responses to Keyes’ criticisms—that “we live in a pluralistic society” and “I can’t impose my own religious views” on others—had been inadequate.

By 2006, Obama had decisively changed his tactics. At the Sojourners/Call to Renewal conference,he chided Democrats for refusing to talk about religious values out of fear of offending people or belief that religion had no role to play in the public arena. Ignoring “the power of faith” in the lives of Americans was “a mistake.” Obama urged Democrats to discuss “how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy.”

Obama called the contention that people “should not inject their ‘personal morality’ into public policy debates” a “practical absurdity.” American law, he argued “is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.” “Secularists are wrong,” Obama asserted, “when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square.”

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama strove to win the votes of religiously-devout Americans by providing a biblical basis for his policies on poverty, healthcare, immigration, and other issues. He urged citizens to “heed the biblical call to care for ‘the least of these’”—America’s poor—by expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, increasing the minimum wage, and supplying universal health insurance.

During the campaign, Obama’s relationship with Jeremiah Wright (who pastored the United Church of Christ congregation Obama had attended in Chicago for twenty years), the widespread misperception that Obama was a Muslim, and his stances on abortion and homosexual rights called attention to his religious beliefs and created controversy.

As president, Obama has frequently testified to his Christian faith, most notably at four National Prayer Breakfasts, and linked many of his policies to biblical teachings. Contrary to the wishes of many of his supporters, he has also continued George W. Bush’s Faith-based Initiatives.

Obama’s rhetoric and actions have led to conflicting claims about his presidency. John Fea, a history professor at Messiah College, recently labeled Obama perhaps the “most explicitly Christian president in American history” because of his extensive citation of the Bible and copious references to Christian faith. Fea stressed that Obama regularly read the Bible and prayed, was being mentored by evangelical pastors (most notably Joel Hunter, Kirbyjon Caldwell, and T.D. Jakes), accentuated both faith and works, urged Americans to follow God’s command to love our neighbors as ourselves, and strove to build the kingdom of God on earth.

Glenn Beck’s criticism of Fea’s op-ed on his show brought the history professor hundreds of scathing emails and elicited numerous rebuttals. The response of well-known conservative activist and author David Barton was especially caustic. Barton denounced Obama as the “Most Biblically-Hostile U.S. President.” Barton supplied dozens of examples to support his contention that Obama has engaged in acts of hostility toward people of biblical faith, violated biblical values, and given preferential treatment to Islam.

Meanwhile, in an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, Mitchell Landsberg correctly observed that Obama has been both “praised—and pummeled—on matters of faith.” “Few presidents,” he added, “have spoken more often or more articulately about their religious beliefs” or been so censured by some religious groups because of their policies.

Obama has been reproached for not attending church regularly, praising Islam and the Qur’an, requiring religiously-affiliated institutions to provide coverage for contraception, and his policies on abortion, gay rights, stem cell research, and ministerial exemptions.

Because of continued confusion about his faith (45 percent of Republicans in Alabama and 51 percent in Mississippi identified him as a Muslim in recent polls), conservative charges that he is waging war against religious groups, and substantial concern that some of his policies contradict either biblical principles or long-standing American religious freedoms, Obama’s faith and religious issues are very likely to be a major issue in the 2012 presidential campaign.

ASTONISHING:

The Washington Free Beacon has broken the news that although a baby can be aborted up until the ninth month in Washington DC, the White House Visitors Office requires that an unborn child must be counted as a full human being when its parents register for a White House tour.

HEARTENING:

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have published the recently approved Rite for the Blessing of a Child in the Womb.

*     *     *     *     *

In the first case, the Free Beacon bust, I imagine the White House staff stewing:

“The unborn child is NOT a person!” / “Yes it IS!” / “No it’s NOT!”

White House Visitors Office director Ellie Schafer’s email to a Capitol Hill staffer on Tuesday has gone viral, causing much head-shaking among Main Street Americans, both liberal and conservative.  Schafer was explaining the process for registering an unborn fetus for a White House tour.

We have received a number of calls regarding how to enter security information for a baby that has not yet been born.

Crazy as it may sound, you MUST include the baby in the overall count of guests in the tour. It’s an easy process.

LAST NAME: The family’s last name

•FIRST NAME: “Baby” as a first name
•MIDDLE NAME: NMN as in No Middle Name
•DOB: Use the date you are submitting the request to us as their birthday
•GENDER: if the parents know put that gender down if not, you can enter either M or F as we’ll ask you to update it at the time of birth
•SOCIAL: As they will not have a SSN and are under 18, you will not need to enter this field.  Again if the spreadsheet asked for a social enter 9 zero’s (not the word nine zeros but 000000000 and yes it happens!)
•CITIZEN/CITY/STATE: The citizen, city and state should be entered the same as the parents

The National Right to Life Committee recognized the incongruity in this pro-abortion Administration and released a statement about Schafer’s email, highlighting the fact that the “Obama White House recognizes [a] ‘baby that has not been born’ for White House security purposes, but tolerates legal abortion to [the] moment of birth in District of Columbia.”

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In happier news, the USCCB has just released the “Rite for the Blessing of a Child in the Womb.”  The prayer was written in response to a request by then-Bishop Joseph Kurtz of Knoxville, Kentucky (now the archbishop of Louisville, Kentucky).  The USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities prepared the text and submitted it to the organization’s Divine Worship committee in March 2008.  The bishops approved it in their General Assembly in November 2008, and it was forwarded to Rome for final edits and approval.

According to the USCCB website,

the blessing was prepared to support parents awaiting the birth of their child, to encourage parish prayers for and recognition of the precious gift of the child in the womb, and to foster respect for human life within society. It can be offered within the context of the Mass as well as outside of Mass.

Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Divine Worship, in announcing the new rite on the feast of the Annunciation, said, “We hope the use of this blessing will provide not only support and God’s blessing for expectant parents and their child in the womb, but also another effective witness to the sanctity of human life from the first moment of conception.”

An Excerpt from the Prayer of Blessing

God, author of all life,
bless, we pray, this unborn child;
give constant protection

and grant a healthy birth
that is the sign of our rebirth one day
into the eternal rejoicing of heaven…

There is a faction of Catholics who, in their desire to promote Natural Family Planning as the antidote to contraception, have overstated its importance in Christian marriage. They are rightfully reacting against contraception, which is always intrinsically evil. (CCC 2370) But in their desire to steer people away from contraception, they sometimes become overzealous in their promotion of NFP: they insist that Catholics have a duty to learn it and use it.

The insistence that “good Catholics use NFP” has caused confusion for many, and has made many faithful Catholics feel as though they are somehow failing on their path towards sanctity by NOT practicing NFP, and by simply having children as they come without regard to temperatures and charts. There is often a disdain towards parents of many young children spaced closely together, and others suspect that they must not know about NFP, or even worse, that they “cannot control their impulses.” A friend of mine confided in me that once she became convicted to no longer use NFP and to throw away her charts, she went to confession for it because she thought she was being irresponsible. Thankfully, her priest reassured her that NFP is not required, and commended her trust in handing her fertility completely to God.

The simple truth is, as Catholic married couples, we do NOT have an obligation to use Natural Family Planning, whether it be to space births or to limit the number of children we have. If we were to have an obligation, then 19 centuries of Catholics did not fulfill this obligation, since the science of fertility was not well-understood until the advances of medicine in the 20th century. As Catholics living in the 21st century, we certainly are fortunate to have access to this information, since many families do have a legitimate need to avoid pregnancy at one time or another during their marriage. But the Church has not suddenly changed Her teachings to require something of us that has never been required before.

Oftentimes, the phrase “responsible parenthood” is touted as a mandate for NFP use. After all, don’t “responsible parents” plan their families by deciding exactly how many children they should have, and when they should have them? Here is what Humanae Vitae says about responsible parenthood:

“With regard to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised by those who prudently and generously decide to have more children, and by those who, for serious reasons and with due respect to moral precepts, decide not to have additional children for either a certain or an indefinite period of time.”

So “responsible parenthood” does not mean limiting our family size; quite the contrary! It means that barring serious reasons, we are actually practicing responsible parenthood by being generously open to having more children!

Make no mistake – with the overwhelming statistic that 80+% of Catholics use some form of contraception, we DO need to encourage NFP. Contraception is intrinsically evil, not to mention the abortifacient nature of the Pill and IUDs, and NFP is a way for couples to legitimately prevent pregnancy without frustrating the marital act and is in line with the teachings of the Church. We need to inform people about the ills of contraception, and if they have a reason to avoid pregnancy, encourage NFP instead.

But NFP is not a “Church-approved method of birth control.” So many times it is presented as such. Instead of offering NFP as the main alternative to contraception, let’s offer CHILDREN as the alternative. The opposite of being “against conception” is being FOR conception. The Church teaches that having children is the ideal, and NFP is merely a tool we can use in our marriage if necessary, rather than the other way around. NFP should be promoted as a tool for times of serious need, and not as a requirement or a divine directive.

As Catholics, we are not all called to be “providentialists” and to have as many children as we are physically capable of bearing. If we determine with our spouse through prayer and spiritual direction that we have a serious reason to avoid having children for a period of time, then we are certainly permitted to use NFP. However, many Catholic couples may come to the conclusion that for the majority of or all of their childbearing years, they do not have serious reasons to avoid having children. For those of us who fall into this category, we should REJOICE that God is calling us to bring many little souls into this world for his glory! Often, those of us who are in this position are nervous and unsure – can we truly handle the demands of a large family? How will many children impact us financially? And far too frequently, what will others think of us? We struggle with human respect, which is “the putting of the opinion of others in the place of our conscience.” (Frank Duff, Servant of God)

Let us not let others’ opinions disturb our peace of soul; let us care only about what God requests of us, and let us rely on His grace. Let us BE COUNTERCULTURAL. What is more countercultural than being Catholic, anyway? We believe that contraception is wrong. We believe that sex should be reserved only for marriage. We believe that a priest can speak words while holding a piece of bread, and that bread becomes a Man, Jesus Christ, and that Man is God. That’s about as countercultural as it gets! Let us not be afraid to bear children simply because we fear what the world may think of us. Let us not deprive God of the souls He wishes to place under our care. While battling with temporal issues, let us always keep the eternal in mind. As Blessed Zelie said, “I wish to have many children so I could raise them for Heaven.”

Let us beseech our priests to preach this; to talk about how having children is one of the ends of marriage, how children are blessings to a marriage, and how GOOD it is to have them! Let us truly promote the culture of life, not simply by standing against abortion, but by standing FOR LIFE. Let us realize that as women, our fertility is a GIFT, a gift that we only have for a relatively short time in our life, a gift that some do not have and dearly desire! Let us share with all whom we meet the positives of having children, and how much we cherish our vocation of motherhood. Let us openly encourage others in their journeys of parenthood (religious sisters and single women – I cannot express how much your support and love of babies and new life means to us! Thank you!). Let us work to shift the mindset of the entire culture – that children are not commodities, nor are they burdens. They are blessings. ALL of them.

God has given us the amazing privilege to participate with Him in the creation of new life. We women are the vessels He has chosen to bring this new life into the world. God knows what He’s doing, and He will send us the right number of children. No child will be created without His Divine Help; no child is “unwanted” or “unplanned” by God. The number does not matter, whether God sees fit to send us two children or twelve. What matters is that we are open to His plan for us.

From Pope Pius XII’s “Dear Newlyweds”:

“It will depend on you whether those innocent souls, whom the embrace of Infinite Love desires to call from nothing, shall come to the threshold of life, in order to make of them one day His chosen companions in the eternal happiness of Heaven. But alas! If they remain merely magnificent images in the mind of God when they could have been rays of sun that illuminate every man who comes into this world (John 1:9), they will remain forever nothing but lights extinguished by the cowardice and selfishness of man!”

Sunflower

How can you be standing after a storm
when others have been trampled, wounded and torn
But there you are so bold and bright
Still reaching for the sun

Sunflower
beautiful and bold
loyal and trusting
a treasure untold
So much power
is there in your heart
Facing the rain without falling apart

You’ve risen above the sadness and pain
when others have been beaten, or fallen again
But you keep your color all through the fight
still reaching for the sun
a beacon of courage for everyone

Jeryl Struble