Prayer, Penance, Fasting

Ash Wednesday

From Luke 13:5 - “Unless you do penance, you shall likewise perish.”

Prayer is the raising of the heart and mind to God with a view to appealing to His goodness in petition for the things we need. Penance worthily done transforms our rebellious wills, giving us loving, grateful hearts and so making it possible to pray well.

By penance a sinner hates the injustice of his own personal sin against Almighty God and desires to make reparation for his defiance and ingratitude. Such penance is always required for the forgiveness of sin. To help us fulfill the requirement of reparation, Holy Mother Church, knowing our frailty, obliges us to perform works of penance at certain times. The requirement to fast during the season of Lent is one example.

Lent is the penitential season lasting from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday that serves to remind us of Christ’s fast in the desert and to prepare us for Easter. Because it is a salutary time when our Lord abundantly dispenses grace, according to ancient custom Christians perform additional acts of penance and sacrifice in Lent so that they may win deliverance from their sins and be better disposed to receive the graces that Almighty God wants to bestow upon His children.

There is a commandment laid on us to fast, for fasting helps to curb the desires of the flesh, draws us closer to Almighty God, and makes satisfaction for sins, both our own and those of others–our families, friends, neighbors, and countrymen. For this last reason our Lord and Lady also fasted, for though they were guilty of no sin, yet moved by charity they won by their fasting and acts of penance graces for poor sinners.

Our Lady told the seers of Fatima that "many souls go to Hell because there are none to sacrifice themselves and to pray for them." Likewise, St. John Vianney said that the conversion of sinners "begins with prayer and ends with penance." Let these sentiments occupy our thoughts and fill our hearts this Lent, offering this prayer when we fast and make some sacrifice: “O Jesus, it is for love of Thee, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”

One Egg

This morning for breakfast I ordered the one egg platter. Here's what it looked like.

Just one egg

Look at the size of that single scrambled egg.

I figure either they have the world's largest hen out back, or they use ostrich eggs.

Analog and Digital

A few years ago I had a conversation about the topic of clocks with a colleague from work. He was a computer guy, and he was making unflattering remarks about how old analog clocks were not as accurate as digital clocks.

“It depends on what you’re using it for,” I said. “There’s no question that it’s easier to be more precise about the time using a digital clock. In truth, though, while the technology is a fascinating accomplishment, I don’t usually need nano-second accuracy."

We talked about that for a bit, then I added, "Time is a measure of change and motion. When I look at an analog clock, I see the moment I’m in, and I am also visually reminded of where I came from earlier in the day, as well as where I’m going. Having this context is useful; digital clocks lose that capacity. My own perspective is that when I need pinpoint precision about the time I go with digital, but otherwise for day-in, day-out living, analog is the better tool.”

My colleague, to his credit, agreed with my point.

Hungry Revolution

The slogan “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” was a PR maneuver, the dressed-up brainchild of the leftist maniacs of the French Revolution who were possessed by a fratricidal rage and who wanted to destroy the existing social order so as to bring in by force the kind of society that the American left wants to foist on the American people today.

It was never about fair treatment for all, it was only ever about mindless, hopeless, bitter resentment, envy, and rebellion.

The goal was for those who were not in power to seize power and then abuse anyone and everyone who got in their way.

But even that could not work, because the revolution is about thoughtless change and turning, never about progress.

As a witness of the French Revolution observed, "Like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children" (Jaques Mallet du Pan).

14th Amendment

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled several times that the 14th Amendment does not grant birthright citizenship. The 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause was written to establish citizenship for the slaves freed after the Civil War. The amendment was passed to counter the Dred Scott decision, which explicitly held that black slaves were not citizens.

That’s why, for example, the children of diplomats and foreign ministers are not granted citizenship on the basis of being born here. Only since 1982 has there been a claim that birth inside the country automatically conferred birthright. The source for this idea was a footnote to a decision written by Justice William Brennan. The claim is not Constitutional, and it has not been supported by the Supreme Court.

Here are a few examples of relevant Supreme Court cases.

Supreme Court opinion in the Slaughterhouse cases (1873)

"No one can fail to be impressed with the one pervading purpose found in (the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments), lying at the foundation of each, and without which none of them would have been even suggested; we mean the freedom of the slave race, the security and firm establishment of that freedom, and the protection of the newly-made freeman and citizen from the oppressions of those who had formerly exercised unlimited dominion over him."

Supreme Court opinion in Ex Parte Virginia (1879)

"[The 14th Amendment was] primarily designed to give freedom to persons of the African race, prevent their future enslavement, make them citizens, prevent discriminating State legislation against their rights as freemen, and secure to them the ballot."

Supreme Court opinion in Strauder v. West Virginia (1880)

"The 14th Amendment was framed and adopted ... to assure to the colored race the enjoyment of all the civil rights that, under the law, are enjoyed by white persons, and to give to that race the protection of the general government in that enjoyment whenever it should be denied by the States."

Supreme Court opinion in Neal v. Delaware (1880)

"The right secured to the colored man under the 14th Amendment and the civil rights laws is that he shall not be discriminated against solely on account of his race or color."

Supreme Court opinion in Elk v. Wilkins (1884)

John Elk was a Native American who argued that he was a citizen in light of the 14^th Amendment.

The Supreme Court ruled that the 14th amendment did not grant Indians citizenship, saying, "The main object of the opening sentence of the 14th Amendment was to settle the question, upon which there had been a difference of opinion throughout the country and in this court, as to the citizenship of free negroes and to put it beyond doubt that all persons, white or black, and whether formerly slaves or not, born or naturalized in the United States, and owing no allegiance to any alien power, should be citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside...The evident meaning of (the words, "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof") is, not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction, and owing them direct and immediate allegiance...Persons not thus subject to the jurisdiction of the United States at the time of birth cannot become so afterward, except by being naturalized...no one can become a citizen of a nation without its consent..."

Indians did not become citizens until passage of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.

The Traditions of God

From today’s Mass (Wednesday of the third week in Lent), the gloss for the Gospel reading - Matthew 15:1-20 - says that “the Pharisees added to the Commandments human tradition, which consisted of wholly exterior formalities and to which they attached more importance than they did to the law of Moses. The Church therefore seeks to put us on our guard against the observance of merely exterior practices of worship or fasts, which are not united to acts of charity.”

In a conversation with a friend about my conversion from Protestantism to Catholicism, I said that when I was a Protestants I thought Catholics were Christians who just created a lot of unnecessary work for themselves. Protestants, you see, hold that Catholic rituals and ceremonies and customs and accretions are a continuation of the empty traditions that Christ condemned the Pharisees for. The solution, then, was to jettison all traditions and retain the Scriptures only.

Only that practice of the Protestants is contradicted by the Scriptures themselves. Here’s an explanation, with links to relevant Scripture verses.

Sacred Scripture: The Old and New Testaments. Scripture is one of the two pillars of the Christian Faith for Catholics; the other pillar is Divine Tradition (2 Thessalonians 2:14-15).

Divine Tradition: The divinely-inspired customs and the oral accounts of the early Christians that captured the history and teachings of Christ not written down in the Scriptures (John 21:25). Tradition is one of the two pillars of the Christian Faith for Catholics; the other pillar is Sacred Scripture.

Protestantism: A 16th century revolt against Catholic belief, practice, and governance. Divine Tradition was rejected; a modified form of Sacred Scripture was retained.

God uses words and traditions to convey His Gospel.

Winterpeg or Bust

Two professional hockey teams have migrated from my old home of Atlanta to the land of the Canucks.
* The Flames, now in Calgary, were the home team when I was a youngster.
* A few years ago the Thrashers flew north and become the Jets when they landed in Winnipeg.

A recent conversation with an awesome Ottawa pilgrim friend brought to mind the one substantial trip I’ve ever made across the Canadian border (plane changes in Toronto count as visits, to be sure, but they don’t really give you a flavor for the locale).
 
My multi-day trip was to Winnipeg for a friend’s wedding, which was a Sung Mass in the Latin. It was a delightful time, and the big day for my friends was a joyful one for all of us.
 
I also did a little site-seeing while I was in Winnipeg, driving my Rubicon jeep around the city. Flowing through Winnipeg are two rivers, the Assiniboine and the Red. I traversed the Red River a couple of times in my Rubicon, and perhaps because the wedding Mass had been a Latin experience, my mind turned to things Roman during one of the crossings. “When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River, the fields of Rome ran red with the blood of civil war,” I thought. “And now here I am crossing the Red River in my Rubicon Jeep.”
 
My geek credentials thus firmly established, I hummed a Gloria Patri and continued on my way.