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October 11, 2017

Note from the Assistant Editor:

We begin this week with a message from Pope Benedict XVI: trust.

Then we reprint the introduction and first chapter of Abba's Heart: Finding Our Way Back to the Father's Delight by Neal Lozano.  In the words of Archbishop Charles J.  Chaput, the book is "A powerful invitation to know God as our Father, to experience His fatherly love and to witness that love to others in our everyday lives."

"To meet the person who makes us feel as if we were simultaneously being brought electrically alive and killed — and to stay the course through the ensuing pilgrimage — is to embark on perhaps the most heroic and most perilous adventure of which a human being is capable."  We are all made for this adventure.  See "Dante Alighieri."

On May 8th, 2017 Amy Coney Barrett was nominated to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.  On September 6th, she came before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Senator Dianne Feinstein asked about her Catholic faith and said with no hint of irony, "The dogma lives loudly within you."  In "Fencing with bigots," George Weigel imagines a satisfyingly logical defense.

We end with "The Harmony of the Cosmos" from Fr. George Rutler.  "In physics six centuries before the Incarnation, Pythagoras discovered how harmonies issue from the ratios of vibrating strings, concluding that music, based on ratios of numbers, is the definitive principle ordering the world."  There is a beautiful order to the world, and it leads us to Christ.  - Meaghen Hale



Web version of this CERC Weekly Update here
Previous CERC Weekly Update here
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"Original sin attempts, then to abolish fatherhood destroying its rays which permeate the created world, placing in doubt the truth about God who is Love and leaving man only with a sense of the master-slave relationship." St. John Paul II



New Resources


 
The Storm and Our Faith - Pope Benedict XVI - Angelus homily at Castle Gandolfo

The sea symbolizes this life and the instability of the visible world; the storm points to every kind of trial or difficulty that oppresses human beings.


 
Abba's Heart: Discovering the Father - Neal Lozano - introduction to Abba's Heart: Finding Our Way Back to the Father's Delight

"I love you, Dad. Do you love me?" - Micah


 
Abba's Heart: The Promise - Neal Lozano - chapter one of Abba's Heart: The Promise

I find it astounding the way many people have loved and served Jesus for years without knowing the love of God the Father.


 
Learning to See God as Loving Father - Father Robert McTeigue, S.J. - Aleteia

The Christian life can become a lifeless life if we only see it as an exercise in sin management.


 
Dante Alighieri - Heather King - Magnificat

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian poet and moral philosopher, authored "The Divine Comedy".


 
Fencing with bigots - George Weigel - The Catholic Difference

...being an imaginary dialogue between a nominee to a Federal appeals court and members of the Committee on the Judiciary of what once imagined itself "the world's greatest deliberative body"...


 
On Refutation - Father James V. Schall, S.J. - The Catholic Thing

To "refute" and to "reform" have different meanings.


 
The Harmony of the Cosmos - Father George W. Rutler - From the Pastor

When a mathematical problem stumped Professor Einstein, he played Mozart on his violin to put him "in touch with the harmony of the cosmos," and often the solution followed.


 
27th Sinday in OT - Father John Horgan - CERC

The parable of the vineyard and the tenants.

Editorials of Interest:

Accepting the Gift of Suffering - The Catholic Thing
Forgiveness: A Decision, Not A Feeling - Integrated Catholic Life

Editorials of Interest


We Can No Longer Afford to Ignore Our Lady of Fatima's Requests - National Catholic Register

Let us heed Our Lady's message, let us grant her requests, in order to hasten the triumph of her Immaculate Heart.


What Happened in Las Vegas? - Crisis

At first sight, we all know what happened in Las Vegas.


Why Every Catholic Should Applaud Kazuo Ishiguro's Nobel Prize - National Catholic Register

His characters' struggles for clarity and for hope are enormously absorbing and ring true for readers who have traveled down the same path.


Cardinal Müller Speaks Out on Amoris Laetitia, the Dubia and the Vatican - NC Register

The former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith gives an extensive interview to the Register.


The Russian Orthodox Church has issued a challenge to the West - Catholic Herald

Metropolitan Hilarion spoke urged Christians in the West to realize that it's time for all of us to come together, despite our differences, to repel and roll back the attacks on the faith in every sector of modern culture.


US Seminaries: This School Year, Signs of Strength - National Catholic Register

It's not uncommon for students, faculty and administrators to be excited for the start of the academic year. But Msgr. Andrew Baker has extra cause for joy this year.


Las Vegas and the Angel of Despair - Patheos

Stephen Paddock said his brother had no political agenda, no terrorist leanings, and "no religious affiliation." In other words, here was a man who did not have a cause. He had nothing to live for.


Ohio Bill Would End Abortions Related to Down Syndrome Diagnoses - NC Register

"It's very concerning to think that some lives would be judged as less valuable than others," said Sen. Frank LaRose, the bill's sponsor.


Disregarding the divinely-rooted Canon 915 portends serious consequences for the Church and her faithful - In Light of the Law

It is as if the world of sacramental discipline groaned and awoke to find itself subjectivized.


SCOTUS' New Term: Christian Cake-Shop Case Is Key Religious-Freedom Test - NC Register

An ideologically divided court could rule against the baker and the recent arrival of Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, President Donald Trump's first nominee to the high court, raises further questions about the likely outcome.


A daring proposal to save Amazonia - Aleteia

An initiative to create an "ecological corridor," seeking support across the continent, may finally become a reality.


Overcoming Fr. Martin's dissent through genuine, transforming love - Catholic World Report

True welcoming means we make it clear we want everyone to join us in following Jesus.


Accepting the Gift of Suffering - The Catholic Thing

Support for physician-assisted suicide ultimately stems from the belief that eliminating suffering — physical, psychological, spiritual, or existential — is a higher moral good than sustaining life.


Forgiveness: A Decision, Not A Feeling - Integrated Catholic Life

Our example is Christ, who as he was being put to death prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."


I am Catholic — and I don't know what I'm supposed to believe about immigration - America Magazine

Instead of lecturing, I want to pose the following questions, in all sincerity, because I do believe there are men and women of profound faith and genuine intellect on both sides.


Satanic priest turned saint, Bartolo Longo is proof that no one is too lost to be found - Aleteia

Sometimes reading the lives of the saints is discouraging. They may have been imperfect, as we all are, but it can seem that none of them ever really sinned the way people today do.


Therese of Lisieux: Is the Little Flower the most dangerous of saints? - Aleteia

St. Therese is the mortal enemy of spiritual mediocrity and the lukewarm.


The Transformation of Theological Nonsense - First Things

No authentic renewal of Catholic life, and no effective response to the untruths that bedevil Catholicism today, will begin from the premise that "this is our Church and we must take it back." It is Christ's Church.


America's STD Epidemic Should Be Much Bigger News - The Federalist

During the same week Hugh Hefner died, the Centers for Disease Control revealed that the number of new sexually transmitted disease cases in America had hit a record high.


How "cheap sex" is changing our relationships and marriages - Catholic World Report

Sociologist Mark Regnerus' new book examines how technology is transforming cultural attitudes towards sex and marriage.


Christian beauty and encounter — one author's proposal to heal a wounded culture - Catholic World Report

Do we Christians still believe in the capacity of the faith we have received to attract those we encounter, and do we believe in the living fascination of its defenseless beauty?


Celebrating Summorum Pontificum: FSSP in Los Angeles - YouTube

FSSP.la is the new Apostolate in Los Angeles, exclusively dedicated to the Traditional Mass, run by the Fraternity of Saint Peter.


Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman and
St. Justin Martyr, pray for us

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