Comments for Gratitude at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 9 out of 9 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Sat, 25 May 2013 22:27:13 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/gratitude.html#comment-5362 Dear Louise, I initiate this attempt at a brief answer with the clear admission that I am much the intellectual junior of You, Mr. Hunkins, and Dr. Royal. Perhaps not in this case, but sometimes, the simpler can see things more simply. I much appreciate your questions, your sincerity and vulnerability in putting them out there. I assert that the seeds that will eventually bare healthy fruit to all of our questions of this nature find their resolution in the cultivation of Christ’s words “be in the world but not of the world.” See how Christ also, in Mathew 10:16, as he was sending out his disciples out to the cities as “sheep among wolves” he exhorted “be wise as serpents and gentle as doves.” We are to use our critical minds to understand the Truths written on our hearts, that all humans are holy and command our unconditional charity, but we are not to be foolish about principles and unprincipled actions, in other words our idea of “tolerance” in America is so highly corrupted that it no doubt leads many to skepticism. Another Schall book worth several looks is The Order of Things. It seems to me that in the order of cultivating a Catholic Mind, proper order is the only hope of the True Freedom of which we inquire. Louise, I am a recent convert too and I have many questions as you do. They are good questions and require our serious attempt to resolve the cognitive dissonance. Happy thanksgiving to you all, I am so thankful for TCT and all the commenters. Achilles - Achilles Mon, 29 Nov 2010 10:48:19 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/gratitude.html#comment-5361 To my sister Louise, in the event that you even check back.... as a younger sister in the Lord and also a convert, let me say that you are a deep thinker and much of what you write often resonates with me. i have found the "resolution on the horizon" you speak of for myself, maybe it will help you as well. It is simple but often almost impossible in my flesh to do. "Love God with ALL your heart, soul, mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself." When we live this, as best we possibly can knowing that our Lady-Mom will make up within Her Motherhood for all that we lack, we are both reconciled with God and with all the world. American ideology, European, African, Asian, Masculine, Feminine, Married life, Single life, Religious Vocation, etc., all are expressions within WHO WE ARE as created in His own image and will be perfected as we love God and love others. Sometimes the answers to our struggles are quite simple and Jesus already has answered them. A priest who was my director for over 10 years used to encourage me to "mortify my intelligence" because i over-analyzed life and sometimes forgot to live it. God made you and placed you in America. Be the best Catholic American you can for the rest of your days!! And try to rest in Him. He holds us all in His hands.... xo and Blessed Awaiting our Lord's birth. God bless America. God bless the whole world. - debby Mon, 29 Nov 2010 09:52:04 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/gratitude.html#comment-5346 Thank you, Mr. Hunkins and Mr. Royal. I appreciate and value your words and advice. I must be in really tough shape when I am advised that I can feel at home in America. Growing up where I did, I lived with and absorbed a strong love of country. It was instilled in us every day of grammar school and high school and at home. It is only since becoming Catholic (after 70 years of self-identifying as a dyed-in-the-wool Yankee) that I have felt this internal division and conflict within my mind and heart. For example, the title of Fr. Schall's book, "The Mind that Is Catholic", creates a cognitive dissonance in my "mind that is American," because I know that they are not the same mind and I wonder if they are even compatible. It seems that, at every turn, my love of country is at odds with Church teaching, and I don't see a resolution on the horizon. I see only internal conflict, and, frankly, if I were forced to choose now, I couldn't trust myself to choose correctly. The country that I love is in mortal danger, from within and without, and the Church that I love .. . . well, I don't know about the Church that I love. Sometimes I see Her as aiding and abetting her enemies, both from within and without. Thank you both again for your kindness and putting up with my ramblings. I trust that all will be resolved if not in this life than in the next. I love The Catholic Thing, BTW. Thank you for your work in bringing it to us. I hope that you had a happy Thanksgiving. - Louise Thu, 25 Nov 2010 17:55:34 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/gratitude.html#comment-5343 Louise: let me offer a different, brief answer. Why do you expect that those saints -- or the Church as a whole -- would produce a system of political philosophy or practical politics? There are moral principles -- respect for life, for conscience -- that all systems must guarantee, and the Church has coexisted with several kinds of systems. But lots of a political foundation is a matter of human reasoning, and the Church doesn't necessarily have any inisght into that any more than it does into biology or economics. There's no one "Catholic" form of government and can't be, even though there are many that definitely contradict Catholic truths. You can feel at home in America in the human sense of being at home. - Robert Royal Thu, 25 Nov 2010 13:12:41 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/gratitude.html#comment-5342 Louise: Your question has haunted me and since no one else has come forward let me offer this: No one can say with certainty what your hypothetical might have yielded, but I can offer an opinion. Not only could Catholics have participated in writing the Declaration of Independence, one did. Charles Carroll of Maryland, a Catholic of Irish decent, risked his life, his fortune and his sacred honor with the other founders, when he signed the Declaration. This, despite his own colony's prohibition against Catholics being politically active. Carroll said latter, "to obtain religious as well as civil liberty, I entered zealously in the revolution." After the Constitution was adopted Carroll served our country as a U.S. Senator and helped found the Nation's first diocese (Baltimore). No doubt Carroll felt comfortable with the Declaration because natural law principals shaped it. Natural law has its roots in medieval Catholic thought, drawing on the ancients. Carroll and his colleagues were not inventing rights, but declaring rights inherent in nature. It is not possible to pluck actors in the human drama from history and insert them in a different generation. But there is nothing the fathers of our country said in our founding documents that I can think of which would have alarmed the Fathers of the Church. Grandchildren are calling for me to carve the turkey. Hope this helps. Happy thanksgiving. - Ray Hunkins Thu, 25 Nov 2010 11:40:31 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/gratitude.html#comment-5341 I don't know any more what I am thankful for, and I am still searching for an answer to the question that I asked a few months ago: If the Founding Fathers had been Catholic, could they have written the Declaration of Independence and could they have devised a government based upon it and the Constitution. Are these documents a product of a certain stage of the Enlightenment or are they religious documents or at least documents that still acknowledge the divine source of our rights? Yes, yes, I know. I am confusing the holidays. This is the day of Pilgrims (I grew up just a few miles from that rock) and the Founding Fathers were still a century and a half in the future (Faneuil Hall is just a few miles in the other direction), and it seems that all our national holidays merge in the national consciousness and that Bunker Hill, Faneuil Hall, and Philadelphia were the natural results of the landing at Plymouth rock. My question remains: Gather together in one room, Robert Bellarmine, Augustine, Dominic, Francis,Teresa, Ignatius, -- as many as you want. Give them, with all their Catholic intellect and spiritual sensitivities, love of God and neighbor, the assignment: create a document under which a free people can govern themselves and still remain free, in perpetuity. Could they do it? Or are we, as Catholics, simply foreigners on foreign soil, appreciating this heritage but not really a part of it? Apart from the obvious (no lasting resting place, etc.), will we always be strangers and sojourners, in but not of our (the, someone else's) country? - Louise Thu, 25 Nov 2010 08:19:07 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/gratitude.html#comment-5340 Ray, we're grateful to all our readers as well. We know that this little cosa nostra is the work of many lines of grace. - Robert Royal Thu, 25 Nov 2010 07:56:12 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/gratitude.html#comment-5339 Amen Joe and I would add one more: Thank you Mr. Royal, to you and your colleagues for your erudite offerings on The Catholic Thing. - Ray Hunkins Thu, 25 Nov 2010 05:09:50 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/gratitude.html#comment-5338 On this Thanksgiving Day, I am thankful: · For babies, which is God’s way of saying that life should go on. · For loving and patient mothers and fathers. · For wives, husbands, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins, good friends and, of course, grandmas and grandpas. · For the teachers, police, firefighters and public servants and all those devoted to better education and government. · For the in-laws were have learned to like, and even those we don’t. · For our fellow Americans, who share in the bounty and blessings of a great and good land from sea to shining sea. · For our wonderful dogs and cats and the other animals who are part of God’s grand creation who give us unconditional love and companionship. · For the food we eat, the roofs that shelter us, the clothes that keep us warm. · For America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, which, despite all her flaws, is still the greatest nation on earth. · For the blessings of liberty and the brotherhood of man. · For the peacemakers, though they may seem to be few, who are out there preaching love instead of hate. · For our courageous and dedicated men and women in uniform, who serve at home and abroad and are willing to pay the ultimate price for freedom. · For the fine arts and especially music, without which as one philosopher put it, life would be a mistake. · For good books, starting with the best-seller of all time, the Bible, which imparts all the wisdom of life if we have eyes to see and ears to hear and a mind to understand. · For smiles and kindness, either spoken or unspoken, which brighten our days and gladden our hearts. · For the hope, faith and charity that God instills in every person that we may pass it on to others. · Most of all, for God Who gave us life and came to earth more than 2,000 years ago to tell us that we might have life more abundantly if we only believe in Him. - Joe Thu, 25 Nov 2010 04:06:39 +0100