Comments for The Moment of Witness at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 9 out of 9 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Mon, 20 May 2013 00:27:13 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-moment-of-witness.html#comment-12672 Jon S, Saints are not distinguished from ordinary people in that the Saints did not do what ordinary people did i.e the saint is not merely one that did not sin. But the things Saints do is what ordinary people even do not think of. Since love is creative and is not the matter of following a moral code with Yes/No answers, it is more the matter of gracious living. Dorothy Sayers in The Mind of the Maker has a clear exposition of this idea. - Gian Mon, 30 Jul 2012 18:32:28 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-moment-of-witness.html#comment-12655 Father, your last sentence says it all. It seems to me that the thing that most keeps us from spreading our faith is a lack of confidence in others finding it attractive due to the sacrificial nature. I suppose this is an indictment of our own lack of lived faith. Jon S, in addition to Fr's comments I've always found helpful clarifications in the ccc's treatment of the 5th and 7th commandments - Louise Mon, 30 Jul 2012 06:22:25 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-moment-of-witness.html#comment-12652 Thanks for taking the time to reply to my comments, Father Bramwell. I look forward to your next column. - Jon S. Mon, 30 Jul 2012 05:37:48 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-moment-of-witness.html#comment-12647 Yes Jon. Again I don't think that asserting one's rights is ungenerous. If we can be free to function as Catholics we are going to contribute mightily to our culture. Even if we are not free we are supposed to contribute to our culture - making the suffering Christ present will do more than some movie company or some politician. - Fr. Bramwell Mon, 30 Jul 2012 03:33:00 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-moment-of-witness.html#comment-12645 Although I accept that I should be faithful to the Magisterium in matters of faith and morals (but not necessarily in its prudential judgments) in general and although I am a great admirer of Pope Benedict in particular, I didn't find the Holy Father's Message for Lent in 2010 as helpfulas I would have liked. I would like to think his conclusion, "Strengthened by this very experience, the Christian is moved to contribute to creating just societies, where all receive what is necessary to live according to the dignity proper to the human person and where justice is enlivened by love," supports the position that Christian love has not replaced justice but adds generosity to justice, as Pieper has said more clearly. In other words, I still suspect that Pope Benedict thinks that the more we surrender our own rights, the more Christian/Catholic we are. That way of thinking is mushy and utopian. This side of the Parousia, sometimes the more Christian/Catholic thing to do is to be just instead of generous. Back to your excellent column, do you agree that the moment of witness for which you rightfully call is going to involve Catholics asserting their rights as well as Catholics acting generously? - Jon S. Mon, 30 Jul 2012 02:20:36 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-moment-of-witness.html#comment-12642 The fact that orthodox Catholic thinkers disagree on the subject mentioned above and other subjects as well says that they do not know the answer. When the experts can not agree, I have to have the courage to use my own judgment, and that is not something for which we ordinary people have been trained. - caroline Gissler Sun, 29 Jul 2012 13:01:39 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-moment-of-witness.html#comment-12641 Jon, the love justice question is not an either/or issue. Just look for example at Benedict's Lenten Message in 2010. - Fr. Bramwell Sun, 29 Jul 2012 11:19:16 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-moment-of-witness.html#comment-12639 Father Bramwell's comments about Nazism have triggered questions I would love to see answered by him or another one of the great contributors to TCT. First, is there a contradiction among orthodox Catholic thinkers on the nature of love, specifically with regard to the meaning of justice? In other words, do some (Aquinas, Leo XIII, and Josef Pieper come to mind) hold that while the Catholic thing is to live in the spirit of selfless love that surrenders one's own rights, it is also the Catholic thing to practice a justice that maintains one's own rights even if such maintenance does not alleviate the suffering of others, while others (John Paul II and Benedict XVI come to mind) hold that the Catholic thing is to surrender one's own rights whenever such surrender would alleviate the suffering of others? In terms of an example: Are there orthodox Catholic thinkers who say that God does not require of us that we risk our own lives by going into a burning building to save the life of a stranger, especially if we have a family of our own that is depending on us for their welfare, but other orthodox Catholic thinkers who say that God does require of us to risk our own lives by going into a burning building to save the life of a stranger, even if we have a family of our own that is depending on us for their welfare? Who is right--those who would say that Christian love has not replaced justice or those who say that Christian love has replaced justice? Is anyone claiming to have Revelation on his side? Who really does have Revelation on his side? - Jon S. Sun, 29 Jul 2012 08:10:17 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-moment-of-witness.html#comment-12638 May we awaken to the magnitude of the task, nor be overwhelmed by it, for only firm reliance upon the mercy of God, communicated to us in Jesus Christ through the sacraments, the Magisterium, and personal prayer, will give us both the insight and the fortitude to do what must, and what may yet be done. In addition to the lives lost daily to abortion, we have to reckon in those millions and millions of the incarcerated, millions and millions of broken families, millions and millions of dispirited people all of whom know something is terribly wrong and seem unable to rise from torpor and from states of dependence upon the State, in one form or another. It may well be that we see martyrdom in our own country, either white or red. What matters most is that each receive the wisdom and strength to act in accordance with the will of God, with rightly formed conscience, and with the demands that confront each, and then to put the wisdom and strength into action. There are enough people yet who are hungry for more than the empty promises our culture blandishes. There is yet time, though the hour be late. - Dave Sun, 29 Jul 2012 03:26:18 +0100