"In Order to be a Good Christian, One Must First be a Good Jew"

I first read that statement  many years ago, on the dedication page of a novel whose title now escapes me. I always felt the truth of that statement, probably in part because I have Jewish cousins, and a Jewish uncle, a Polish emigre who married my mother's youngest sister,  whom I naturally felt very close to, even though I am Catholic. I was fortunate to have grown up in an unusually ecumenical family: my mother's parents were Irish immigrants whose six children all married people with different religious backgrounds, and all were welcomed into our family.  This was at a time when such ecumenism was unusual: the decade after the end of World War II  But the reason I mention this is because I recently started reading a book by Peter Kreet having to do with the Bible, and I wanted to share a passage with you in which he articulates what he  calls the miracle of the Jewish people.

The passage occurs during his discussion of Genesis, and it is thus:

"The call of Abraham [by God] in Genesis 12 comes right after the [story of the] Tower of Babel in chapter 11 to contrast man's way with God's way..... How reasonable the Tower of Babel sounds, and how silly the call of Abraham seems!  What a way to fight the serious battle against evil - to pick out one man, flawed like all of us, for a lifelong trek into the wilderness with no road map and no guarantees, only promises.  Yet this is the beginning of history's most public miracle: the Jewish people.  Their survival and continued rejuvenation, their unparalleled flourishing and achievements, out of all proportion to their tiny size and strength, violate every known law of history and sociology.  The more we consider their history, the more we are in awe at divine providence.  The more we open our eyes to see, the more we open our mouths to gasp."

I have read  that passage over and over again, and I am always profoundly moved by the power of his words. He illuminates the details of the Bible with a clarity and directness like nothing I have ever read before. This is just one example. The book is called "You Can Understand the Bible", and reading this book has assured me that he means it. And as for my Catholic faith, I believe that God first revealed Himself to the Jewish people, and they embraced the truth of Him, but when He revealed His Corporal Self, in the Person of His Son, that truth was received not by one people but by many peoples, who embraced that truth as well. As Christians, our first miracle lies in the birth of the Jewish people; our second miracle lies in the birth of Jesus. The history goes on.

The Power of the Media

What upsets me the most about politics these days is how much influence the mainstream media has over the public perception of government, and which party is responsible for gridlock.  This time it's over the funding of Planned Parenthood: Republicans want to defund it for a year so that an investigation can be conducted into its abortion practices.  This seems to be a reasonable request to me, given the awful practices that have come to light about them recently. Democrats in the Senate have already vowed to reject that request, and President Obama has vowed to veto any budget that excludes the funding, and yet the media asserts that it will be the Republicans who will be responsible for a government shut-down if it occurs. This is outrageous to me.  Why are we funding Planned Parenthood anyway? It is not a government program, it's supposed to be a charity. I can't think of another charity that is funded to this extent by the federal government. If there is a government shut-down it will be because the Democrats refuse to compromise yet again on anything that Republicans want, not the other way around, and yet, the media will continue to spin the truth in Obama's favor. Why can't more people see this?

The Politics of the Pope

As Catholics, we are taught that the Pope is God's Messenger on earth, the direct spiritual descendant of St. Peter.  He speaks for God, and his statements regarding religion are infallible. Some people mistakenly believe that this means that anything the Pope says is infallible, but this is not true.  How, then, to interpret  Pope Francis's most recent statements regarding global warming, which he believes is caused by humans, and the crisis of migrants in Europe, which he asserts is the result of humans worshiping the God of Money. Not once has he come out in opposition to the Islamist extremist terrorists who have precipitated this crisis. He keeps advocating a redistribution of wealth, rather than the pursuit of it, which is a Marxist doctrine, not a Biblical one. Throughout the Bible, especially the New Testament, Jesus advocates freely giving and sharing, not forced redistribution. I think that Pope Francis is overstepping his position as head of the Catholic Church and is making political matters into spiritual ones. I wonder what God thinks of all this?

The Double Standard in Politics

For at least the last ten or fifteen years, and maybe longer (I wasn't paying much attention to politics before that), there has been a double standard in politics, fueled in large part, I believe, by a media establishment that has become increasingly and obviously biased in favor of Democrat/Liberal/Socialist ideology. If you're a Democrat and you change your mind about some political or social issue, the media says you have "evolved", as when Mr. Obama changed his mind and decided that same-sex marriage was OK after all.  However, if you're a Republican and you change your mind about something, maybe even the same issue, the same media types accuse you of "waffling". The inevitable conclusion one must draw is that Republicans are weak and don't know what they believe, while Democrats are strong and evolutionary in what they believe. It's not just the media who do this, either: I cannot remember another president who has invoked as many negative and condemning epithets at the opposition party members, in this case Republicans, as Mr. Obama has. He blames Republicans for everything that does not go his way, conveniently ignoring the many times he declares that he will veto virtually anything that Republicans send to his desk. And I can't even count how many times Republicans have been accused of being against "Immigration", conveniently leaving out the adjective "Illegal", both by the media and by the Democrats. It's so unfair. Why are these people allowed to get away with this? Our Founding Fathers deliberately wrote into the Constitution the right and responsibility of  the Press to be the Watchdogs of Government: that's what a free press is supposed to do, and that is part of what the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees.  a free press is not supposed to take sides, they're supposed to report the news and can criticize the actions of our government without fear of retribution, unlike many countries in the world, especially those in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. One of the things the press should be criticizing is the repeated tendency of this Administration to ignore and/or fail to enforce the Federal laws on the books, especially those regarding immigration, marijuana and even Obamacare, which was supposed to include the insurance requirement for businesses beginning in 2015, but which Mr. Obama unilaterally postponed by Executive Fiat until after he leaves office.  Very politically convenient, if you ask me.  No one in the Mainstream Media seems to be concerned about this, but if a Republican did this, the media would be all over it. The Double Standard. I fervently hope that this country finally gets smart and elects a Republican as the next president.  I can hardly wait to see what the mainstream media will do with that.

A Death in the Family

I am in mouring. I am grieving over the loss (by divorce) of my dearly-loved son-in-law. My daughter, after only two years of marriage, one of which was spent apart from her husband due to a military deployment, decided that she didn't love him, wasn't happy any more, and wanted a divorce. I just don't understand this generation.  She took vows.  They mean nothing.  She isn't the only one I know about who just walked away from a marriage because of "unhappiness".  My daughter's husband didn't beat her, didn't do drugs, wasn't a criminal, and loved her very much.  She had no other reason to divorce him than that she was "unhappy".  He had a good job, but she didn't think he could support her.  She was in the military, he is a civilian, and she resented the fact that she had to resign from Active Duty and go into the  Reserves so that  he could continue to keep his job and pay off his student loans. Apparently that sacrifice was too much for her to make for the sake of her marriage. He is devastated, and so are we in the family from which he is being summarily dismissed. She wrote us all a letter explaining why she was doing this, and letting us all know that she did not want to hear our criticisms, as she felt that her own self-criticism was enough.  She's damaged a good man, who does not understand why this had to happen.  She has said herself that she treated him shamefully while she was coming to this decision, probably in some delusion that maybe he would make the decision to get a divorce first and she would be absolved. She's damaged her parents and siblings, who also can't understand why this has happened. I do not know this woman.  She should have learned the importance of commitment both from direct instruction and from the role models she had growing up. The worst part of this is that I feel guilty, thinking that somehow I should have been better at teaching her about commitment.  This goes against everything I believe in.  I keep apologizing to God for not being able to fix this.  I am miserable, mostly because of what it has done to our son-in-law. My eldest son  called this a death in the family for those who are not the husband or wife, and I think he is right. I know that there are five stages of grieving before the final acceptance.  I am in the devastation stage.  Frankly, I can't see ever accepting this, but maybe with enough time it will happen.

Love and Marriage

Up until a few years ago, it seemed that marriages mostly took place in church, but even those that didn't were still treated as covenants, or promises - vows, if you will - made by two people to love, honor, and stay with each other forever. I had a discussion recently with a young man who told me that, in his view, marriage was a  contract, or agreement, that either party could break at any time and for any reason.  I found that a rather convenient redefining of the marital state, although he hastened to add that he and his wife had already agreed that their contract would, nevertheless, be unbroken. This, however,is his second marriage: his first ended in divorce when his first wife decided that she was not happy and  did  not want to be married, at least not to him. He was devastated, of  course, but related a story to me that I found very interesting: he said that, even before his wife told him she wanted a divorce, he knew they were not happy, but he was willing and able to accept that state in an effort to preserve the marriage: in other words, he was ready to honor his vows, or his contract if  you prefer; it was his wife who  was not willing to work on the marriage.  Although he eventually met and married a wonderful woman and is a very happy husband and father, he says that his one regret is that he still doesn't know the real reason why his first wife divorced him. I have heard other young men express similar thoughts, and I have come to observe that many men do not think the same way that women do about marriage; to them, it seems, just being unhappy does not justify breaking up a marriage.  Women, on the other hand, expect to be happy, and often will not work on something  that becomes less  than perfect.  People have always gotten divorced, but the reasons used to be more grave, like one of the partners being a drug addict, or violent, or a spendthrift.  Sometimes I think that divorce has gotten too easy and too accepted.  There is something to be said for working through a problem, and no marriage is always happy, but many women simply don't understand that, "This, too, shall pass".  Because of this, they miss out on the feelings of success and strength of character that surviving or overcoming adversity brings. So sad.

Faith

"I believe in God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible....." Thus begins the Nicene Creed, which is professed by Catholics around the world whenever attending Mass. It is the creed that delineates the central beliefs of Christianity as interpreted by Catholics, but which are essentially the same tenets as those held by all Christians, no matter what denomination they belong to. God is the creator of all things, and therefore all things are sacred. Life is sacred. At some point in time life itself was created. Not life from life, but life from NO life. Most religions have this belief at their core, not just Christianity. Nevertheless, scientists are searching for what they call the God Particle, which would explain how life could come from no life, but so far they haven't quite discovered it. The last I heard was that they were zeroing in on some magnetic field through which passing particles change from no life to maybe life, but only because they think it might be so, not because there is any actual evidence.  It sometimes amazes me that people will go to such lengths to try and prove that there is no God, but then, there are apparently many people who think that they are the greatest example of life, that there is no greater, that everything that can't be explained scientifically must have happened by chance. Why not by God?Why not a physical world and a spiritual world? Humans are such egotists.Various theories of evolution, while imperfect, do not of themselves preclude or contradict the existence of a Divine Creator, since all life must have at some distant time in the past, not existed at all, and yet, here we are. What a puzzle.

Humans built this church, but they did it for God