Phillip Rivers: A Family Man to Admire...

From Lifenews:

ESPN Magazine fired a number of questions from fans at San Diego QB Phillip Rivers. One of them is wildly inappropriate.

Rivers, you may know, is a pretty serious Catholic. He’s got six kids and I think I remember reading that he’s got one on the way. But check out this question that critiques Rivers for having so many children. Now, you can question the fan’s idiocy but what kind of jerks work for ESPN that they would pick this question out of the hat to present to Rivers.

Six kids? Regardless of your profession, it’s impossible to be a good parent to six kids. Not enough hours in the day.
– From TheBigLead.com comments

It’s a two-year rotation: Once the diapers come off of one, we usually have a newborn. And we have another one on the way, due in October. I help when I can, but my wife, Tiffany, is the key. My big, growing family keeps everything balanced and grounded. My oldest is 11 now, and the kids are getting into football. They’re Daddy’s biggest fans, and they don’t get on you as bad as most fans. If you throw an interception, they still love you.

That’s a heckuva’ answer to a completely inappropriate question pushed by ESPN.

Rivers is a class act to respond in that way. Good guy.

Upcoming Interview: Most Rev. James D. Conley, S.T.L., Bishop of Lincoln Nebraska

I am please to announce that Bishop Conley has agreed to an interview with this publication.  Bishop Conley gave a very wonderful Eulogy for Dr. Dennis Quinn's Funeral and was directly impacted by the Integrated Humanities Program.  I will be asking him a wide range of questions on the topics of the Liturgy, Education, Family, the Priesthood, Homeschooling, and more.  Stay tuned...

"In his 23 years as a priest, Bishop James D. Conley has served the Catholic Church in a wide variety of ways—as pastor, college campus chaplain, director of Respect Life ministries, theology instructor, Vatican official and bishop. In all of these tasks, he has seen his life as a priest as a call to service and complete surrender to “God’s providential hand.” For his episcopal motto, Bishop Conley, a convert to the Catholic faith, chose the same motto as the great 19th-century English convert, John Henry Cardinal Newman, “cor ad cor loquitur,” which means “heart speaks to heart.”

While in college, he studied in the University of Kansas’s Integrated Humanities Program, a well-known classical great books program. During his junior year, he converted to the Catholic Church on Dec. 6, 1975. His mentor and teacher in the Integrated Humanities Program, Professor John Senior, was his godfather"  (From the Diocese of Lincoln Website)

Cardinal Burke Decries Secularism and Lauds Traditional Families

Cardinal Burke addresses Dignitatis Humanae Institute’s 2nd Annual International Conference on Human Dignity

DIGNITATIS HUMANAE INSTITUTE
SECOND ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON HUMAN DIGNITY
CASINA PIO IV, VATICAN CITY STATE
28 JUNE 2013
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Your Eminences, Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, Good evening to you all.
It is a pleasure to participate in tonight’s special dinner in the magnificent environs of the Casina Pio IV, in order to celebrate of the work of the Dignitatis Humanae Institute, an organization which exists to witness to the unique and immeasurable good of human life, of the human person. Why is this so important? Precisely for the reason articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Dignity: “[I]t is the recognition of the dignity of Man that is most lacking in our society, not rights, and that this imbalance must be redressed.”[1] It is precisely to support the redressing of the imbalance that we have gathered this evening.
Promoting human dignity necessarily means respecting all human beings without exception, men and women equally, from conception to natural death. It is learned in the home, founded on the model of the strong, traditionally-understood family, whose members mutually support and love one other. The Dignitatis Humanae Institute, our host tonight, exists to promote human dignity based on the recognition that each one of us is made in the image and likeness of God.
At the heart of the commitment to safeguard and promote the fundamental good of human life is our faith in Jesus Christ and His Gospel which guides us all on the pilgrimage of our daily living. It is the faith which believes the words of Our Lord in the Beatitudes.[2] It is the faith of the Virgin Mary who trusted that God’s promises to her would be fulfilled.[3]
But the truth regarding the inviolable dignity of every human life is under constant attack in an ever-more secularized world. One only has to read the daily newspaper or turn on the television for the evening news to know that the Christian’s holding to the truth of the moral law is no longer tolerated by many, and that the secularist agenda never ceases in its efforts to overshadow, drown out, and intimidate the witness of faithful Christians. The goal is to silence the Christian witness. But we cannot succumb to such tactics. I urge all who are here this evening to stand firm in your witness, knowing that it is indeed the Lord’s work and that He will never fail to accompany you. Tonight, the Vigil of the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, two of the greatest saints who are venerated by all Christians, gives us particular inspiration in our steadfast witness to the inviolable dignity of innocent human life. Tomorrow, we will celebrate their martyrdom in Rome for love of Christ and in faithful witness to His Gospel. We trust in the intercession of the Prince of the Apostles and of the Apostle of the Gentiles, even as we recognize that the persecution which they suffered is not only a reality recorded in books of history but continues in our own time.
Even as we gather to celebrate the work of the Dignitatis Humanae Institute, we are conscious that Christian persecution is sadly at a high point throughout the world. We read every day of such persecution, for example, in Syria, Egypt, Eritrea, Nigeria and Indonesia, but we also see examples in our own nations, which have a rich Christian heritage and yet have turned their back on the very foundational truths taught by the Christian faith.
Political leaders in my home country, the United States, are relentlessly advocating further liberalization of any restriction upon procured abortion. They are backed by powerful lobby groups with vested interests, such as Planned Parenthood and Marie Stopes International. Meanwhile in the United Kingdom, we have witnessed a Gay Marriage Act, forced through Parliament in spite of considerable opposition with little consideration of its legal impact upon the Catholic Church and society, in general. The secular form of coercion can also be seen in the United Nations which makes its support for third-world countries dependent upon the provision of contraception and abortion. A thinly-disguised population control agenda is steadfastly at work in the sheep’s clothing called “maternal health.” The agenda, in fact, has nothing to do with maternity and nothing to do with health. We cannot be deceived. There is no greater issue facing human dignity today than the relentless attack on human life, the integrity of the human body. It is the plight of those who are born into a twofold poverty, the poverty of their personal circumstances and the poverty of the developing world.
As these examples teach us, laws and policies are being employed to further the secular agenda, yet with little reflection upon the sort of “brave new world” which is thereby developed. Without a careful articulation of the inviolable dignity of innocent human life, society’s only measure of the good of an individual human life is what the person possesses or produces. It is the way of moral relativism which indeed, in the words of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, is a tyranny based on the supremacy of the strong and the neglect of the weak and vulnerable.[4]
The rapid moral decline of society has resulted in what Blessed Pope John Paul II correctly called the “culture of death.”[5] We must recognize that the culture of death advances in good part because of a lack of attention and information among the public. It is all too easy, with the intensity of the modern world and the preoccupation with our own lives and their struggles, to overlook a pervasive and negative trend of our society. Ignorance and lack of attention of the public is what allows the culture of death to continue and become ever more pervasive. We cannot allow this culture of death to increase and to snuff out our Christian way of life.
How can we ensure that the culture of death will not dominate our lives and our society? First of all, those of us who are Christians must all be attentive to laws that safeguard the dignity of the human person. We must support just laws which respect the inviolable dignity of human life. And we must support the political leaders who work for such legislation. Similarly, it is essential that we become aware of the laws and policies which are attacking human dignity and the goods of our Christian faith, some of which I have mentioned earlier.
In addition to the enhanced awareness of public policy, we must work toward a new evangelization regarding human life. We have the magna charta for such a new evangelization in the Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae of Blessed Pope John Paul II. The transformation of hearts by which one truly believes in the dignity of all men, without boundary, is the most fundamental means of a new evangelization.
The new evangelization flourishes when we as Christians proclaim the Gospel of life, a message that God calls us to promote everyday in our thoughts, in our words, and in our actions. At the core of this Gospel of life is the sacredness and dignity of human life. Acknowledging, safeguarding and promoting the sacredness and dignity of human life is fundamental and irreplaceable to the seeking of the common good. If people do not acknowledge the dignity of all human beings without exception, the common good, authentically understood, can never thrive.
An essential way in which we can proclaim the Gospel of Life is through strong, supportive, and traditional families with a mother and father who love their children unconditionally. Children witness the Gospel of Life in the relationship of their parents with one another and in the relationship that their parents have with them. The solid relationships between parents, and between the parents and their children, based on respect for human life, leads to a transformation of hearts in which the gospel of life is learned and lived.
Additionally, healthy families depend on a new proclamation of the truth regarding women and motherhood that upholds the virtues of purity, chastity and modesty, and respect for the integrity of marriage and the family. These goods are also under attack. We cannot permit such attacks to continue. The family shapes society, and by advocating for and promoting strong, traditional family life, we will continue to replace the culture of death with the culture of life and love for which God calls us to work, even as He gives us the strength to accomplish the work.
Despite the virulent strains of secularism, there are millions of Christians across the world who have risen up in response to the culture of death with their own manifestations of support of the culture of life, in their work place, and in the public square. What we have recently witnessed in France is an eloquent example. Just two weeks ago, 40,000 people gathered in Dublin to march against a government bill to legalize abortion. This rally was the largest in the history of the country and showed the public’s desire to safeguard the life of both the mother and the child. In Brazil, talk show host and pastor Silas Malafia recently led another march of at least 40,000 people against proposed laws to legalize abortion and so-called “gay marriage.” And in the United States a new pro-life coalition called Stop the Gosnells was recently formed to prevent from occurring in the future crimes like those committed by Dr. Kermit Gosnell.
I cannot fail to mention that we have in our presence tonight one of the great world leaders of such popular movements, Luca Volontè, the Chairman of the Dignitatis Humanae Institute. Luca finished his term of office today as President of the European People’s Party in the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly in Strasbourg. He has been a guiding force behind the Manif pour tous in France. I recall his words to the thousands who rallied in Paris in defence of the traditional marriage. He declared that their witness was “the most beautiful surprise of Europe this year” in the battle for a civilization of life.
Seeing hundreds of thousands unified in witnessing to the Gospel of life gives hope that a new evangelization regarding human life and the dignity of human life will continue and develop, leading our culture along the right path, the path that leads to true freedom and, therefore, lasting peace. These manifestations of faith truly give me hope and inspiration. So, too, does your presence here tonight. A most significant event has taken place here today because leaders from across Europe and beyond Europe have gathered to discuss the fundamental importance of human life and dignity.
All of you here tonight are working toward the goal of a new engagement and a new energy in safeguarding and promoting the inviolable dignity of innocent human life. In the name of the Church, I thank you. It is because of leaders like yourselves that the new evangelization continues and grows. It will continue to spread so long as we work together and let our Christian faith guide us.
Finally, I want to say on a personal level how happy I am to be with you tonight, in order to show my support of this initiative which my brother, His Eminence Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, has been promoting for the last few years with the good results which all can see. Most people in the secular world nurture the ambition to retire at the age of 55. Cardinal Martino, who reached the age of 80 last year, is going as strongly as ever. In many ways, Your Eminence, your work as Honorary President of this Institute ties together the main themes of all your major accomplishments, from your work at the United Nations for which you were the Papal Nuncio for 16 years (during which you led the successful resistance at Cairo in 1994 to stop the UN from promoting abortion as a method of family planning) to your overseeing of the publication of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church,[6] in which you most rightly take great pride. I pay tribute to you tonight, Your Eminence. I am proud as a member of the Sacred College of Cardinals to see one of my brothers so ably demonstrating the very highest dedication to one of the most fundamental of our important responsibilities. May God grant you many more years of fruitful service as Honorary President of the Dignitatis Humanae Institute, energetically endorsing what the British Parliamentarian Lord Alton of Liverpool said about the Institute: It is indeed the most important organization promoting human dignity in the world today.
Thinking specifically about the Universal Declaration of Human Dignity which the Dignitatis Humanae Institute exists to promote, I compliment the Institute for its excellent service in bringing the Church face to face with the secular ambient, so that this important document will be more fully understood and appreciated. There are few other institutions with the call to promote human dignity, which fulfill that mission as authentically and comprehensively as does this Institute. I wholeheartedly encourage you, and I commend your work to the protection of Mary Immaculate, to whom this Institute was consecrated at its foundation. As the Founding Patron of the Institute, Rocco Buttiglione, likes to say: we can always pray to the Madonna for her intercession; but we must always pray to her for her protection.
Thank you for your attention to these words. I wish for you every good success in your important mission. May God – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit – bless you and all your labors.
Raymond Leo Cardinal BURKE
[1] Cf. http://www.dignitatishumanae.com/index.php/declaration/, p. 2.
[2] Cf. Mt 5, 3-12.
[3] Cf. Lk 1, 45.
[4] Cf. Ioseph Cardinal Ratzinger, “Initium Conclavis,” 18 Aprilis 2005, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 97 (2005), p. 687.
[5] Cf. Ioannes Paulus PP. II, Litterae encyclicae Evangelium vitae, “De vitae humanae inviolabili bono”, 25 Martii 1995, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 87 (1995), 424-428, nos. 21-24.
[6] Cf. Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace,

The Care of the Home

The care of the home us not unlike the care of the soul in relationship to the body.  The soul houses the body, but the soul is hidden.  It is interior life.  As such, the interior life of the home must be kept in order for the exterior to be well, just as with the human person.  If the home is to be where the kingdom of God dwells, then God’s kingdom should be clean, kept, and well represented.  For just as in the care of the human soul, when one cares for his or her soul, he cares for the body just as much and when he cares for the body, he cares for the soul.  For as St. Bonaventure states, “The soul is not a person, but the soul is joined to the body- is a person” 1.  The neglect of the soul is neglect of the body and vice/versa.  St. Chrysostom states, “For not to the soul alone are the pleasures hurtful, but to the body itself, because from being a strong body it becomes weak, from being healthy, diseased, from being active, slothful, from being beautiful, unshapely, and from youthful, old.” 2.

So, no one wants a home that is sick weak, unshapely, and diseased.  For it can be said that to care for the home itself is to care for the interior life of the home: the life lived daily.  In life, however, there are those who take good care of the body but neglect the soul and also in reverse.  We have all seen the obese nun or priest!  Both must be considered in order to be well.  As Bl. John Paul II the Great states, “ The home is a great good for man!  It is a place of life and love!  It is in a certain sense, our human Lareto…”3.  Because the home is this great good it must be regarded with great good.  Much in the way of formation of spouses and children depend on the proper care of the home.  Proper care of this place of “Life and Love”.  Proper care can lead to the desired outcome of heavenly virtue in a more complete way.  We have all experienced trials with and in the home, but the home is where the seedbed is laid for the souls of childhood to flourish.  “The home, though it suffer want and hardship in this valley of tears, may become for the children in its own way a foretaste of that paradise of delight in which the creator placed the first men of the human race.” 4. 

So, how then to care for this place which is so crucial to the formation of the Christian man and his Kin and kith?  There are a number of aspects to which our care should be directed, but I will outline them here first and explain each one in more detail in successive articles:
1)  Cleanliness inside and out
2)  Structure
3)  Infrastructure
4)  Maintenance- corrective and preventive
5)  Adornment and decorum

Today I will begin with #1 and will proceed in weeks ahead with the others.

Cleanliness Inside and Out

We are right to know that the liturgical life of the church must be carried out over and into the home and lived everyday within the home.  For as Bl. John Paul II the Great states, “What happens in the liturgy must be carried over into daily life.  It must be lived in the home.  Then the home will become the place where life in Christ grows to maturity.  Such a home is a real expression of the Church” 5.

But what I think  is often forgotten is the external expression of this truth.  Which, is curious since we as Catholics and religious people live by outward expression of our faith; i.e. sign of the cross, genuflection, kneeling, Ad Orientem, etc.  The liturgy is ordered- it carries with it a modus which says “a place for everything and everything in its place”.  It must be clean and ready to be a worthy presentation to and for the Lord and his people who come to worship him there.  If there is chaos and disorder, then the God of order (look to the universe!) is slighted.  Further, there is real symbolism to the placement, positioning, and well keeping of all vessels, art, statues, and items of worship.  Liturgical life lived in the home must also branch into its presentation to its people.

We must turn our home (its cleanliness) toward the Lord- “Ad Orientem” as it’s said- liturgically “East”.  I must face all aspects to Him and order them to the “Cult” so to speak, of the home.  The Culture of a home must be cultivated in order to serve him well, just as it is in the Church.  “Man comes to a true and full humanity only through culture- that is through the cultivation of the goods and values of nature” 6.  Just as a farmer must cultivate his land so that it may bear fruit, so too the home will not bear fruit unless it is “kept” and cultivated.  There is a reason why culture and cultivation find a common root in the Latin word “Cultus”.  It means “Labor, care, husbandry, discipline, care, way of life, refinement, honoring, reverence, adoration, veneration”. 7.  If the home is a place of worship to Christ through the everyday Catholic living of life, the domestic church, the home itself must adore Christ.  This is what you find in the traditionally adorned churches which are spaces made to lead man to worship God.  The current state of church architecture is abysmal and does more harm than good to man’s understanding of worship and the cosmic reality in which the Liturgy finds itself, as so clearly laid out by Pope Benedict XVI in “The Spirit of the Liturgy”.  The outward expression is a manifestation of the unseen inward reality.  When done properly, it can lead man to a more full expression of worship and entering into God’s eternal mystery. 

All through the scriptures, that which is “ugly” is usually depicted as an outward expression of an inward sin or wretchedness. 8.  An unkempt home is just plain “ugly”.  It is poor to the eye and displays a form of wretchedness.  I once heard a protestant woman speaker talking about how great she feels when she goes over to a friend’s house and sees it in a messy state.  She said it relieves her that someone who she admires as a Christian has either a messier home than hers or just as messy.  She referred to it as the “ministry of mediocrity”!  What an oxymoron…what Christian should ever aspire to mediocrity?  What ministry is there to be found in mediocrity?  The words of Bl. John Paul II the Great echo again when he said “Do Not Be Afraid!  Do not be satisfied with mediocrity”.  Mediocrity is nothing more than acceptance of that which is effortless and sub-par.  A common and consistent blandness and satisfaction with the banal.  This is truly dreary!  The ministry that woman should have participated in was that of charity.  To reach out to that friend and offer to help her in her obvious work waiting for her could have edified and uplifted that woman!

To be sure, a home is also useful and is not a museum.  It should be lived in and should serve us- not the other way around.  So what balance is there then?  Think again to the liturgy.  During the liturgy, much is used and brought out- at times even to the fullest extent.  In Solemnities more is brought out than usual.  But in all instances, all is put back and made ready to be used for next time.  The dignity of the space and the liturgy is kept in this way and regard.  Dignity would lack if the finest of all items in the sacristy were not used, especially and good and useful things.  On the flip side, if they are not taken care of, the dignity owed to the space and items is diminished.

To conclude, care ought to be taken to use a home well, but keep it too so that its dignity is maintained and it serves the liturgical life and aspect well.  It ought to be vacuumed, dusted, organized, free from pests, picked up, useful, and not restrictive or pent up.  When a home is warm when it should be warm, and cool when it should be cool, and when a home is washed and put together, it is an outward expression to all of an inward, hidden, reality.  Life!

FOOTNOTES:

1)  St. Bonaventure, De Assumptione  B Mariae Virginis, Sermo. 1.

      2)  Catena Aurea- Commentary on Luke 12, St. John Chrysostom

      3)  Bl. John Paul II The Great- Adress to University of Rome, Dec. 12, 1995

      4)  Pope Pius XI- Casti Connubii- preparation for marriage

      5)  Bl John Paul II The Great- Homily given to Pontifical Athenaeum, Feb. 10, 1986

      6)  Gaudium et Spes, Part II, Chptr. II

      7)  Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary

      8)  Rev. 16,2. Sirach 20, 24. Gen. 41, 3&4