Fr. Barron's "Priest, Prophet, and King"

I somewhat recently watched Fr. Robert Barron's "Priest, Prophet, and King" series, and I loved it.  There are six episodes, and each runs about 20-30 minutes.  I think it's designed that way to make sure that Fr. Barron didn't overload his listeners with depth of content, as well as to fit nicely into an hour-long discussion group format.  I really enjoy Fr. Barron's material; I like his approach, delivery, and I appreciate how he can be profound and simple at the same time.  Here are some of the highlights of the series for me...

1. No competition between the baptismal and ministerial priesthood.  We share the same mission, and there is no misogyny, prejudice, or hate behind it.  Everyone can offer sacrifice, but not everyone can offer the Eucharistic sacrifice.  Does that devalue or erase the laity's sacrifices?  No!  We're co-laborers in the same vineyard.

2. The role of the priest is to reconcile God & humanity.  If someone had asked me to summarize what a priest does, I don't think I would've come up with something so simple as this.  Priests do lots of things, but what do they do?  They serve the people of God in the person of Christ, doing the same thing He did for us: healing us so that we can enter into right relationship with God.

3. How key the Temple was... and how the Mystical Body of Christ is the new temple.  The Jerusalem Temple was the literal place of reconciliation for the Jews.  By offering animal sacrifices, the Jewish faithful maintained their right relationship with God.  Had Jesus employed a PR firm, they they would have had an aneurism after hearing his saying, "something greater than the temple is here." (Matt 12:6)  The Temple was the meeting place of heaven and earth, and no place could be more sacred.  The transformation of the new covenant can be seen in St. John's marvelous vision:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.  And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away."  And he who sat upon the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new."  (Revelation 21:1-5)

4. False worship is not harmless.  The story of Elijah and the 400 prophets of Ba'al is an entertaining read and one that carries a lot of spiritual wisdom in it.  One of the highlights that Fr. Barron pointed out was that false worship always leads to some sort of spiritual harm.  The 400 prophets, when Ba'al didn't respond in a timely fashion, started cutting themselves, as if to cry louder to their god.  (1 Kings 18:28)  Although unseen, we do ourselves great spiritual harm when we worship something other than God.

5. Bad kingship starts with self-indulgence.  Although not all of us are ministerial priests, we are all still part of the baptismal priesthood; and thus we can offer sacrifice.  Similarly, although we do not possess kingdoms like David, Midas, or Henry, we are still to govern our own "kingdom": our body, home, and family.  King David fell into serious sin with Bathsheba; not only adultery, but murder.  Where he lost the spiritual battle?  He got lazy.

In the spring of the year, the time when kings go forth to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.  It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking upon the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful.  (2 Samuel 11:1-2)

First, he sent Joab to do his military campaigning for him.  Second, he either slept in until the afternoon or took a long nap in the middle of the day.  Vices often come in bunches--trouble with one leads to trouble with another, and even new vices may pop up as a result.  When David woke up that afternoon, he probably didn't intend to seek out another man's wife, defile her, and then kill her husband.  His sloth made him unable to fight the temptation.  A good lesson for all of us, though the details may (and hopefully do) vary.

6. The gates of hell not prevailing.  Fr. Barron ended the series with this, and it made me want to get up and go to battle.  We know the passage well:

"Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.  And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.  I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Matt 16:17-19)

I'd only ever thought of this with the Church in the defensive posture.  The Church would be assailed, and Satan would send every last warrior to break through the walls.  Fr. Barron flipped the imagery, which I found AWESOME.  The Church and the Mystical Body of Christ is on the attack, sieging the gates of hell.  Through the power of Jesus Christ, the most fearsome warriors of hell stand no chance.  Hell cannot win against the power of His grace any more than a toothpick could overpower a flamethrower.

Fight the good fight of faith (1 Tim 6:12) and be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might (Eph 6:10) 

7QT: grab bag and the end of the world, 8/1/15

My long-delayed return to the 7QT fray!  

1) It sounds dumb to say, but I care less about clothes.  My wife can attest, I haven't always sought to be the most fashionable guy.  Like many guys (I like to think), apathy often wins over dapper dressing.

The reason I care less about clothes?  Most of my t-shirts have been puked on, peed on, or drooled on.  One t-shirt in particular: Leo emptied the contents of his tiny stomach onto it.  I took it off, put stain remover on it, and it went in the wash.  The next day, when it came out of the dryer, I put it on again.  It took less than 10 minutes for Leo to puke on it again.  

2)  I have another article up at coraevans.com, this time on Ignatian spirituality.  The folks there are remarkably patient with a hack like me.  They kindly helped me finish part two of the treatment on Ignatian spirituality.  

3) I know I'm behind as far as this blog is concerned... this is my first post in a couple months... but the shock of the Supreme Court decision was considerable.  Actually, not so much that it happened (just take a quick stroll through TV shows over the past ten years), but seeing so much dissent among Catholics.  Well, living in a few different parishes and working in the Church for a time after college, that actually isn't all that surprising.  Those thoughts are pretty depressing.  

One Scripture verse that helped me was stunningly simple: 
"All his precepts are trustworthy, they are established for ever and ever, to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness." (Ps 111:7-8)

God's laws are not popular, always convenient, or what we want.  Yet they are trustworthy!  Not because a guy in the Church says so, but because of Our Father in heaven.

Over-the-top picture for purposes of levity

4) As things happen in the world, I wonder how close we are to the end times.  No, really!  I've read Mark Mallett (who's great), Charlie Johnston, and other pings are registering, too.  Charlie is of the opinion that sh-tuff is going to get REAL in 2016 for about a year or so.  I haven't read up on it in a while, but some of the things Charlie said reminded me of what was given to the Medugorje visionaries.   

It's a hard message--if they're correct, what lies ahead is the worst catastrophe in the history of civilization--and I appreciate Mark's and Charlie's take on their predictions: 

a) they submit whole-heartedly to the Catholic Church, the Scriptures, and Sacred Tradition
b) the strongest theme of Mark's writings is hope
c) Charlie isn't fanatical about the instructions he's given.  He merely passes on the message. 
d) both guys repeat and repeat to return to faith in God

Becoming a Dodgers fan is simply
the right thing to do.

5) One of my favorite homilists, Fr. Robert Barron, is now Bishop-Elect Robert Barron!  The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is lucky to have him.  From my time as a seminarian, I developed a new appreciation for the tough job that every bishop has.  They deal with a lot of crap (more than we ever know about), have to fight for the faith not only in the secular world but with their own clergy & chancery, and somehow have to maintain their own spiritual lives in the midst of all that.  

Maybe Bishop-Elect Barron will have to start rooting for the Dodgers, given his new digs... 

6) Ok, back to #4.  That kind of thing has been on my mind a lot lately.  Watching one of Charlie Johnston's latest videos made it sink in even more.  While the best preparation we can do is spiritual, that doesn't mean that we can't materially prepare.  I don't believe it's a violation in trust to prepare a "Get Home Bag" in case I need to walk home from work.  To that list, I'd add a small copy of the Bible, a rosary, and a St. Benedict medal. 

7) Still on #4.  The mentioning of somewhat specific dates by Charlie Johnston ("sometime in 2016" is as detailed as it gets) raises a red flag in some respects.  I have to mull it over some more, and pray about it even more than that; I don't have a reason not to believe him right now.  Even if his messages are wrong, redoubling our dedication to Christ is never out of season!