Remembering Jonas Panik

A fine young man whose family have been long time members of our parish in Bellefonte, PA is remembered today on the anniversary of his death, by the Washington Post. Share

King of Hungary

The last courageous attempts of Blessed Emperor Charles, King of Hungary, to rally his people amid the onslaught of the socialistic, atheistic New World Order. Share

How Facebook Can Ruin Friendships

Some people are bothered by hearing all the details. It is so easy to press the "hide" button or use the partial profile settings rather than shun someone completely over a trifle. Facebook should not become a way of hurting people but unfortunately it has. Discretion is called for, not pettiness. Share

Wedding Gowns

For those planning a wedding, here are some gowns which are exceptionally elegant. Share

Part III: Piety the Just Gift

A continuation of the discussion of the sometimes despised and often forgotten gift of piety.

Piety the Just Gift
by Mary Lanser

St. Thomas Aquinas, among others, teaches that the gift of piety perfects the virtue of justice. This synergistic relationship between piety and justice comes down to us through the ages from both classical ethics and Christian morality, although the interaction is distinctly different in each system respectively.

Socrates, in his dialogue with Euthyphro, turns his entire argument on the virtue of piety in itself. The discussion of piety in itself, as opposed to pious things, finally helps us to realize that there is indeed a middle ground between relativistic justice, and justice as a rigid universal moral virtue with respect to one's duty to the gods and family and state. [Plato] There is a natural balance in a good life that is pleasing to the gods and that keeps man, his family and his community from tearing apart from the stresses of polarized extremes.

So we can say that justice as an acquired or natural virtue often concerns keeping the passions in check so that we do not allow baser instincts to blind us to what is right and what is true in any situation requiring that we choose or discriminate among various thoughts, words or deeds. In this way piety, as a known duty to ones gods, family and country, encourages or promotes just words and deeds.

St. Peter of Damaskos cites St. Dionysios the Areopagite, in The Divine Names as saying that God is praised through justice. [The Divine Names VIII, 7, P.G.iii, 893D] And St. Peter says that this is indeed true because “...justice is sometimes called discrimination: it establishes the just mean in every undertaking, so that there will be no falling short...or excess.” [Philokalia, Vol. 3, p.258] In this understanding of justice, it also appears that balance is a desirous outcome for the two virtues of piety and justice.

However we must remember that Plato's gods warred among themselves, and visited evil upon mankind, and unjustly abused mankind, as often as they bestowed goodness. In Plato's world the gods were the source of both good and evil. In the world of classical Greek and Rome, a balanced life hopes to mark out a path between most unforgiving extremes of good and evil, justice and injustice, piety and impiety.

However, for St. Dionysios, as it is for all Christians, God is the source of all goodness. God is never seen as the source of evil at all, in any form or fashion. Balance is not at all the desired outcome of leading a virtuous life in Christian terms. The desired outcome for a Christian life quite simply put is the beatific vision. So that all that we do and all that we are must be directed toward that end, by faith, in the hope that we may be granted the grace of union with the divine and the beatific vision.

In The Divine Names, St. Dionysios said:

Again the title Righteousness is given to God because he assigns what is appropriate to all things; He distributes their due proportion, beauty, rank, arrangement, their proper and fitting place and order according to a most just and righteous determination. He is the cause of their individual activity. It is the righteousness of God which orders everything...it gives the appropriate and deserved qualities to everything and that it preserves the nature of each being in its due order and power. [The Divine Names, VIII, 7]

Rather than seeking a life in balance, the Christian seeks to discover the right order in Creation, by the power of the Holy Spirit, through the guidance of Scripture and life in the Body of Christ, the Church. It is the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit in our lives that makes it possible for us to be able to discern rightly, to comprehend revealed truth, and to live lives of self-discipline and self-control. It is in this way that the fathers and the tradition of the Church can teach that “piety perfects justice.” Without the divine grace to obtain perfect justice or what is also called infused justice, then we would never be able to even begin to see Creation as God see is. We would never begin to be able to have a creatures share in the divine life.

"God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!'" (Gal 4:6). "All who are led by the Spirit are children of God... It is that very Spirit bearing witness to our spirit that we are children of God" (Rm 8:14, 16). The words of the Apostle Paul remind us that the fundamental gift of the Spirit is sanctifying grace (gratia gratum faciens), with which we receive the theological virtues—faith, hope and charity—and all the infused virtues (virtutes infusae), which enable us to act under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Unlike the charisms, which are bestowed for the service of others, these gifts are offered to all, because they are intended to lead the person to sanctity and perfection. [JPII, "Letter to Priests, For Holy Thursday" 1998]

Piety does not merely influence or prompt justice or set a balanced path between two extremes. Piety perfects justice in that it divinely empowers us to discern what God intends as the right order of all Creation. The ability to turn our will to the rightly ordered divine will is the hoped for result of the perfection of justice. It is the purpose of the divine gift of piety or reverence that we have the necessary spiritual tools that will enable us to know the mind of God, for as we read in the book of the Prophet Isaiah 5:20 "Woe to those who call evil good, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter."

To quote from Luke 18 (Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition):

2...There was a judge in a certain city, who feared not God, nor regarded man. 3 And there was a certain widow in that city, and she came to him, saying: Avenge me of my adversary. 4 And he would not for a long time. But afterwards he said within himself: Although I fear not God, nor regard man,5 Yet because this widow is troublesome to me, I will avenge her, lest continually coming she weary me. 6 And the Lord said: Hear what the unjust judge saith. 7 And will not God revenge his elect who cry to him day and night: and will he have patience in their regard? 8 I say to you, that he will quickly revenge them. But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth?

It is by the power of the Holy Spirit that it is possible for any of us at all to have faith. God, the Just Judge, has given us all that we need to attain the ultimate end of every soul in everlasting life, a share in the divine life in the presence of the beatific vision. Such a sublime justice!! Glory to God for all things!

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Evangeline

Evangeline, Longfellow's epic poem of undying love and fidelity, made a deep impression upon me as a young person. I used to walk through the woods surrounding my parents' house thinking to myself, "This is the forest primeval," although it was far from being a "forest primeval" but an old cow pasture all overgrown. Nevertheless, Longfellow's poetry has a way of resonating in youthful minds and hearts, as well as with those who are not so young. Here is the Introduction:

THIS is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it
Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman?
Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers --

Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,
Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?
Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed!
Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October
Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean.
Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pre.
Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient,
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devotion,
List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest;
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy.

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The Case for Charter Schools

Heidi Saxton shares some thoughts and experiences. Share

Baking Soda

Is it a forgotten remedy for influenza?

In today’s modern world of medicine the FDA just will not let companies that sell products make medical claims about them unless they have been tested at great expense, and approved as a drug. But this was not always the case.
In a 1924 booklet published by the Arm & Hammer Soda Company, the company starts off saying, “The proven value of Arm & Hammer Bicarbonate of Soda as a therapeutic agent is further evinced by the following evidence of a prominent physician named Dr. Volney S. Cheney, in a letter to the Church & Dwight Company:
“In 1918 and 1919 while fighting the ‘Flu’ with the U. S. Public Health Service it was brought to my attention that rarely any one who had been thoroughly alkalinized with bicarbonate of soda contracted the disease, and those who did contract it, if alkalinized early, would invariably have mild attacks.”
Recommended dosages from the Arm and Hammer Company for colds and influenza back in 1925 were:

• During the first day take six doses of half teaspoonful of Bicarbonate of Soda in glass of cool water, at about two hour intervals
• During the second day take four doses of half teaspoonful of Bicarbonate of Soda in glass of cool water, at the same intervals
• During the third day take two doses of half teaspoonful of Bicarbonate of Soda in glass of cool water morning and evening, and thereafter half teaspoonful in glass of cool water each morning until cold is cured.

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Part II: Piety the Savory Gift

Here is a continuation of the article on piety by guest blogger Mary Lanser:

Piety the Savory Gift
by Mary Lanser

By the power of the Holy Spirit, in our sacramental initiation in Christ, we become savory citizens of the Kingdom of heaven, called to live and teach the Kingdom of God, here and now as we live in this life. In describing this reality for us, Jesus calls us “salt of the earth” and leaves us with a sacramental Church by which we are able to open our minds and will to the counsel and advocacy of the Holy Spirit.

According to Matthew 5:13-16:

"Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."

So then how do we “let our light shine” so as to glorify the Father in heaven? Let us go back to Isaiah and point out that in the scriptural list of spirated gifts there are two mentions of fear: 1) Fear of the Lord, and 2) a quick understanding, or delight in the Fear of the Lord. In the RSV Catholic Version the pericope reads as follows: Isaiah 11:3 “And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.”

So the question is in what sense do these two spirations, mentioned in Isaiah11:2-3, translate as piety and fear of the Lord in St. Thomas, with both piety and fear of the Lord having connotations of reverence, godliness, fear, joy or delight, quick understanding, and righteousness?

As we have noted the Beatitudes, from the Sermon on the Mount, hold clues for our understanding of piety and fear of the Lord from Matthew 5:

3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven....
10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.

St. Peter of Damaskos [Philokalia, vol III, p.216-217] tell us that there are two kinds of fear. He begins by telling us that “fear of God which is the first commandment” defeats all eight of the champions of evil,..."while without this fear one cannot possess any blessing...even he who has attained the state of love began with fear, even though he may not know how this initial fear passed from him.”

St. Peter expands on this progression from a servile fear to a filial fear and then notes that the two kinds of fear are introductory fear and perfect fear. Introductory fear is servile fear that moves in obedience toward the good in order to avoid punishment.

An intermediate step, purified fear, is still fear but rather than fearing punishment, we fear our own imperfections will cause us to offend God or lead others into sin. We stumble over bad habits, and cling to small attachments, hoping for the grace to put all aside so as to experience the joy of true union with the Bridegroom.

Perfect fear then, says St. Peter, is the fear of the poor man who keeps all the commandments in love, who has nothing to loose, and fears nothing, not even death. He desires nothing; he fears nothing; he offends no one.

And so we read in Matthew 5:3: “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” St. Peter reminds us that if we are still stumbling along then we may have the consolation of knowing our fear is pure but not yet perfect.

But, if we see too much good in ourselves in this middling state of purity, then we are, according to St. John Klimakos, in a state of “servile prudence,” still lacking in true humility. We can discern what needs to be done but have not yet yielded fully to those habits of mind and body that will allow us to get to where we know we must be.

It is in these middling stages that we are in the greatest need of the gifts of piety and fear of the Lord, for without them we could discern little or nothing of the divine will for us as individuals or in communion, and there would be no real incentive for doing the very difficult work of bringing the mind and body and will into accord with the divine will.

Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D. [Divine Intimacy, p.898] says: “When we cooperate with the action of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, they produce in us fruits of virtue so exquisite that they give us a foretaste of the eternal beatitude...For each gift there is a corresponding beatitude [as in the Beatitudes in Matthew 5]; the beatitude that corresponds with fear is poverty of spirit....”

When referring to true piety, Blessed Diadochus wrote the following, using the didactic formulas of his day:

A brother asked: Who, father, can fulfill all the commandments, when there are so many of them? The elder answered: He who imitates the Lord and follows Him step by step. The brother said: And who can imitate the Lord? The Lord was God, although He also became man, while I am a sinful man, enslaved to innumerable passions. How, then, can I imitate the Lord? The Elder replied: Of those who are enslaved to the world and its vanities, no one can imitate the Lord; but those who can say, "Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee" (Matthew 19:27), receive the power to imitate the Lord and are directed by all His commandments.

The brother said: But, father, the Lord's commandments are many, and who can keep all of them in mind, in order to struggle for them all, especially I, a man of little mind? - Which is why I would like to hear a brief word, in order to further my own salvation by keeping it. The Elder replied: Although many are the commandments, nevertheless they all are combined in one saying: "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself" (Luke 10:27). Those struggling to keep this saying perform all the commandments at once. But, whoever does not renounce every predilection for the material cannot love either God or his neighbor in a real way. “ Blessed Diadochus [see link for more information on Blessed Diadochus]

So you see here it is no small task to “offend no one” for in order to truly offend no one we must first cease in offending God by keeping his commandments, and we manage to do that in striving for absolute detachment from the material world, and also in the offering of our intellect and soul to the movements of the divine will.

Father Gabriel [Divine Intimacy, p. 899] is also instructive in reminding us of the fullest extent of our need from detachment to things of our own will, as well as from things of the world:

Poverty of spirit includes detachment not only from material goods, but also from moral and even spiritual goods. Whoever tries to assert his own personality,seeking the esteem and regard of creatures, who remains attached to his own will and ideas, or is too fond of his own independence, is not poor in spirit, but is rich in himself....

Again St. Peter of Damaskos [Philokalia, vol III, p.218-219] addresses piety directly and says: “In its Greek form, the term true piety comes from a word meaning to serve well.” This idea of piety as reverence and service to God implies that a sense of duty is inherent in the gift of piety.

We are bound by grace and reason, in the service of faith, to the fulfillment of our own apostolic evangelical charge to bring forth the Kingdom of God on earth. The inspired power of the gift of piety prepares us to do just that by thought, by word, by deed, and by the very fact of our being the adopted sons and daughters of God, as we are baptized into Christ.

In the east the newly initiated Christians are also referred to the "Newly Illuminated in Christ" and that is precisely because of the movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Very early in the life of the Church, in Book 3, Chapter 17 of Against Heresies, St. Irenaeus of Lyon affirms the movement of the Holy Spirit in Christ, and through Christ into the world, and particularly into the Church. His work here was to affirm the Incarnate Christ, true God, true Man, and to affirm the presence of the Holy Spirit, particularly in the Church. Here he too mentions the passage in Isaiah and the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit:

....but that the dew, which is the Spirit of God, who descended upon the Lord, should be diffused throughout all the earth, “the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and piety, the spirit of the fear of God.” [ Isa. xi. 2]

This Spirit, again, He did confer upon the Church, sending throughout all the world the Comforter from heaven, from whence also the Lord tells us that the devil, like lightning, was cast down [Luke x. 18]. Wherefore we have need of the dew of God, that we be not consumed by fire, nor be rendered unfruitful, and that where we have an accuser there we may have also an Advocate, [ 1 John ii. 1] the Lord commending to the Holy Spirit His own man, Suum hominem, i.e., the human race, who had fallen among thieves, [Luke x. 35] whom He Himself compassionated, and bound up his wounds....

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