What Catholics believe about Mary

To understand something of what Catholics believe about Mary, listen to this carol and absorb its words. This modern piece is called The Shepherd's Carol - "We stood on the Hills, Lady."

The King's Singers capture beautifully the atmosphere of the first Christmas. Listen and watch.

We find the carol addresses Mary, but the focus is on the Christ: "I am the Lord's servant. May it be done to me as you have said", she told the angel Gabriel. And so we can praise Mary, in all her humility, for accepting the role of mother of God so that Elizabeth could hail her with: "Blessed are you among women!" 

Here is the text of the poem by English-born Tasmanian poet and playwright Clive Sansom (died 1981) that was transformed into song by the music of choral maestro Bob Chilcott.

The Shepherd's Carol

We stood on the hills, Lady,

Our day’s work done,

Watching the frosted meadows

That winter had won.

The evening was calm, Lady,

The air so still,

Silence more lovely than music

Folded the hill.

There was a star, Lady,

Shone in the night,

Larger than Venus it was

And bright, so bright.

Oh, a voice from the sky, Lady,

It seemed to us then

Telling of God being born

In the world of men.

And so we have come, Lady,

Our day’s work done,

Our love, our hopes, ourselves,

We give to your son.

 Another poem that is a favourite for meditative consideration at Christmas is this by T S Eliot:

Journey of the Magi

“A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year

For a journey, and such a long journey:

The ways deep and the weather sharp,

The very dead of winter.”

And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,

Lying down in the melting snow.

There were times we regretted

The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,

And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

Then the camel men cursing and grumbling

And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,

And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,

And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly

And the villages dirty and charging high prices:

A hard time we had of it.

At the end we preferred to travel all night,

Sleeping in snatches,

With the voices singing in our ears, saying

That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,

Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;

With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,

And three trees on the low sky,

And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.

Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,

Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,

And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.

But there was no information, and so we continued

And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon

Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,

And I would do it again, but set down

This set down

This: were we led all that way for

Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,

We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,

But had thought they were different; this Birth was

Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,

But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

With an alien people clutching their gods.

I should be glad of another death.

Eliot's work is always complex, but a little study bears great fruit for the heart. I tapped into LitCharts to help understand Eliot's revelation as to how death is also linked to Jesus' birth. There are also many analyses of this poem on YouTube.

Elsewhere we read:

In the last twelve lines we learn that the kings were deeply affected and changed by their experience. The birth of Christ heralds the start of a new order and new truth, and yet the kings have to return to their kingdoms and to ‘an alien people clutching their gods’.

 Go here, low on the web page, to listen to a recitation of this poem.

Enjoy the insights music and voice can offer as we make our spiritual journey through this rich seasonal landscape.

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Jesus is not fiction like Santa Claus

A modern interpretation of a true event                                 From David Lindsley's Birth of Jesus Christ

A Christmas wager is renewed! We'll learn more about that later. But first...

Christmas is a time to go back to the basics about why we celebrate. The key Christian understanding of Christmas is this, that God so loved humanity that he sent his one and only son, who is part of the godhead - the one God - so that we might not perish entrapped in evil but by knowing God and believing in him share abundant life with him for eternity. 

This coming of God to earth was done by taking on the human nature of the man called Jesus, raised in the town of Nazareth, in Israel, so that there was one man with two natures, the human and the divine. Jesus showed in many ways, but mainly by his curing the sick and raising some who had died, that he was God's "anointed one" - in Greek Christos - promised to the Hebrews as their redeemer and saviour. In history, Jesus is unique in that he claimed to be God and demonstrated by his actions that he is God. 

Despite the amazing event that is the first Christmas, and the subsequent demonstration of the love of God, in what seems a remarkably short time, the young members of the Christ-inspired Western civilisation, have forgotten or wish not to acknowledge, that the existence of Jesus is a historical fact, a real person of history, not of legend, a person who every self-respecting person needs to make a judgment as to whether he was a lunatic, a fraud or truly God. When we accept the third of the "trilemma" we are led to freely surrender our will - "not my will but your's be done" - knowing that in return we are offered life in to the full.

Certainty about the historicity of Jesus led John Dickson, an author, historian, and an academic at Oxford University,  to make an unusual wager. He explains:

In 2014, in a rush of blood to the head, I offered a cheeky bet, first on Twitter and then in an article for [Australia's] ABC: I will eat a page out of my Bible if someone can find a full professor of Ancient History, Classics, or New Testament in any real university in the world who argues that Jesus never lived. My Bible has been safe these last seven years. Professors of philosophy, sure. professors of English literature or German language, yes. But no professor in the relevant fields has yet been named.

Maybe such a scholar exists somewhere. There are thousands to choose from. So I have the first chapter of Matthew’s Gospel (which recounts Jesus’s birth) primed. I’m willing to rip it out, cut it up, and eat it with my Christmas pudding. But in the meantime, I will be lamenting not just the growing scepticism in Australia toward Christianity but also our declining historical literacy.

He is referring to the results just out of a study on the beliefs of Australians, the findings of which obviously depress him given the knowledge available. Dickson holds a PhD in Ancient History from Australia's Macquarie University and is a Visiting Academic (2016-2022) in the Faculty of Classics at the University of Oxford. He is also the presenter of the podcast Undeceptions.

The study by the Church-linked NCLS Research team found:

In late 2021, only half of Australians (49%) view Jesus as a real person who actually lived. Nearly a quarter (23%) of Australians see Jesus as a mythical or fictional character. Around one in three (29%) don't know. 

The age gap in historical literacy was clear: 

Six in 10 Australians aged 65 years and over understand Jesus to be a real person who actually lived. With decreasing age, this figure declines to only four in 10 Australians aged between 18 and 35 years. Nearly the same proportion of this younger age group (36%) said they did not know about Jesus. Similar proportions across age groups (19% to 25%) claimed that Jesus was a mythical or fictional character. 

Women are willing to acknowledge some depth of understanding about Jesus:

Women were more likely than men to say that Jesus was a real person who actually lived (52% vs 46%). Men (27%) were much more likely than women (17%) to assert that Jesus was mythical or fictional. Similar proportions said they did not know (31% women; 27% men).

Dickson responds to the depressing statistics:

This is, obviously, terrible news for Christianity in Australia. One of the unique selling points of the Christian faith — in the minds of believers — is that it centres on real events that occurred in time and space. Christianity is not based on someone’s solitary dream or private vision. It isn’t merely a divine dictation in a holy book that has to be believed with blind faith. Jesus was a real person, “crucified under Pontius Pilate”, the fifth governor of Judea, as the Apostles’ Creed puts it. It seems many Australians really don’t agree.

But, frankly, this new survey is also bad news for historical literacy. This reported majority view is not shared by the overwhelming consensus of university historians specialising in the Roman and Jewish worlds of the first century. If Jesus is a “mythical or fictional character”, that news has not yet reached the standard compendiums of secular historical scholarship.

Take the famous single-volume Oxford Classical Dictionary. Every classicist has it on their bookshelf. It summarises scholarship on all things Greek and Roman in just over 1,700 pages. There is a multiple page entry on the origins of Christianity that begins with an assessment of what may be reliably known about Jesus of Nazareth. Readers will discover that no doubts at all are raised about the basic facts of Jesus’s life and death.

Or take the much larger Cambridge Ancient History in 14 volumes. Volume 10 covers the “Augustan Period”, right about the time that Tiberius, Livia, Pliny the Elder, and — yes — Jesus all lived. It has a sizeable chapter on the birth of Christianity. The entry begins with a couple of pages outlining what is known of Jesus’ life and death, including his preaching of the kingdom of God, his fraternising with sinners, and so on. No doubts are raised about the authenticity of these core elements.

Not wanting to labour the point, but we could also turn to the compendium of Jewish history, the Cambridge History of Judaism in four volumes. Volume 3 covers the “Early Roman Period”. Several different chapters refer to Jesus in passing as an interesting figure of Jewish history. One chapter — 60 pages in length — focuses entirely on Jesus and is written by two leading scholars, neither of whom has qualms dismissing bits of the New Testament when they think the evidence is against it.

The chapter offers a first-rate account of what experts currently think about the historical Jesus. His teaching, fame as a healer, openness to sinners, selection of “the twelve” (apostles), prophetic actions (like cleansing the temple), clashes with elites, and, of course, and his death on a cross are all treated as beyond reasonable doubt. The authors do not tackle the resurrection (unsurprisingly), but they do acknowledge, as a matter of historical fact, that the first disciples of Jesus “were absolutely convinced that Jesus of Nazareth had been raised and was Lord and that numerous of them were certain that he had appeared to them”. 

There is a reason for this consensus. When you apply the normal rules of history to Jesus of Nazareth, this figure is plainly a historical one not a mythical one. The early and diverse sources we have put his existence (and much more) beyond reasonable doubt. Perhaps only 49 per cent of Australians reckon “Jesus was a real person”, but I wager [again] that 99 per cent of professional ancient historians — atheist, Christian, Jewish, or whatever — would agree with this minority view.

Given the scepticism about Christian beliefs that erupts every Christmas with articles querying this or that element of the description of Jesus' birth, making little distinction between the essentials such as the miracle of Mary's birth of Jesus without losing her virginity, and the peripheral, such as the account of a star guiding wise foreigners to the place of the nativity, and the general lack of a Christian education to counter that media spin, it is no wonder that the post-Christian young people repeat what they have read or heard.

A linked finding from NCLS Research was that: "Some 22% of Australians reported attending religious services in 2019; falling to 16% in 2020, and returning to 21% in 2021." Though latest figures show an increase in regular attendance from 18 per cent in 2016, they could be affected by the religious activity of non-Christians. 

So Dickson's "cheeky bet" still stands as a challenge to all and sundry to find a reputable scholar in the relevant fields who does not acknowledge the historical reality of Jesus Christ, who was active, according to Luke's account of the life and works of Christ, under the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and  Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas. Secular historians Josephus (Jewish) and Tacitus (Roman) add their weight in detailing Jesus' life and crucifixion. 

Enjoy Christmas with the knowledge that the baby we remember at this time was a real person and remains a real person who is both man and God, someone we can talk to, knowing he understands us and has the divine power as our creator to raise us in our weakness and to fill us with his spirit of love.

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Christmas 2021: What's the good news?

Victory for humanity in history will come from outside history                  Photo by Burkay Canatar

The sweep of history tells us that there is no victory to be had, that humanity is never going to live in triumphant enchantment, that all the striving and strife is going to end in defeat. This view is supported by the Christian perspective, that “the world in its present form is passing away” (1 Corinthians 7:31). It also underlies the stance taken in his works by JRR Tolkien, an authority on world literatures, and the writer of  The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

“I am a Christian”, Tolkien wrote, “and indeed a Roman Catholic, so that I do not expect ‘history’ to be anything but a ‘long defeat’ — though it contains (and in a legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory.” 

However, any victory for humanity in history will come from outside history, writes Conor Sweeney, an author and academic, in a Christmas-time essay offering solace to all those "tested by a pandemic and escalating social and political upheavals and polarisations that show little sign of abating". He concedes that even in the Church there is little relief.

The good news is this: "I still believe that it remains true that there is an anchor, one existential touchpoint that still has the capacity to ground and transform us when all else seems vanity, corruption, and quicksand."

Sweeney spells it out: 

[...] it’s not an idea but only a relation to a person and an event that can save us. Amidst all the noise and confusion, the only real anchor that remains within our possession that cannot be taken from us, either by ruler or cleric, the only one strong enough to see us through any crisis, is Christ.

He is talking about the Christ of Christmas, God made man:

By “Christ”, I don’t mean the God who is “out there” to whom we might pray or bargain with from time to time for deliverance or for justification for our endeavours. I don’t mean a man who is the best moral example and inspiration there ever was. I don’t mean the Christ of the “system” or the “cause” — an extrinsic Christ who is merely a capstone or afterthought to an anthropology that wants to make “nature” or “substance” determinative; the bourgeois Christ who supports the Empire, who golfs with the Pharaoh, and who underwrites our belief that conquest, security, and wealth are next to godliness; the “woke” Christ, the “ally” who affirms my expressivist search for authenticity and emancipation (and forces everyone else to affirm it).

Rather, I mean Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Crucified, who is only truly encountered and recognised in immersion in the font and the breaking of the bread. I mean that Christ who by baptism and the Eucharist becomes the personal and existential measure of my entire existence, destroying death and casting down the idols that I surround myself with. I mean the Christ who now “lives in me” (Galatians 2:20) so that my existence and my relationships are no longer natural, neutral, secular, or autonomous.

I mean the Christ “who loved me and gave himself for me”, the one who calls me to join him not just in his Resurrection but on the Cross; to join my flesh to his and so to enter into the cosmic battle between good and evil and to have that battleground become the new theatre of my existence. I mean all of this according to a realism in which all of this is really — that is to say, sacramentally — true; true, even when both world and Church go down the toilet. 

The "theatre of my existence" recalls the option each of has in life to live either according to the demands of a mundane self-directed "ego-drama" or to those within a heightened and meaningful "theo-drama". For more on this aspect of the challenge that Christmas offers us, go to this video. 

The breathtaking wonder that Christmas engenders is highlighted in Sweeney's soaring words:

To be sure, the Christ of baptism is also the Cosmic Christ, the source, archetype, and fulfilment of created being and the pinnacle of human wisdom. He is also the Christ of the Beatitudes, who sides with victims, calls out oppression and oppressors, preaches justice and love of the poor, who is thoroughly consistent with the ethical radicalism begun in the Old Covenant.

But all of this flows from and is contingent on who he is as the Son of God who comes do the will of his Father — the Father who wills that “all men be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4) that they be forgiven, sanctified, redeemed so that they may abide in his love. He is the Son whose primary mission is to pour God’s love into our hearts by the Spirit (Romans 5:5). Why? So that we might abide with him eternally in his communion with the Father and the Spirit. This mission of love, accomplished in his Passion and death, is communicated to us by water and Spirit (John 3:5), filling us with a divine love that allows us a share in Christ’s relation to the Father as Son.

The point here is that by baptism we are existentially and sacramentally “attached” to divinity. Animated by a Christological and eschatological current pulsing in our hearts and through our bodies, we set out on a life of conversion, holiness, and mission. But without connection to this current drawing us to its source, any good we may seek to do, even in the name of Christ, will become vanity and idolatry: “If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned” (John 15:6).

And so the Christ of baptism tells us: “abide in my love” (John 15:9); “love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12). This Christ prays to the Father that “the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:26). Accordingly, he exhorts us to “worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24), and says “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15), and “the truth will set you free” (John 8:31). He instructs us to “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11). He says that “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53). 

 In short, without an ongoing personal and existential abiding in and attachment to Christ, how easily the best can become the worst. How easily the Christ of baptism can become the Christ of institution, empire, or zeitgeist. 

To be attentive to the Christ of baptism, however, is to realise that everything that we “do” is just more flailing, more noise, more ideology, or more virtue signalling if it’s not informed, shaped, and purified by the theological perception of and participation in the victory that has already begun in our flesh.

But by this I don’t mean to present baptism as some magical solution to our crisis. In fact, it turns out to be quite the opposite: why, after all, does St. Paul tell us to “put on the whole armour of God” — the “breastplate of righteousness”, the “equipment of the gospel of peace”, the “helmet of salvation”, and the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:13-17)? For baptism compels a reckoning with the deepest and darkest depths and costliness of the long defeat, insofar as through it we join Christ in his epic confrontation with the principalities and powers. If baptism is sharing in Christ’s relation to the Father, it’s also sharing in his battle with the Evil One.

Here we have it in Sweeney's words - where the "good news" of Christmas arises: 

Without a doubt, of course, in the most absolute terms, the gift of the Son is good news. The incarnation, death, and resurrection by which we are elected, adopted, and redeemed, and bought with the price of the death of God’s own Son, has unveiled and shattered evil’s monopoly on life. It directly attacked the social mechanisms and givens of the ancient world with a message of love offered to each and every person. It created what we now take to be the person, the self, or the individual, an infinitely dignified microcosm of the humanum [totality of humanity] destined for eternal life. 

But we are talking about Christmas 2021. Sweeney examines how evil fights back: 

In plotting its revenge, evil, it would appear, is resourceful, for how better to masquerade as truth than to adopt and pervert the vital truths and instincts of Christianity? “The most powerful anti-Christian movement”, states Girard, “is the one that takes over and ‘radicalizes’ the concern for victims in order to paganize it. The powers and principalities want to be ‘revolutionary’ now, and they reproach Christianity for not defending victims with enough ardor.”

The new evil is not the bad guy dressed in black with a scar over one eye, but expressive individualism and emotivism in extremis, the progeny of freedom and desire unbound, bathed in the radiant light of the moral imperative of kindness, driven by a strange and perverse mix of capitalist and Marxist modes.

These are the “apocalyptic” conditions within which we must contest. For the Christian, time itself is ultimately apocalyptic, which is why we are forever pilgrims in this world. After all, says Girard ominously, “Christianity is the only religion that has foreseen its own failure.” Baptism places us directly into the centre of this paradoxical struggle. Rather than being surprised and overly distressed by crisis, perhaps we should count ourselves all the more blessed by the samples and glimpses of joy and peace that we do receive.

Children, our own or others', are one of the blessings from God that stand centre stage at this holy time. An example is the way that the joy that Christmas encapsulates seems to fill the heart of Ruth Jackson, who last Christmas was agonising over the loss of her first child by miscarriage, but this Christmas is delighting in a baby daughter:

The Bible begins with a poetic picture of creation. The garden of Eden is painted as an idyllic place where God draws close to his people. The subsequent narrative arc hints at the destruction of this creation and the damaged relationship between humanity and God. When we arrive at the final book of the Bible, we see hints of Eden’s restoration (Revelation 22).

Revelation 21:4 epitomises this future hope: “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” The God who weeps is portrayed here as so tender that his own hand will wipe the tears from our eyes.

We named our baby girl Eden to serve as a reminder that loss doesn’t have the final word. The name Eden assures us that no matter how broken life seems, there is always hope and ultimate restoration.

When Eden grows and inevitably falls over, I don’t imagine I’ll explain to her why she’s fallen — I’ll likely just pick her up and hold her. Likewise, I’m not sure the Christmas narrative necessarily provides a perfect answer to why we’re suffering, but it does reveal a God who picks us up and holds us close. Who weeps with us, who died for us, and promises that this pain is not forever.  

Read all of Jackson's Christmas musing, "Joy to the world?", here.

Read the full Sweeney article here.

Read, too, this Australian piece on Christmas 2021.  

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War on porn needed. It's a public health crisis!

All so accessible, porn is messing up minds and lives.                                   Photo: Julia M Cameron 

Billie Eilish is the latest to highlight the intense disturbance pornography can cause in young people's minds, in fact, in their life. She said on a radio show she had been addicted to watching porn from the age of 11. It gave her nightmares and spoiled her first dating adventures.

“I think porn is a disgrace. I used to watch a lot of porn, to be honest. I started watching porn when I was, like, 11,” [the] singer said, saying it helped her feel as if she were cool and “one of the guys”.

“I think it really destroyed my brain and I feel incredibly devastated that I was exposed to so much porn,” she added, saying she suffered nightmares because some of the content she watched was so violent and abusive.

The Guardian's report continues:

Eilish, who was homeschooled in Los Angeles and has seven Grammy awards, is known for her often dark lyrics. In the ballad Male Fantasy on her second album Happier Than Ever, she sings about being home alone and distracting herself with pornography as she recalls a broken relationship.

She is now angry at herself for thinking it was OK to watch so much porn.

“The first few times I, you know, had sex, I was not saying no to things that were not good. It was because I thought that’s what I was supposed to be attracted to,” she said.

An online conference on pornography that we will garner more information from in a moment heard that "women do use porn, but often to explore what might be expected of them sexually". In other words, like Eilish, women try to learn how they can comply with the wishes of their male partner.

 Eilish started out in her career preferring baggy clothes, but has since done photo shoots for fashion magazines drawing attention to her body, which shows how messed up young people's thinking can be about how to express one's identity. 

Age ratings and regulated viewing exist in most Western countries up to the present time. This form of censorship and regulation of what individuals can and cannot do is accepted as necessary for the mental well-being of young people especially. Similarly, we have viewer advisories for TV shows to protect viewers from scenes of death or suffering and a lot more.

It's time that pornography be brought fully under control as evidence mounts as to its links to violence against women and to how it perpetuates the West's "hypersexualised culture [that] victimises girls".

Britannica.com states:

The word pornography, derived from the Greek porni (“prostitute”) and graphein (“to write”), was originally defined as any work of art or literature depicting the life of prostitutes.

It goes on:

Pornography [is] representation of sexual behaviour in books, pictures, statues, films, and other media that is intended to cause sexual excitement. The distinction between pornography (illicit and condemned material) and erotica (which is broadly tolerated) is largely subjective and reflects changing community standards. 

The argument that the participants in the acting part of making pornographic material consent to treatment that is inhumane and unbalanced is deeply flawed. The weakness is that any reasonable person would recognise that what is done in hardcore porn is degrading, violent and abusive. Human dignity demands that no person should endure such treatment. Period. 

British anti-porn campaigner Julie Bindel wrote in the Observer in October:

Tackling porn culture is clearly a key part of tackling sexual violence towards women. I have campaigned to end the sex trade for decades, and am well aware of its role in the sexual exploitation of women.

Bindel reported on an international conference that had just been held online:

Taking On Porn: Developing Resilience and Resistance through Sex Education was organised by Culture Reframed, a US-based NGO founded by the academic and anti-porn activist Gail Dines. Part of it focused on how to help parents to have conversations with their children about what Dines calls the “public health crisis of the digital age”. 

Inspired partly by demand from the UK educational world, the conference is responding to concerns from many parents about “pro-porn” programmes running in some schools since relationship and sex education became mandatory in September 2020.

Dines points to one teacher guide that puts forward the argument, “Porn is entertainment, like a film, not a ‘how to’ guide. However, that doesn’t mean people can’t learn things from porn they might not learn in other places. Just as movies can sometimes contain valuable insights, so can porn.” 

But, as Dines points out, today’s online content is nothing like the now defunct Playboy magazine. In short, it has become more sadistic and extreme. One influential study found that about 90% of the most commonly viewed heterosexual porn scenes contained aggression and violence towards women and girls.

Online pornography has become the primary form of sex education for young people, and the average age for kids to start accessing it is 11. Porn sites get more visits each month than Amazon, Twitter and Netflix combined. 

“Many sex ed teachers feel ill equipped to tackle the issue of porn use among their students,” says Dines, the author of Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality. For Dines, [...] porn has become the leading form of sex education globally [...]. She believes that pornography acts as a kind of cultural script, which exploits women and at the same time limits their free sexual expression and pleasure. 

Parents have been telling [the NGO] Culture Reframed about how concerned they feel about their children’s viewing of porn, with one saying: “My daughter was bullied into sending a sext by her boyfriend, who then sent it to his friends. Culture Reframed’s online resources not only gave us the ability to help her, but also gave us insights into the ways our hypersexualised culture victimises girls.” 

 Another expert who took part in the conference was Tom Farr, a UK-based campaigner against male violence. Bindel reports his contribution in this way:

“Porn has become the de facto form of sex education for many young men and boys,” says Farr. “They have unfettered access to the most degrading, violent and abusive content imaginable at the click of a button. What are the individual and societal implications of a generation of young people groomed by exposure to hardcore porn?”

The exploitation of women using money as the means of entrapment has the same characteristics as the exploitation of farm workers in many parts of the world; many vulnerable people taken advantage of for the generation of wealth for the few.

Bindel concludes:

Like other feminist campaigners against the sex trade, Dines has been accused of being an anti-sex moralist who wishes to censor sexual expression, but, she says, nothing could be further from the truth. “Any progressive, humanitarian approach should focus on dismantling the porn industry,” says Dines, “and not the continuation of its insidious commercialisation of abuse and misery.”

Create the culture before the crisis

Rebecca Nicholson, a columnist for the Observer and the Guardian continues the conversation about what to do to protect young people from porn, pointing out that it is readily accessible and socially acceptable. She provides this information:

The statistics about the age at which children first see pornography online, and the speed at which watching porn becomes normalised, particularly for teenage boys, make for grim reading. In 2019, the British Board of Film Classification commissioned a survey that suggested 51% of 11 to 13-year-olds had seen pornography online. In the majority of cases, this was accidental, and for younger children, in particular, it was traumatic. The study also revealed a disparity between what parents and children understood about the culture of sexual content: only 25% of the parents surveyed thought their child had seen pornography online, while 63% of those parents’ children said that they had seen it.

 The facts are plain, whether they are palatable or not: pornography is easy to access, and is very likely to be seen by those far below any age restrictions, which are hard, if not impossible, to enforce. Also last week, the children’s commissioner for England, Dame Rachel de Souza, urged parents to “talk early, and talk often” to children about pornography and sexual harassment. She acknowledged that the conversation can be hard, but advised that parents and carers should “create the culture before the crisis. Children want to talk to their parents and carers about this. We know this because they’ve told us,” she said.

Immediately, therefore, parents should talk to their children about the dangers of watching pornography in order to preserve their balance, to answer questions on what might be the stuff of nightmares, and to prevent dysfunction as dating begins. 

Parents must also limit use of smart devices in their household. In this, it is imperative that parents model their own ability to disengage from the internet and to engage with family members.  

Arising from pushback by pro-porn advocates to what was in effect Eilish's plea for collective action on porn, Nicholson also points out that society does have a role. She writes:

There was a small ripple of backlash to what Eilish had to say, from pro-porn advocates who argued that she was treating all pornography as the same “bad” sort. I’m not sure that she should have had to assess the ethics of types of sexual content at that age, but what matters is that we listen to what she has to say, at 19, about her experiences of easily accessible and socially acceptable viewing of pornography. 

How could a child of 11 or thereabouts make any kind of judgments when seeing shocking things done to women on porn sites? Nicholson appears to add her voice to the clamor for statutory action to limit accessibility online - in the absence of self-imposed checks on access - and to rein in the industry for the sake of the women being abused, even if those women have given consent to that abuse. The similarity of situations to that of violence in the home is compelling.

Ω See also:

High screen use, low life satisfaction

Tech giants sell spiritual opium 

Ω If you like this blog, go to my Peace and Truth newsletter on Substack, where you can subscribe for free and be notified when a new post is published. 

How to shape the world for families

The flow of human life is being disrupted        Photo credit: Kate Morgan

Shaping the world to enable families to thrive is a fresh task because the previous conditions, and mindset, that surrounded this core of our existence have eroded, leaving couples in an exposed position, especially by way of a lack of societal support. 

Journalist Kate Morgan tackles this issue head on in a feature article published in the BBC's Worklife Family Tree series. The headline on this long piece is "Is parenting scarier than ever?" Morgan begins her deep dive this way:

When 37-year-old Heather Marcoux was expecting her son several years ago, she and her husband assumed it’d be the first of multiple pregnancies.

“We certainly thought we’d have more than one,” says Marcoux, who lives in Alberta, Canada. But today, the parents are very clear that their now-primary-school-aged son will never have a sibling. “We can offer our one child a pretty good standard of living,” she says. “But if we added any more kids, it would go down significantly.” 

It’s in part a financial decision; even with Marcoux and her husband’s incomes combined, childcare is a struggle, and saving in any significant way is impossible. But it also has to do with a lack of support and doubt about the future.

“I feel like another child would be a burden we just could not handle,” says Marcoux. “Nobody wants to think of their growing family as a burden. That’s messed up to even say. But some days we just think it feels so impossible what we’re trying to do with one. How could we make [our day-to-day lives] work with more? Some family members are disappointed by our choice, but the world is just different now.” 

Morgan spells out specific factors that are at the forefront of the concerns of prospective parents.

They are:

• Financial stability is more difficult to achieve than ever.
• Home ownership is all but a pipe dream. 
• Political and civil unrest is rampant across the world
• The climate is in crisis. 

"It’s easy to adopt a dismal view of the future," Morgan writes, and quotes an expert on fertility:

“The central explanation is the rise of uncertainty,” Daniele Vignoli, professor of demography at the University of Florence, said in his keynote address at a research workshop hosted on Zoom by the European University Institute. “The increasing speed, dynamics and volatility” of change on numerous fronts, he explains, “make it increasingly difficult for individuals to predict their future”. 

Therefore, we are being compelled by the circumstances of the world around us to shape the future to be more hospitable and reliable.

As in my previous post, on Elon Musk's call for more children so as to prevent our civilisation from crumbling—his words, I want to dwell on those factors that need attention by the whole "village" in order to foster conditions where new life can be welcomed in a family.

Jobs

Morgan cites this finding:

A 2019 US study showed the loss of certain jobs, including manufacturing, had a greater impact than overall unemployment on total fertility rate

Secondly: 

The rise of gig work and shift work – jobs that don’t generally come with family benefits, like childcare or healthcare in privatised countries – also creates questions around future stability, and influences decision-making around parenting.

Reforms must include statutory protection of unions and of gig workers by way of embedding their status as employees rather than contractors or the like. Some form of a universal basic income would be a boon for family security.

Housing

Morgan reports: 

A recent study by researchers at the Centre for Population Change at the University of Southampton, UK, showed the usual assumption that people would own a home before having children – one that was backed up by data until about 2012 – no longer holds true. In fact, financial realities may now mean young people have to choose between owning a home or having one or more children.

“This disconnection between owning a home and becoming a parent has significant implications for parenthood in general,” said lead researcher Professor Ann Berrington in a press release. “If it is the case, as we propose, that homeownership is increasingly competing with the costs of having children, then it is likely that those who do manage to buy a home might well postpone or even forego having children.” 

Marcoux says the pressures of paying a mortgage and maintaining a home are part of the reason she won’t have more children. It’s scary, she says, to think that something catastrophic could happen and throw the family into financial crisis. 

Reform should come in the form of public provision of basic housing after the example of Singapore's pragmatic government, which has set itself the goal of providing 23,000 apartments each year, aimed particularly for the needs of its young population which have been facing rising housing costs.

Planning 35pc increase in apartments yearly. Photo: Straits Times

This kind of targeted effort is what an Economist reviewer accepts as "arresting" and "compelling" in the arguments presented in economist Mariana Mazzucato's 2021 book Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism.

Mazzacato, a professor at University College London, has become a leading voice in the swelling call for governments to identify missions that will benefit their citizens and provide the resources to accomplish the necessary goals. Just as governments are being pushed into underwriting measures to combat global warming, so to they can use their powers of oversight to remove causes of fear surrounding family life.  

From the Economist review: 

State projects can certainly go wrong, but there is no mistaking the vital role governments played in facilitating the development of rich economies. Conversely, the weakening of state capacity—to provide badly needed infrastructure and basic services, educate citizens, root out corruption, and so on—has hurt America’s dynamism and the welfare of its people. [Also] there is no shortage of daunting global problems in need of solving; Ms Mazzucato singles out the fight against climate change, campaigns to improve public health and efforts to narrow the digital divide.

Social division

In her article, Morgan draws on the experience of Marcoux a lot, but she has also compiled research findings that collaborate that experience. Therefore, I think it important to tap into that first-hand account of what it is like being a prospective parent these days.

On the lack of community support for parents:

Marcoux also feels divisiveness impacts people at the neighbourhood level, too. There’s a lack of community, she says, that makes parenting a lot harder – and lonelier – than it used to be. “When I was a kid in the early 1990s, all the moms on the block were stay-at-home-moms. Everybody was always around, you knew your neighbours and you had community support,” she says.

Marcoux says she doesn’t feel that support, and being isolated in her own community adds to the fears of modern parenting. In one 2018 study, two-thirds of US millennials surveyed reported feeling disconnected from their communities – unfortunate findings, considering social ties are one of the strongest predictors of happiness.

“We don’t even know our neighbours. I think community has really eroded,” says Marcoux. “And now, especially, the political issues are really coming to the fore and some people are losing relationships with people we might’ve counted on in the past, because our beliefs, morals and ethics are just not compatible.” 

Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community is a 2000 nonfiction book by Robert D. Putnam. "He argues that civic life is collapsing - that Americans aren't joining, as they once did, the groups and clubs that promote trust and cooperation. This undermines democracy, he says. We are "bowling alone"; since 1980, league bowling has dropped 40 percent."

The individualism of Western societies, which involves competitiveness, and the hardening of one's heart, has been much commented upon since Putnam's study came out. Though generosity of the money kind abounds, the sharing of time, the willingness to identify onself with a community, and an extended tolerance of differences have faded from civic mores. This is all very obvious in the case of church affiliation. It is apparent that people want to be left alone to do their own thing, the level of morality sinks, and social dis-ease is the outcome.

Such a paucity of community spirit takes a long time to develop but if the wound is left to fester the rot sets in. However, a "mission" mentality for the reform of hearts and minds in this sphere of life can be jet-propelled into existence if a critical mass roar "enough is enough" and the moral challenge is accepted by each community.  

Some optimism 

Kate Morgan wrote her article on parenting in light of the uncertainty in the world around her, but she concludes by offering some reasons to have a joyful persective. In her own words:

As I write this, my own first child squirms and hiccups inside me. I’ve had a blessedly uncomplicated pregnancy, physically speaking, but mentally and emotionally, I’m knee-deep in murky, mixed-up feelings about impending parenthood.

I thought that, at 31, I’d be in a different place financially. My student loans aren’t paid off, and, barring major legislative action, I’ll likely keep carrying them around until my kid is in kindergarten, at least. I live in rural Pennsylvania, US, where the cost of living is low and I have easy access to healthy, affordable local food. But my home is rented, I’m far from my family, and while I have a loving community of neighbours, it’s tough to shake the feeling of impermanence. I am anxious about birthing a child into a pandemic, and into a country where the political peace feels – to me – tenuous. I am anxious about so many things.

Overpowering the fear is a deep, visceral excitement and an unmistakable optimism. I can’t wait to walk with my child in the natural world, battered though it may be, pointing out the preciousness of the Appalachian hardwood trees and the moths and mussels, and the deep snow on the ski hill. 

I tell myself we’ll simply do our best to familiarise – not scare – our baby with the world’s problems, and then empower them to believe they can help right the ship. Parenthood is terrifying, but feels like exactly the right choice for me. Somehow, it seems, both things can be true. 

Nobler aspirations

That optimistic point of view brings me to my last point, which is that whether we are optimists or pessimists is often a matter of personal decision. The optimist does not ignore the difficulties, but tries to avoid the plight of the pessimist, who may put too much weight on the difficulties.

Morgan writes these words of Marcoux in talking about her family's financial situation:

On top of that, adds Marcoux, she worries that she isn’t providing enough for her son.

With that statement, Marcoux seems to be heaping coals on her head by way of extra pressures that will clearly limit the enjoyment of raising her son, and the size of her family.

Therefore, within that complex mix of difficulties and fears, and hope and acceptance of struggle, that comprise family-focused decision-making, a person has to attend to the ordering of their lives. Yes, there are reasons for caution. However, I fear that prospective parents are often swayed, first by what is going to be easier for them, and second by a well-absorbed drive to keep up with their peers.

This age demands an abundance of a countercultural spirit, one that shows society there is more to life than what wealth can provide. Each of us can be a change agent within our circle. That generates a sense of purpose, which, in turn, fertilizes a fruitful meaning in life. As well, an awareness that God is with us in the adventure that is family life is source of peace on the journey.

My thoughts on the wealth trap perhaps arise from my reading at this time Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. During Scrooge's encounter with the Ghost of Christmas Past he meets "a fair young woman in a mourning dress, in whose eyes there were tears". She confronts Scrooge over why he had abandoned her - "Another idol has displaced me." When Scrooge replies that their poverty when young drove him in the pursuit of wealth, she countered that they had agreed to "improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry" - but...

You fear the world too much. ... I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion - Gain - engrosses you. ... I release you, with a full heart, for the love of him you once were. ... May you be happy in the life you have chosen.

Ω Big families are possible, and enjoyable. See here 

Ω For a spiritually uplifting consideration of how our trials and times of contentment make up the wheel of life, and how we can have access to the ultimate source of joy, tap into this video. 

Ω If you like this blog, go to my Peace and Truth newsletter on Substack, where you can subscribe for free and be notified when a new post is published.

Elon Musk and children as society's treasure

Children - a treasure and a joy.              Photo: August de Richelieu

"Elon Musk believes ‘civilization will crumble’ if people don’t have more babies" ran the headline of an article in Fortune magazine early December after the Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder and CEO spoke to a US business conference.

The article quoted the father of six saying:

There are not enough people. I can’t emphasize this enough, there are not enough people.

So many people, including smart people, think that there are too many people in the world and think that the population is growing out of control. It’s completely the opposite. Please look at the numbers—if people don’t have more children, civilization is going to crumble, mark my words.

This matter has been on Musk's mind for some time. In July 2020 he tweeted a worried response to a BBC article on plunging fertility rates: "Population collapse is 2nd biggest danger to civilization after AI imo [in my opinion]."

That was succeeded by a tweet in July this year: "Population collapse is potentially the greatest risk to the future of civilization." This was in response to a Wall Street Journal article on the fears that the economy will suffer as US population growth falls to near zero. 

Reasons why couples are not having children include fears about the impact of the climate crisis on the next generation, and their impact on the environment. The Fortune article carries this information:

A survey conducted by tech company Morning Consult last year found that one in four childless adults cited climate change as a factor in their reproductive decisions. In July, analysts at Morgan Stanley wrote in a note to investors that the “movement to not have children owing to fears over climate change is growing and impacting fertility rates quicker than any preceding trend in the field of fertility decline”. 

However, a more immediate reason why prospective parents limit their fertility has to be the pressures of life, both financial and professional, and in maintaining a certain lifestyle in step with peers.

A central factor arising from each of those elements is childcare. That is highlighted in a thoughful opinion piece in the London Observer last weekend under the probing headline: "Big families sound great, Elon Musk. But who’s going to take care of the kids?" 

The writer, Catherine Bennett, notes that like the US, the UK has a "baby shortage" and that "parents tend to say they’d have liked more children". As for Musk and his delight in big families, Bennett is able to point to Musk's hands-off approach to raising his children as a poor model of sharing the burden. His first wife's children with him were left to her care and that of the other attendants his fortune could afford. But that wife observed: "Elon was obsessed with his work: when he was home, his mind was elsewhere.”  

His son with his present (estranged) wife is still a baby: “Right now, there’s not much I can do,” he said. “When the kid gets older, there will be more of a role for me.”

Musk is displaying the common moral failure to take hold of a self-absorbed personality trait and control it for the welfare of a family, particularly in the way of sharing the burden of parenthood as well as the joys.

Beyond the personal barriers to establishing conditions conducive to building a family are the social barriers. Work conditions feature large here. The lack of a decent work-life balance seems to be most pronounced in the US, where decisions concerning paid annual leave and paid public holidays are left to the employer, unless there is a union contract agreed.

The BBC has revealing information on this score:

American workers generally get less paid leave than their European counterparts (there’s no national statutory minimum in the US). Yet according to one 2017 survey, the average US worker said they had taken just about half (54%) of their paid time off in the past 12 months. Things appear to be getting worse, not better; in 2018, one report showed, American workers failed to use 768 million days of paid time off – a 9% increase from 2017.

It’s clear US workers do want more time off, however; a 2019 study showed one in three Americans would take a pay cut to get unlimited vacation days. Employers have been responding to this: according to jobs site Indeed, job postings with unlimited time off rose by 178% from May 2015 to May 2019. Yet research shows that even in cases where workers can take as much paid holiday as they want, they tend to take less holiday than employees with a fixed number of days.

The reason why this occurs involves "a complex mix of professional pressures and cultural mores that combine to keep US workers pinned to their desks – even if they’d really rather not be there".

Corporate culture lies at the heart of what in Japan is termed karoshi, only in the US death by overwork is a spiritual death as the person loses touch with what is most important in life. Many managers reward "presenteeism". 

Where there is no union or statutory protection:

In very competitive workplaces, employees who take leave fear being treated badly or losing out on future opportunities. A 2018 study showed one of the biggest reasons US workers didn’t take time off was fear of being seen as replaceable.

Furthermore:

The US travel association found that 28% of people didn't take vacation days in 2014 purely to demonstrate dedication to their job and not be seen as a “slacker”. “Culturally in America, we equate taking time off as quitting or not having high work ethic,” says Joey Price, CEO of an HR consultancy based in Baltimore, US. “There is stigma around the idea of not working.” 

This fear of bosses perceiving workers as inadequately committed to the job is so prevalent it can even lead employees to mislead their employers rather than ask for time off directly. In 2019, one study of US workers showed that more than one in three respondents admitted pretending to be sick to get a day off, and 27% opted for “making up a random story” rather than asking for the time in advance.

Even if a company doesn’t deter taking leave, there are many workplaces where “working as much as possible is worn as a badge of honour”, says [a HR director].

Pressure to perform is not just a moral expectation; overwhelmingly, workers in the US believe that turning in an “excellent performance” is the best way to get a raise. This can easily lead to overwork – something Michael Komie, a psychoanalyst and professor in clinical psychology in Chicago, describes as a “public health issue” in the US. 

In some workplaces, clocking up your mandated hours is just the start. Research shows being a constant presence in the workplace and spending “passive face time” with colleagues during and outside regular work hours can make workers more likely to be seen as dependable and committed. Price says this creates a dynamic where “you have to hustle, you have to work late hours, you have to be in the building so your boss can see that you're working”.

 If they do manage to take leave, work follows most Americans out of the office. A 2017 study showed 66% of US workers reported working on vacation, with 29% responding to requests from colleagues, and 25% to requests from their boss. 

What a backward society! No wonder the "great resignation" has erupted from the school of hard knocks that has been the Covid-19 pandemic. Any society like the one described above, in celebrating the need to "hustle" for job security, the conceit of indispensibility, and the exercise of fear, all instead of the person as the central element of work life, turns the boon of work into a debilitating exercise rather than a life-giving social endeavour. And that negativity flows on to the inability to build a thriving family.

Births outside wedlock are a further indicator of a society weak in providing conditions for the next generation to thrive. This year, Italy has again set records with regard its plunging population, with the birth rate now at a 160-year low. That earlier period was a time of revolutionary upheaval. What has been remarkable is that there has been the accompanying soaring level of births out of wedlock from 19.6 per cent of all births in 2008 to 35.8 per cent in 2020. The Independent continues: "The statistics office suggests this [rise] is representative of the falling influence of the Catholic Church in Italy."

Yes, the loss of a spiritual outlook on life does have a major impact on child-bearing. Without the perspective of participating in God's splendid creation, carrying and raising children can seem a chore too far. As with Italy, a similar slump in birth rate during a rising tide of secularism occurred in France at the time of the French Revolution:

[Research] shows that areas where priests stayed loyally Catholic during the French Revolution (i.e. where secularisation had made less progress) had much smaller falls in fertility. Religious, rather than economic, change drove the demographic transition... 

That transition to lower birth rates in a non-industrialised country came a century before birth rates started falling in the rest of Europe. 

One last factor that deprives society of conditions conducive to a thriving family is the inequality of income, with the many standing aghast at the capture of social wealth by the few, and the social elite aiding and abetting the continued inequality by campaigning on issues of race and gender rather than on equitable income sharing nationally and globally by means of tax and other measures.

From what we have seen, the mix of circumstances in our era directly leads to the displacement of children as the figurehead of society's confidence in the future. The curated focus of each person on the world pressing immediately on them means there is a shallowness of spirit and a fear that prohibits action for change.    

An anecdote to end. Lawrence died in 258 under the persecution of Christians by the Roman emperor Valerian. Wikipedia reports:  

As a deacon in Rome, Lawrence was responsible for the material goods of the Church and the distribution of alms to the poor. Ambrose of Milan relates that when the treasures of the Church were demanded of Lawrence by the prefect of Rome, he brought forward the poor, to whom he had distributed the treasure as alms. 'Behold in these poor persons the treasures which I promised to show you; to which I will add pearls and precious stones, those widows and consecrated virgins, which are the Church's crown.'

Babies, children, should be seen as society's treasure and honoured with a privileged place - alongside parents - in the pantheon of all we hold in esteem, as expressed in our communal attitudes, customs and values. Out with individualism, and in with cherishing of the common good. In that way the care of children will become the responsibility of the whole "village" so that even Elon Musk will be fully on plan.

Ω Check these posts from earlier this year:

• Safeguarding the family from the digital juggernaut 
• How many children to have? Be generous! 
• Morals and markets and outlandish CEO pay
• Ω If you like this blog, go to my Peace and Truth newsletter on Substack, where you can subscribe for free and be notified when a new post is published.

Catholics and Communion and politicians

Having the appearance of bread, but in reality the body and blood of Jesus, man and God

Last month, the Catholic bishops of the United States met to decide if they should take a stand against members of their flock who followed ideology rather than Church teaching, especially on moral matters such as abortion.

The sanction under consideration against rebellious Catholics was to ban them from receiving Communion, which Catholics hold to be the body and blood of Jesus Christ, man and God in the one person. To receive Communion is not only to receive food for the soul, but to state in action that the recipient is a member of the Church in good standing both morally and in adhering to all that the Church  teaches under God's authority. To be banned from Communion is a disgrace and a statement that the person is in a state that would preclude a life of eternity with God after death .

The bishops decided against a full-blown war on wayward members, especially those in the political arena, and especially again those in the Democratic Party, which has policies near the extremes of  demands for abortion and gender self-invention.

However, the bishops produced a document that will form the basis for doctrinal education of all Catholics, with a program planned for several years ahead.

The document lifts the veil on what Catholics believe about what is termed Holy Communion, and why it is given such prominence in the Church's teaching and practice.

This post quotes extensively from the draft document the bishops amended in minor ways, and approved, at their November meeting.

Catholics take literally the words of  Christ, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you” (Jn 6:53). The gospels tell us that though Jesus, in his preaching on this, saw that what he had taught was "a hard saying" and that his disciples were leaving him over this, did not backtrack.

The Latin Catholics and Orthodox Church have recognised that God uses visible signs to point to a hidden reality that enables God's work among us. This is what is called a sacrament. The Mass, the Church's act of worship and thanksgiving (Eucharist), is the time and place where Jesus as God comes again in a personal way, giving himself to us bodily as a way of offering his spiritual riches to us, with God as the vine and we the branches.

The document is not an attempt at apologetics but sets out for Catholics the key tenets of  what is a central doctrine and the chief focus of worship. In this way it illustrates why the failure of some politicians - and others, such as those in the Mafia - to fully practice of their faith hits a delicate nerve among Catholics.    

The bishops say in their document:

The Lord accompanies us in many ways, but none as profound as when we encounter him in the Eucharist. On our journey toward eternal life, Christ nourishes us with his very self. Once, when told by someone that she no longer saw the point of going to daily Mass, the [American] Dorothy Day reflected: “We go eat of this fruit of the tree of life because Jesus told us to. ... He took upon himself our humanity that we might share in his divinity. We are nourished by his flesh that we may grow to be other Christs. I believe this literally, just as I believe the child is nourished by the milk from his mother's breast.” (The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day, ed. Robert Ellsberg, (New York: Image, 2011) p. 483)

[In the Mass] Jesus is not sacrificed again. Rather, the Eucharist “makes present the one sacrifice of Christ the Savior” (Catechism of the Catholic Church #1330). The celebration of the Mass is a sacrifice “because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross" (Catechism #1366). In the Eucharistic celebration “we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life, when God will be all in all" (Catechism #1326).

At the Last Supper, celebrating the Passover, Jesus makes explicit that his impending death, freely embraced out of love, is sacrificial:

Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me." And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you” (Lk 22:19-20).

In the words and gestures of the Last Supper, Jesus makes it clear that he is freely offering his life out of love for us. In doing so, he is both the priest offering a sacrifice and the victim being offered. As priest, Jesus is offering a sacrifice to God the  Father, an offering prefigured by the offering of bread and wine by the High Priest Melchizedek (Gen 14:18). Anticipating his Passion in the institution of the Eucharist, Christ has indicated the forms under which his self-offering would be present to us until the end of time. 

The Real Presence of Christ 

From the very beginning, the Church has believed and celebrated according to the teaching of Jesus himself: "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him" (Jn 6: 54-56). It is not “ordinary bread and ordinary drink” that we receive in the Eucharist, but the flesh and blood of Christ, who came to nourish and transform us, to restore our relationship to God and to one another (See Justin Martyr, First Apology, LXVI). 

In the Eucharist, we see before us Jesus Christ, who, in the Incarnation became flesh (Jn 1:14) and who in the Paschal Mystery gave himself for us (Ti 2:14), accepting even death on a cross (Phil 2:8). John Chrysostom preached that when you see the Body of Christ “set before you [on the altar], say to yourself: Because of this Body I am no longer earth and ashes, no longer a prisoner, but free: because of this I hope for heaven, and to receive the good things therein, immortal life, the portion of angels, [and closeness] with Christ.” (John Chrysostom, Homilies on First Corinthians, 24.7, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First series (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995) 

How can Jesus Christ be truly present in what still appears to be bread and wine? It is through the power of the Holy Spirit that Christ is made present in the Eucharist. In the liturgical act known as the epiclesis, the bishop or priest, speaking in the person of Jesus Christ, calls upon the Father to send down his Holy Spirit to change the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ (Catechism #1353). 

The reality that, in the Eucharist, bread and wine are truly transformed into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ without ceasing to appear as bread and wine to our five senses, is one of the central mysteries of the Catholic faith. This faith is a doorway through which we, like the saints and mystics before us, may enter into a deeper perception of the mercy and love manifested in and through Christ's sacramental presence in our midst. While one thing is seen with our bodily eyes, another reality is perceived through the eyes of faith. The real, true, and substantial presence of Christ in the Eucharist is the most profound reality of the sacrament. “This mysterious change is very appropriately called by the Church transubstantiation” (Pope Paul VI, Credo of the People of God, # 25, cf. Council of Trent, Session 13, Decree on the Sacrament of the Eucharist ch. 4).  

Though Christ is present to us in many ways, the Church affirms that “the mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species is unique” (Catechism #1374). As Pope Paul VI wrote, “This presence is called ‘real’ not to exclude the idea that the others are ‘real’ too, but rather to indicate presence par excellence, because it is substantial and through it, Christ becomes present whole and entire, God and man" (Mysterium Fidei, #39). 

In the sacramental re-presentation of his sacrifice, Christ holds back nothing, offering himself, whole and entire. The use of the word “substantial” to mark the unique presence of Christ in the Eucharist is intended to convey the totality of the gift he offers to us. 

When the Eucharist is distributed and the minister says, “the Body of Christ”, we are to look not simply at what is visible before our eyes, but at what it has become by the words of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit – the Body of Christ (See St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, IV.16.28). The communicant's response of “Amen” is a profession of faith in the Real Presence of Christ and reflects the intimate personal encounter with him, with his gift of self, that can come only through reception of Holy Communion. 

Communion with Christ and the Church 

When we receive Holy Communion, Christ is giving himself to us. He comes to us in all humility, as he came to us in the Incarnation, so that we may receive him and become one with him. Christ gives himself to us so that we may continue the pilgrim path toward life with him in the fullness of the Kingdom of God. 

The fourteenth century theologian Nicholas Cabasilas described this sacrament by saying, “unlike any other sacrament, the mystery [of the Eucharist] is so perfect that it brings us to the heights of every good thing: here is the ultimate goal of every human desire, because here we attain God and God joins himself to us in the most perfect union." 

Through this sacrament, the pilgrim Church is nourished, deepening her communion with the Triune God and consequently with one another.  

The Sacrament of the Eucharist is called Holy Communion precisely because, by placing us in intimate communion with the sacrifice of Christ, we are placed in intimate communion with him and, through him, with each other. Therefore, the Eucharist is called Holy Communion because it is “the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of the People of God by which the Church is kept in being” (Catechism #1325).

How can we understand this?  The Gospel of John recounts that, when Jesus died on the cross, blood and water flowed out (Jn 19:34), symbolic of Baptism and the Eucharist. The Second Vatican Council teaches, “The origin and growth of the Church are symbolized by the blood and water which flowed from the open side of the crucified Jesus" (Lumen Gentium #3), and that “it was from the side of Christ as he slept the sleep of death upon the cross that there came forth the wondrous sacrament of the whole Church” (Sacrosanctum Concilium #5).

In this image from the Gospel of John, we see that the Church is born from the sacrificial love of Christ in his self-offering on the cross. The Eucharist re-presents this one sacrifice so that we are placed in communion with it and with the divine love from which it flows forth. We are placed in communion with each other through this love which is given to us. That is why we can say, “the Eucharist makes the Church”( Catechism #1396).

We are first incorporated into the Body of Christ, the Church, through the waters of Baptism. Yet Baptism, like the other sacraments, is ordered toward Eucharistic communion. The Second Vatican Council teaches, 

The other sacraments, as well as with every ministry of the Church and every work of the apostolate, are tied together with the Eucharist and are directed toward it. The Most Blessed Eucharist contains the entire spiritual boon of the Church, that is, Christ himself, our Pasch and Living Bread, by the action of the Holy Spirit through his very flesh vital and vitalizing, giving life to men who are thus invited and encouraged to offer themselves, their labors and all created things, together with him. 

The Council Fathers continue, 

In this light, the Eucharist shows itself as the source and the apex of the whole work of preaching the Gospel. Those under instruction are introduced by stages to a sharing in the Eucharist, and the faithful, already marked with the seal of Baptism and Confirmation, are through the reception of the Eucharist fully joined to the Body of Christ (Second Vatican Council, Presbyterorum Ordinis, #5). 

That is why the Council calls the Eucharist “the source and summit of the Christian life" (Lumen Gentium, #11).

St. Paul emphasizes that this communion exists not only among ourselves, but with those who came before us. In addressing the Church at Corinth, he praises them for holding fast to the sacred tradition handed on by Christ to the apostles, and in which we now share: “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you” (1 Cor 11:23). During every Mass we are united with all the holy men and women, the saints, who have preceded us. 

The obligation to attend Mass each Sunday, the Lord's Day, on which we commemorate the Resurrection of Jesus, and on other Holy Days of obligation, is therefore a vital expression of our unity as members of the Body of Christ, the Church. It is also a manifestation of the truth that we are utterly dependent upon God and his grace. A third-century instruction on the life of the Church points out one of the consequences of willful absence from Mass: “Let no one deprive the Church by staying away; if they do, they deprive the Body of Christ of one of its members!" (Didascalia apostolorum, no. 13.)

Mother Teresa of Calcutta once said: “When you look at the crucifix, you understand how much Jesus loved you then. When you look at the Sacred Host, you understand how much Jesus loves you now.”

The foundation of our personal and moral transformation is the communion with himself that Christ establishes in Baptism and deepens in the Eucharist. In the celebration of the Mass, we are shown what love truly is, and we receive grace that enables us to imitate the love that Christ shows us.

The personal and moral transformation that is sustained by the Eucharist reaches out to every sphere of human life. The love of Christ should permeate all of our relationships: with our families, our friends, and our neighbors. It should also reshape the life of our society as a whole. 

It is the role of the laity in particular to transform social relations in accord with the love of Christ. Lay people, "conscious of their call to holiness by virtue of their baptismal vocation, have to act as leaven in the dough to build up a temporal city in keeping with God's project. Consistency between faith and life in the political, economic, and social realm[s] requires formation of conscience, which translates into knowing the Church's social doctrine". 

Lay people who exercise some form of public authority have a special responsibility to embody Church teaching in their service of the common good. 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that the “Eucharist commits us to the poor. To receive in truth the Body and Blood of Christ given up for us, we must recognize Christ in the poorest, his brethren." This happened to Mother Teresa of Calcutta. It was her deep faith in the Eucharist and her reception of Holy Communion that motivated her loving care of the poorest of the poor and commitment to the sanctity of all human life. In beholding the face of Christ in the Eucharist, she learned to recognize his face in the poor and suffering. Mother Teresa once said: “We must pray to Jesus to give us that tenderness of the Eucharist. Unless we believe and see Jesus in the appearance of bread on the altar, we will not be able to see him in the distressing disguise of the poor.” 

St. Paul warns us that “whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself” (1 Cor 11:27-29). 

To receive the Body and Blood of Christ while in a state of mortal sin represents a contradiction. The person who, by his or her own action, has broken communion with Christ and his Church but receives the Blessed Sacrament, acts incoherently, both claiming and rejecting communion at the same time. It is thus a counter-sign - it expresses a communion that in fact has been broken. 

We also need to keep in mind that “the celebration of the Eucharist presupposes that communion already exists, a communion which it seeks to consolidate and bring to perfection.”

Politicians and ecclesial communion 

The Eucharist is the sacrament of ecclesial communion, as it both signifies and effects most fully the communion with Christ that began in Baptism. This includes communion in its “visible dimension, which entails communion in the teaching of the Apostles, in the sacraments and in the Church's hierarchical order.”

Likewise, the reception of Holy Communion entails one's communion with the Church in this visible dimension. We repeat what the U.S. Bishops stated in 2006: 

“If a Catholic in his or her personal or professional life were knowingly and obstinately to reject the defined doctrines of the Church, or knowingly and obstinately to repudiate her definitive teaching on moral issues, however, he or she would seriously diminish his or her communion with the Church. Reception of Holy Communion in such a situation would not accord with the nature of the Eucharistic celebration, so that he or she should refrain” (USCCB, Happy Are Those Who Are Called to His Supper: On Preparing To Receive Christ Worthily in the Eucharist, p. 11).

Reception of Holy Communion in such a situation is also likely to cause scandal for others. 

One's communion with Christ and His Church, therefore, involves both one's “invisible communion” (being in the state of grace) and one's “visible communion”.  John Paul II explained:

The judgment of one's state of grace obviously belongs only to the person involved, since it is a question of examining one's conscience. However, in cases of outward conduct which is seriously, clearly and steadfastly contrary to the moral norm, the Church, in her pastoral concern for the good order of the community and out of respect for the sacrament, cannot fail to feel directly involved. The Code of Canon Law refers to this situation of a manifest lack of proper moral disposition when it states that those who 'obstinately persist in manifest grave sin’ are not to be admitted to Eucharistic communion (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, #37). 

Likewise, the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches states that "those who are publicly unworthy are forbidden from receiving the Divine Eucharist" (c.712).

If we find that we have broken communion with Christ and his Church, we are not properly disposed to receive the Eucharist. However, we should not despair since the Lord in his mercy has given us a remedy. He loves us and deeply desires to forgive us and to restore our communion with him.

Food for the Journey 

The lives of the saints show us the importance of the Eucharist on our journey as disciples of Jesus. Many testify to the power of the Eucharist in their lives. We see the fruits of Holy Communion in their lives of faith, hope, and charity. It was their intimate union with Jesus in Holy Communion and frequently their prayer before the Blessed Sacrament that nourished and strengthened them in their journey to heaven. They teach us that "growth in Christian life needs the nourishment of Eucharistic Communion, the bread for our pilgrimage until the moment of death, when it will be given to us as viaticum" (Catechism #1392).

Blessed Carlo Acutis, a young Italian teenager, who died at the age of 15 and was beatified in 2020, used to say: "The Eucharist is my highway to heaven.” Blessed Carlo attained sanctity at such a young age because the Eucharist was at the center of his life. He attended Mass daily and prayed each day before the Blessed Sacrament in adoration. He discovered the joy of friendship with Jesus and brought that joy, the joy of the Gospel, to others.

Blessed Carlo was fascinated by Eucharistic miracles and created a website about them that has reached thousands of people around the world. [See link below.] He was an apostle of the Eucharist through the internet. We encourage all, especially our young people, to learn about the life of this holy teenager. In the midst of many distractions in our life, Blessed Carlo teaches us to focus on what should be our center. He said: “To always be united with Christ: This is my life's program.” 

Likewise, Saint José Sánchez del Río, a Mexican teenager who was martyred at the age of fourteen and canonized in 2016, was so filled with love of Christ and his Church that he was willing to give up his life rather than renounce Christ and his Kingship. While imprisoned, José Sánchez del Río was able to receive the Blessed Sacrament when it was smuggled into his cell along with a basket of food. Thus strengthened, he prayed for the conversion of his persecutors and repeatedly told them, “My faith is not for sale.” Blessed Carlo and Saint José Sánchez del Río teach us to focus on what is more important than anything else. 

The bishops know that Catholics' faith can be deepened and witness through service to the Church, nation and world can be nourished most powerfully by participating in the Holy Eucharist and especially in the regular reception of Communion. They have been shocked by the lack of understanding among Catholics of this rich source of nourishment that Christ has left his Church. We will be hearing more on the subject from them from now till 2024, when a Eucharistic convention will be held, most probably with the Pope in attendance. 

[] Carlo Acutis’s website on miracles centered on the Eucharist is here 

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