The Church and Sexuality

I've been getting this question a lot. From ex boyfriends, from friends, from colleagues, and even from myself. I think I finally have an answer. Maybe it's not a perfect answer, but it's an answer.

The question is this: If God and the Church say homosexuality is a sin, how can you still call yourself Catholic and retain faith in a God and religion that hates you?

The answer, well, it's lengthy.

The first part of the answer is this: that question is loaded beyond compare. The Catechism declares emphatically and without question that God is love personified. Period. There is no hatred or condemnation within God. He is all love. The Church, likewise, does not promote the discrimination of anyone. We as Catholics represent the Living Church of Christ, who is consubstantial with the Father, the second person of the Trinity, and, ultimately, love personified as well. The Church's stance in regards to homosexuality is also quite clear:

1. Homosexuality as a sexual preference is not sinful;
2. Two homosexuals with deeply-held feelings for each other are not in sin;
3. The only homosexual sin is that of the sex act. Everything else is fine.

Why is this? Well, the Catholic Church is of the mind that a sin has not occurred without action, just as a corporal or spiritual work of mercy has likewise not occurred without the requisite action. (Cue the Sola Scriptura crowd jumping in about being saved by faith alone....passing this argument by and coming back to topic....) If you as a homosexual do not engage in sex with someone of the same gender, you haven't sinned! Neato!

But wait, Mr. Blogger, aren't homosexuals just as sexually-driven as everyone else?

Yes. But, how many times have "good, upstanding" Catholic men and women had sex with prophylactics (condoms!)? How many have had sex wherein the man withdrew before climax? How many have engaged in non-procreative sexual acts with each other? These are all sins. Any sexual act that does not have as its end purpose the procreation of human life is a sin. That's right pubescent boys and girls: what you're doing in that bathroom is BAD BAD NAUGHTY! But no worse than what your mom and dad did to prevent having that third child.

The thing is that the far right and radically-fundamentalist churches have latched on to two sins as their main focus: abortion and homosexuality. They have completely abandoned their mission as Christians to evangelize and witness the GLORY of the Lord, and instead seek to vilify and condemn those over which they have no power. Judgment is reserved for God alone, and he will judge us all simultaneously at the end of the age. Today is not Judgment Day. So no judging allowed!

So evangelical, fundamentalist, non-denominational (some, not all) Christians have made it their mission to enlighten the "sodomites and baby killers!" of why they're going to hell instead of reaching out to them in a spirit of love and fellowship. The end result? We have all of us fled the welcoming arms of Holy Mother Church. Why? Because we were told we weren't wanted. We were told that the God who is incapable of hate hates us. For us alone special condemnation has been reserved, and the wrath of God spares all but the homosexual. And the media jumped on the chance to portray a poor, victimized community. Now we fit the profile, and are quite angry about it.

But there, in the recesses of the mainstream, lies the largest Christian Church on the planet. There, quietly going about its charitable work instead of drawing lots of attention to itself, is not only a church, but THE Church established by Christ 2000 years ago upon the Rock of Peter (HaKaifah ben Kaifah. Fun play on words, there) which has a pretty strong argument for claiming the inherited authority of God on Earth in the Living Christ when it comes to these sorts of things.

So, I'm very comfortable in my place as a Catholic who happens to be gay. I have no issue telling this to people, and, though I find it irritating, find joy in dispelling the negative associations people have with this statement. It's not God that has made people confused and less-than-welcoming, and God should not be thought of as being represented by these people. So when people say "I have lost faith in you because of what this or that church did" it breaks my heart, because the fundamental relationship between God and man has been ignored. We are given free will to sin. Without it, we would have no salvation. These people are perfectly capable of sinning, themselves, and by passing judgment are guilty of sin. It is not for us to judge man's works. It is not for us to judge God based on the actions of certain individuals and groups. It is up to us to hold fast to the faith we know to be true and work as hard as we can to be the best we can be, while acknowledging that we have faults. Everyone sins, even us. But at the end of the day, the sum of our faith, the labors of our hearts and minds and hands, and the fervency to which we abide by the will of God through the saving grace of Christ will be weighed. And though I am no prophet, I have a feeling we won't have to share the dance floor with Westboro Baptist Church.

Egypt, Revolution, and the Coptic Question

Oh my it's been awhile. September 10 was when I defended the Estate System against what I feel to be a violent usurpation of Democracy. How droll.

In the past twenty four hours, I've developed a taste for pop tarts and hard salami. Dr. Pepper features prominently in that as well, but when does it not feature prominently in my diet? I've also developed a severely belated interest in Timothy Leary the underground comix scene from the '60's and '70's, and steampunk renditions of common, everyday items.

I've also reappraised myself, looked out upon the vast collection of stuff I call my possessions, and turned my eyes eastward to Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon, where a domino effect of calamity is taking its toll.

Mubarak is offering to step down at the end of his term. Meanwhile, the Egyptian government has utterly collapsed and has no authority outside the presidential home. Obama wants the Vice President to take over, despite the Egyptian constitution explicitly stating the Speaker of Parliament must succeed the President (whoops. Obama can't grasp the content of Egypt's constitution either). Parliamentary democrats are (temporarily) united with the Muslim Brotherhood to bring regime change. Molotovs are thrown at the crowd by Mubarak supporters while protesters arrest police men who are looting downtown Cairo. All of this has filled the airwaves, the twitter feeds, the Egyptian, European, and American blogospheres, Reuters, Wall Street, and the NYTimes. But what about the one group of Egyptian society that is so rarely heard about and even more rarely understood--the Copts?

Coptic Christianity has always entertained a strange position in Egypt. Early Christianity had a tendency to lump it in with the Gnostics and go after Copts as much as Gnostics. Crusaders thought they were heretics, and the Coptic Church refused to take sides in the Great Schism, thus becoming the third traditional branch of Christianity alongside Orthodoxy and Catholicism. When Islam rolled through, the Copts didn't submit, even at the point of the sword, and continued to worship in the ancient streets of Alexandria. Colonial governments were not much more favorable in the treatment of the Copts, seeing them as strange superstitious remnants of a bygone era, and modern Egyptian governments under Nasser and then Mubarak have been equally unforgiving. What place do they have in the new Egypt?

A democratic Egypt has the most promise for them, but they would very likely be marginalized in a society seeking to distance itself from radical Islam (read: religion) and orient itself towards a very Euro-style secular state. In a Taliban-style theocracy, marginalization will be the best they can hope for. Systematic persecution, exile, and massacre is on the more realistic end of things.

And where would they go? Would they go to America where the melting pot melts little and foments much? Would they go to Europe where anything brown is treated as a potential Muslim terrorist and proponent of European Shariah? Would they go to Russia of all places where they would be perceived as Central Asian yak herders needing to pitied, and given substandard wages like a strange reinterpretation of Latino migrant workers in our own country? To be completely honest, from my own understanding of the geopolitical position of anyone in that part of the world, Israel is really the only place for Copts to run to. The disillusionment being felt in America's youth and up-and-coming intelligentsia does not engender pity. The fear for safety in Europe treats everyone with suspicion. The sheer racism and xenophobia of the modern Russian experiment is hardly conducive to anyone seeking any kind of asylum. Israel, with its own vibrant Christian minorities and its complexes about having a place one can call home is the only place a Copt could reasonably be expected to settle down amidst this chaos if all goes to hell.

But these are musings because, apparently, the West doesn't give two shits about them. We have one of the largest Coptic diasporas in the world in the United States. So why don't we look in on their plight in Egypt? They are, after all, in a seriously difficult position where they stand to lose more than they stand to gain.

Democracy and the Second Estate

Prior to the great revolutions of the 19th Century that swept away the last vestiges of absolute European monarchies save Prussia, Austria, and the Ottoman Empire, and for some time after Italian Unification, the Vatican preached her doctrine of estates as a theologically-based model of social teaching. Estates are similar to social classes, but are a little bit more rigid than class distinctions we have today, but not so rigid as to be called a caste. The Second Estate, Knighthood and Nobility, is our focus and why its eradication in the social strata in the name of the egalitarian fallacy of modernism (read: Democracy) is ultimately bad.

Knighthood in the sense of a social estate is less tied in with noble birth than one usually thinks of, especially when one envisions a brave English knight riding off to war, or the oppressive, corrupt, morally bankrupt knights that were defeated by Bravehart. Knighthood is an ideal, rooted in the age of chivalry. The mercantile and, later, industrial revolutions kind of put a damper on chivalry, but the Church maintained several orders of knighthood that were awarded to the laity. One that most Americans should be familiar with is the Knights of Columbus

At its very base, the bestowing upon someone of knighthood is a positive raising of that person in social and personal status. But it is more than just something someone should be personally proud of. It is a responsibility to his fellow man. A common lay person has only two things to worry about: survival and salvation. He must survive as best he can, and ensure that he can attain the eternal survival of his soul. As part of this, he learns to cohabit with other people and help out his family and friends. This is a social obligation imparted upon us because human beings are social animals. What is also imparted on us is a desire for more. Greed. So we only share the bare minimum and horde the rest. A knight does not do this.

A knight was not only recognized for being better than (and I do not use this term hierarchically or in any way disparagingly towards non-knights, I myself am not a knight) the rest of his peers, but having a greater responsibility to take care of those around him in his community and family. A knight was raised to represent an ideal of the privileged benefactor who makes all around him his beneficiaries. Whatever he has in excess is utilized to help those in need. Whatever task he undertakes is done with a higher goal and purpose in mind. Nothing is done irrationally and nothing is done purely for self-interest. As a knight he has shed the immaturity of such emotive personal drives. As a knight, he has been raised to something more. He, like a Saint is a model of Christian virtue, has been raised to show that a social ideal is attainable. For the faithful, a Saint is a model of the attainability of Christian living. For the secular, a Knight is a model of the attainability of social responsibility.

Then comes the Enlightenment. The grandchild of the Reformation, the mother of the 19th Century's grandiloquent Democratic Revolution, the enlightenment saw a world where superstition and faith would not be necessary. Reason, logic, rationality would reign supreme. A beautiful vision, indeed. But one with a darkness hiding behind it.

Logically, and I'm pulling from several philosophers whose names I can't remember but I'm sure you'll be able to recognize the ideas, as animals, human beings have at their base the same fight or flight response as every other animal. Do you engage, or do you flee? It is risk versus reward, and ultimately, translates into a statement such as "the only goal of the individual is first survival, second propagation." What does propagation entail? Finding a mate. How does one find a mate? Flashy shows of those traits that are considered desirable. This extends much further than physical characteristics and includes money, power, and status. So the logical result of this is the promotion of the self above all others. The development of the Nietzschiean Overman. "We have killed god" says Zarathustra. "Now we must find the Overman." The Overman being the man who takes what he wants and cares nothing for what is caused subsequently. The Enlightenment's final gift to the world was a socio-political idea that the individual is worthy beyond anything else. His ideas, his wants, his desires are all first before everything else. And what better system to allow this individuality that knows no fetters save one's own chains than democracy?

The democratic revolution led to a universal celebration of the individual. We have taken this idea so far today that we have the even more dangerous ideas of cultural relativism. What is good for one culture may not be good for another and should not be judged. Quid pro quo, morality and ethics are malleable and subject to change. This is why questions such as euthanasia and eugenics (which both have the same root by the way) are suddenly back in vogue. It is fair to say, however, in defense of moral relativism, that its logical conclusions are not always supported by those that support moral relativism. Specifically, the holocaust may have been good for Nazi culture, but other than a few right-wing nutjobs with swastikas tattooed on their heads, nobody is going to say that the Nazis were right in what they did. But moral relativism says exactly that. And as the greatest moral relativists, we Americans should be celebrating the holocaust, not disparaging it. And the Jews should understand. I mean, we gave them Israel so they could have their own cultural development, their own homeland, their own piece of the pie from which to celebrate moral relativism.

End the dripping sarcasm.

It is rare for someone to be confronted with a slippery slope argument and actually say "You know what? Maybe you're right." But every time someone has declared "this is a slippery slope!" it has turned out to be true. Equal rights for minorities turned into special rights. Democracy for the landed gentry turned into democracy for all. Vatican II turned into a massive debacle of epic proportions, and the legalization of homosexuality is shortly turning into the promotion, not just recognition, of homosexuality. If you don't believe me, check out what's going on in Quebec with the "equity strategy" in regards to school systems, especially parochial schools that will soon have to promote something they don't believe in. Canada has less freedom of speech than America, and all the hippies want to go live there? Get a haircut and a job, put down the reefer, and then we'll talk. But overall, the truth that rational, reasoned democracy has evolved into an irrational modernist "embrace everything new because it is new" philosophy is living proof that the erosion of the Second Estate, the destruction of a true and lofty ideal, has been nothing but demoralizing and destructive for society. I will not suffer myself to make a list of all the pros and cons between democracy and monarchy (for I am supportive of neither), but rest assured that I truly believe the cons of democracy far outweigh their pros, especially as we have in the modern world.

The question we all need to ask ourselves today is not "who will I vote for in the upcoming elections?" but "Why am I voting?" If the answer is "It is my civic duty" then stay at home. Your blind allegiance to the democratic process is worth just as much as one who irrationally refuses to vote. If your answer is "To promote my deeply-held values, my lofty ideals, the immutable and unmovable morality and/or ethic to which I subscribe," then I'd say go and rig your local elections.

Are there people whose votes should be worth more than others? I would have to say yes. But shouldn't we be more worried about the tyranny of the minority, as Thomas Jefferson said, than whether or not our current president is a terrorist? Without an ideal, one that is rooted in society as opposed to a far off golden time as prophesied by Methuselah in Animal Farm, democracy is worthless. It is modernism. And heaven help us if our democratic process ever embraces the downright absurdity of post-modernism. Change for the sake of change is like progress for the sake of progress--the ideology of the cancer cell.

A Logical Appeal to Authority

In my daily musings, I often come up with brilliant ideas or thoughts or proofs for this or that with which I am generally quite pleased. However, upon further scrutiny, I often find that my "aha!" is loaded with problems, assertions that bear no weight, and fall apart after logical analysis. However, over the past few months, I've been having on-again, off-again discussions with two non-denominational Christians at work concerning this or that. They believe in Sola Scriptura sans Sacred Tradition, I believe in Sola Scriptura cum Tradition. They are non-denominational (actually, their rather large congregation is called Xenos and has a single recognized leader in the person of Dennis McCallum), I am Roman Catholic. The primary issue we have in regards to the truth we see in each others' religious tradition is over the interpretation of scripture. At the core of this difference in interpretation is the question of authority. I will now attempt to address this question.

My method will actually follow Mr. McCallum. I have recently read (most of) his book: "Satan and his Kingdom", and must say that apart from being a terrible writer, Mr. McCallum makes a lot of logical fallacies in his writing. I no longer possess a copy of this book, and so will be paraphrasing a bit. I will dutifully quote wherever I paraphrase, and will come back to this when I get my hands on another copy to edit in page numbers and properly cite his quotations. The reason I say I will be following Mr. McCallum's method is because his approach is in the old philosophical tradition of a strict appeal to reason and logic. He uses scant few outside resources, instead establishing his premise and building a logical argument upon it. I will be doing the same.

First, we must establish the core differences in this approach. The Catholic Church has, for 2,000 years (give or take ~30) held strong to the fact that when Christ said to Peter, "I name you Peter, and upon this rock I shall build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it," that Christ was indeed establishing his one, holy, and apostolic Church upon Peter. To borrow a term used in the hermeneutics of Mr. McCallum's disciples, when this is harmonized with other passages such as "Whatsoever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; whatsoever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" we get a pretty decent understanding of the Church's beliefs concerning authority and where it comes from. Hint: we call it Apostolic Succession. As part of this authority, we look to the Church Fathers for their insight into what scripture means. Oft times, even non-denominational Christians will quote the Church Fathers. It is unfortunate because it denies their own position on Sola Scriptura, but facts are facts and there's nothing we can do about it.

Protestants base their theology upon the inventions of Martin Luther. When he read the Bible as a professor, his overly-zealous scrupulosity led him to take the fact that God's grace is freely given to mean that no intercession or authority outside of said grace was necessary. I will suffice it to say that this violates the story of Phillip the Ethiopian when he says "How will I know [what I am reading] unless someone explains it to me?" However, this one simple assertion amongst ninety-four others that make up the famous Theses has caused no end of trouble for the non-denominational attempting to convert Catholics and the Catholic attempting to convert non-denominational Christians or Protestants of any sort. Built upon this assertion is the addition of "Once Saved, Always Saved," an assertion that also led to the rejection of the real presence in the Eucharist (a topic for another day). However, it is the interpretation of sacred scripture outside of any other authority (personal interpretation) and the "sinning saved sinner" that leads to many of the misunderstandings between Catholics and non-liturgical Christians. A Protestant will assert that a saved person will have the guidance of the Holy Spirit to properly understand scripture, whereas Catholics will assert that any person will have the guidance, but why rely on intuition when Christ's Paraclete has already given us the true interpretation? Both sides have merit, and it is my intention to show that the latter has greater merit and therefore falls under the reasonable qualification that it must be preferable to the former.

We will begin by paraphrasing Mr. McCallum in his less-than-stellar work "Satan and His Kingdom." In it, when he is discussing scripture as authoritative in and of itself, he states that "having introduced an outside authority, one will always inevitably put that authority before the scripture" (sic). This assertion, one that I can't even categorize in my lengthy list of Latin arguments (such as Post hoc ad propter hoc, Argumentum ad hominem, etc. Fun to say, not advisable to use in debate), has two major problems. One, it asserts that all authority, not just any specifically biblical authority, is authoritative unto itself (ignoring concepts such as the Social Contract and democratic institutions in general). Secondly, it is self-defeating in that Mr. McCallum is a specific extra-biblical authority [i]commenting authoritatively on scripture.[/i] What he has just asserted is that his own authority is suspect by the very fact that it is authoritative. The problem, however, in the grander scheme of things, is that many Protestants and non-denominational Christians will read this and think that this assertion is sound. And, indeed, embedded in the rest of that section from which the quote was taken, it sounds reasonable. But having picked apart this assertion against extra-biblical authority, it is clear that even without biblical verses to disprove it, the assertion is without merit whatsoever.

One of the major issues with Sola Scriptura is that anybody who is evangelizing a Catholic or Orthodox Christian will inevitably ask "how is that biblical?" in response to such things as confession, the real presence, Marian devotion, etc. etc. It is primarily because Catholic and Orthodox teaching does not rest solely on scripture (though everything has a scriptural basis) that this question usually stumps the average lay person when dealing with these assertions. However, it is usually a good idea at some point to simply turn the debate around and ask a very simple but impossible to answer question:

"How is Sola Scriptura biblical?"

The response I get most often is in reference to 2 Timothy 3:16. I will link to the CARM website now, since that is where Xenos admittedly gets a lot of their apologetics, but I will be quoting the conclusion to show the major flaw in utilizing this passage. CARM explanation of 2 Timothy 3:16

Their conclusion states "God has given you the inspired Bible so that you will be able to accurately know that which is good, true, and holy. So that you might know the mind and will of God. So that you might teach, Correct, Rebuke, and Train in Righteousness...and this so that your work might be good in the sight of God." 

*cough* First of all, the Catholic Church compiled the Bible under the authority granted to them by Christ via Peter to know what is and is not inspired. Not wanting to sound polemical, I won't dwell on that little historical fact and instead point to a severely crippled assertion contained within their conclusion.

Timothy is an epistle. It is an explanation of the Gospel. It was written when the only "Bible" that was around was the Torah, what would eventually become the Christian Old Testament. When Timothy was written, the word "scripture" would have applied to this body of work alone. Not even the Gospels would have been considered inspired, as they would have been only reflections and recollections of what had transpired during Christ's time on earth. It's similar to writing a memoir, explaining that memoir to someone in the context of the Bible, referring to the Bible as it is today as inspired, and three hundred years from now discovering your memoir being added to the Biblical canon. An impossible scenario, I know, but it's the same thing that happened with the Gospels. When Timothy was written, the word "scripture" applied ONLY to what would become the Old Testament. Nothing else. To utilize this passage to claim that the entire Biblical canon is inspired, something that even Protestants didn't adhere to when they revised the Bible by removing many of the Old Testament books, is fallacious beyond reason. It not only ignores the fact that God inspired the Bible and then the Church compiled it, it ignores historical and cultural context of the time in which the very verse they're misinterpreting was written. Ignoring this context is the first step to misinterpreting scripture. For this reason, the assertion that Catholics were told "not to read the bible" has some basis in truth. The reality is that Catholics were told not to read it on their own for the very reason that the average person does not readily know the historical and cultural context of the various books of the bible. In short, the Church did not want the laity doing what the Protestants had been doing since the 1500's. 

And so we come to the Church Fathers. Who were they? What did they write? Some of the most famous and well-celebrated Fathers include St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, St. Origen, St. Athanasius, and others. They were theologians, monks, scholars, converts, priests, Bishops, abbots, and simple laity that read the scripture, reflected upon it, wrote their sermons and their musings, and through the grace of God, communicated to the people what the scripture said. For a society in which the majority of people were illiterate, and did not speak many of the languages in which scripture was written, it would be important for these men to transmit the writings of the Apostles into languages everyone would know, as well as be able to adequately explain them. The difference between the Church Fathers and later post-reformation theologians is that when they were silenced (as in the case of St. Origen) for writing something heretical, they submitted to Church Authority instead of branching off and forming their own church. The importance of the Church Fathers is less in their willingness to submit and more in their proximity to the times, customs, and languages of Christ.

These men were not simply smart. They were bloody brilliant. They were schooled in Plato and Aristotle. They would have read Tacitus and Seutonius. They more than likely also studied Ptolemaic astronomy, Egyptian medicine, and read Cicero to learn the art of rhetoric. In short, these men were Renaissance men a thousand years before the Renaissance. They had an amazing grasp on logic and reason and knew how to debate. They knew how to present their arguments, expand upon them, and assert foolproof conclusions. For those that didn't have the formal schooling illustrated above, they were absolute geniuses. Most importantly, they lived in cultures that reflected the cultures present at the time of Christ. Their knowledge of the scriptural language was more than academic, it was a working knowledge. They, better than any historian or theologian today, could elucidate the masses as to the meaning of a Greek turn of phrase or an Aramaic anachronism. The same can not be said for anyone today, whether they be a Catholic monk, an Orthodox Metropolitan, a Protestant pastor, or an atheistic expert in anthropology and classical archeology. There is a reason the Church Fathers constitute an exclusive club whose roster has not grown. These men asserted not only that the institution of the Church was important, but that it was divinely commanded. So great was their devotion to the Church as founded by Christ that they submitted themselves to it wholly without knowing that the Church would one day raise them upon a pedestal of authoritative respect. In short, without the Church Fathers, the gates of hell would have prevailed against the Church and Christ would not have been Christ.

The final assertion I will make is rather more polemic than the rest of this post. It is also rhetorical, as I have read every explanation and answer there is and none of them satisfy the question. I will reference Mr. McCallum again, a final time, when he says that "Hell is under siege, and the gates of Hell will not win." The scripture referenced here was written two thousand years before Mr. McCallum was even born, yet he sees his non-denominational approach as the [i]right[/i] approach and the only approach containing the fullness of truth. Yet Xenos did not start until Mr. McCallum created it. In all the discussions I've had with the members of Xenos, they expect crisp and clear interpretations of biblical passages. My final assertion is this: if the fullness of truth has been lacking for two thousand years, did Christ lie, forgetting to say that the gates of Hell will not prevail while the Apostles are still alive, then prevail, then fall back under siege two thousand years later? Or did he fully and completely tell the truth in stating that "Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it"? There is nothing clearer than that there was one Church instituted by Christ, and that Church was granted the authority to properly interpret and pass on scripture and tradition, and that this Church is the one Church that has been in existence for two thousand years constantly besieging the gates of Hell. Unfortunately there was a schism, but I would rather the authority of my interpretation to come from a Church that was invested with the very authority to interpret scripture than to rely on a self-proclaimed authority that has rejected a divinely appointed mandate.

Update

I seem to have accidentally started following my own blog when trying to follow someone else's. Whatever. No costumers have so far complained.

The Assumption is Coming!

My I seem to have abandoned the blog for a while. I promise, it will likely happen again. But I'll try not to abandon you, my loyal two. Heh. I made a rhyme. Anyhoo....

Next Sunday is the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Hooray! 

The Assumption is that quintessential mystery of Mary, herself. It confirms all the other Marian dogmas. The Immaculate Conception--Catholics believe it dogmatically, the Eastern Churches do not, and many Protestant Churches deny it outright. The Annunciation--an angel can announce anything. This particularly does not make Mary who she is. But the Assumption confirms the Immaculate Conception and it confirms the singular importance of the Annunciation, for in her bodily assumption to heaven, she became the only person in the New Testament of human origin to show that sanctification is possible. Because she was born without the stain of original sin, Purgatory was not even a stopping point for her. Her Assumption not only causes a theological problem for those who deny the Immaculate Conception, it reaffirms it. Just as Christ's resurrection made him the Messiah, for without it, all the miracles he performed would have been parlor tricks, Mary's Assumption confirmed the rest of her life and her importance within the Church.

I like to reflect on this reality when praying the rosary. Especially when I come to those words: "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners" or, as I ACTUALLY do (in Latin!): "Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus." She is not as the Saints in that they are spiritually fulfilled. Mary stands, body and soul, understanding human nature more than any other saint, and the potential of our good and the potential of our love for God. When we ask her to pray for us, she has God's ear all to her own. She can draw us to her bosom when we reach out in despair, and all this is possible because of her Assumption.

There's a reason this holy day is my favorite, and the one I would not miss for the world.

Our Lady of Lourdes

Our Lady of Lourdes. White on white with a blue sash and all the pretty scenery you can imagine. This is truly a photographer's wet dream. And she's looking dreamily off into the distance, which makes her perfect for modeling some sort of skin cream.

St. Bernadette Soubirous began seeing the vision of Our Lady in a cave just outside the town of Lourdes when she was fourteen. She was beaten for claiming to have seen the apparition, and continued to go to the grotto. She dug up a spring, drank the water, and became disheveled, but soon the water was being reported as miraculous when given to medical patients. On March 25, 1858, Bernadette was told "I am the Immaculate Conception." In 1860 the local Bishop finally approved the apparition. It is now one of the most frequented Marian shrines in the world.