It’s easy and quite natural to have doubts and question one’s faith, especially when the Church is under vicious attack as it has been for the past few weeks, or we see the imperfections and even sinful actions of some of our church leaders. For these times, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus has some good advice:
When our faith is weak, when we are assailed by contradictions and doubts, we are tempted to look at our faith, to worry about our faith, to try to work up more faith. At such times however, we must not look to our faith but look to him…Look at him who is ever looking at you. With whatever faith you have, however feeble and flickering and mixed with doubt, look at him. Look at him with whatever faith you have and know that your worry about your lack of faith is itself a sign of faith. Do not look at your faith. Look at him. Keep looking, and faith will take care of itself. (Death on a Friday Afternoon, p. 39, 42)
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Ave verum Corpus natum
de Maria Virgine:
Vere passum, immolatum
in Cruce pro homine.
Cuius latus perforatum
fluxit aqua et sanguine:
Esto nobis praegustatum
mortis in examine.
O Iesu dulcis!
O Iesu pie!
O Iesu fili Mariae.
English:
Hail, true body,
born of the Virgin Mary:
Truly suffered,
died on the cross for mankind:
From who pierced side
flowed water and blood!
Be for us a foretaste
of death in the last hour!
O gentle Jesus!
O holy Jesus!
O Jesus, Son of Mary!
2 Comments on “Look at Him”
I wrote today of the Shroud of Turin on my own blog. The text si in Finnish, but I attempted to inspect it on a neutral viewpoint.
My interpretation is that the Shroud is the very same Mandylion, which was looted at Constantinople 1204 and found at Edessa 554, and which once was one of the most precious treasures of the Eastern Orthodox church. It appears too genuine to be fraud – but does it belong to Jesus or to some other Judean freedom fighter? It doesn’t have a signature anywhere, though.
“Vicious attack”? The most vehement critics of the abuse – and of the church’s inadequate response to it – have often been Catholics. In a Temple University survey after the 2005 grand jury report in Philadelphia, 40 percent of Catholics described themselves as “very dissatisfied” with the way the archdiocese handled the issue. An even greater share of Catholics – 77 percent – said bishops or cardinals should be removed from office if they knowingly reassigned abusive priests without notifying the police.
I agree with that. And saying so doesn’t make me anti-Catholic – any more than criticizing the president makes me anti-American. Shame on you, the pope and his apologists for invoking a sordid history of anti-Catholic bigotry to escape their own responsibility.