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Prayer: The Catholic Response

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By Fr. Robert J. Carr
©Catholic Online 2004

The Catholics Fight Back!!
Mood: energetic
Topic: Living Christ

The first reading is one that is poignant for today. We see that the battle was won not so much through human effort, but the upraised hands of Moses. It was a reminder to Moses and to us today that the source of all strength, wisdom and life are in God and God alone.

GOD AT WAR?

We have a battle of two tribes, the Jews and the tribe of Amalek. Today in our modern world we may be shocked to see God taking a side in a battle. Scenes such as this lead people away from faith. They say that God could not possibly be a warrior God. Well, the fact is it is not that God is at war it is that there is a war against God.

Let us remember whom Moses represents, he represents the wisdom of the Almighty leading people into a freedom. It was a political freedom prior to the death and resurrection of Jesus and the New Covenant. It became the freedom of the fullness of Human existence through Jesus' sacrifice. Moses is fighting a people who do not accept the authority of God and, therefore, they do not accept Divine Wisdom. They are people who follow a road that ultimately leads to slavery. It may even have many elements of freedom, but not the fullness, which the Jews follow. Moses knew to submit or even mix with these people would be to submit and mix with a false freedom and wisdom that would have led to not more freedom but less for all concerned. That is what is one the line. It is the freedom beyond the imagination of the tribe of Amalek and the freedom in the heart of Moses through his relationship with God. It is with this reality behind the scenes that the war happens.

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People who do not understand that and see this superficially as only one warring people against another do not comprehend this passage at all. You may also say this is why the Jews of today will not be so quick to make peace with the Arabs, if it involves watering down the wisdom of Moses. If you do not understand that, you do not understand that element of political battles in the world. Peace at all costs has never been a Jewish nor Christian tenet.

THE WAR AGAINST CATHOLICS

We need to take that same battle to our situation today. Whether you like it or not, we are at war and our war like that of Moses against Amalek is one not of politics, but of truth. Let no one kid you, there is an intense war against Catholics in this country and specifically in this state. Our future as a nation of freedom or one of slavery and injustice will depend on the outcome of this war. In order to understand how we fight in this conflict, we need to look more deeply at the issues in the battle. We can see them quite well in the election.

Now, you know that I am forbidden to lean you towards one side of the election or the other and that there are spies in churches to make sure that priests and ministers follow that law. I am sure there is at least one here. Yet, if we look closely at the battle we can see the sides play out in the election but the election will not settle the war for the fight is not Senator John Kerry versus President Bush, it is not Democrat versus Republican, Liberal versus Conservative, Socialist versus Capitalist. It is Science based Materialsim versus Faith. The very war that began five hundred years ago with the Copernican Revolution is now coming to a climax here in Boston in the Capital City of Universities according to the New York Times and you are on one side of the battle. This is why we have protesters outside our Cathedral, whether they realize it or not. This is what Voice of the Faithful is about, and this is what the occupying of Churches is all about. This is also the real issue in the election.

You and I are at war. One of the generals of this war just died. Just prior to his fiftieth birthday he blamed the Catholic Church among others for his inability to reach his goal which was to walk on that day. It was his dream and his passion and understandably so. He was extremely angry at Catholics because we stand in the way of embryonic stem cell research and cloning. His goal was to build a science only ethic in this country so that some day he could walk. Walking was without question a laudable goal, but the ends do not justify the means. This is really the issue behind the election. It is not Iraq, it is not the economy; it is faith versus science. You and I are the enemy to the science only ethic people, their friends in government and their investors who surround us, plain and simple.

Yet, as in any war we need to look at it and see how we fight it and why. What ultimately is our goal? First understand if we lose, everybody loses in the same way that if the Jews lost against Amalek the truths of God would be lost to rampant paganism, human sacrifice and later the immorality that brings down every society and race.

GODLESSNESS IN SCIENCE THE WORST NIGHTMARE

God's word is a lamp unto the feet of the human race as King David taught, that was true for Moses' troops, David's subjects and you and me. If we lose, there is no end to the horrors that can happen in this country by well meaning people seeking an ends and thereby justifying any means. Such examples of this are the horrors of NAZI Germany, The Soviet Gulags and the current Chinese Holocaust going on against people of faith on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. The seeds of those horrors were sown when this war began by those who seek to destroy us. Yet, remember, the ultimate losers are those who perpetrate these ideas, not those who are victims of them.

Our goal, therefore is not to defeat the forces of science over faith, but to get the message to the other side that they are walking down a path where they will lose and lose in a way of nightmarish proportions. We win no matter what by Jesus death and resurrection, they win when they realize they are walking into a nightmare. How do we do this?

EVOLUTION AND CHRISTIANITY AND MICKEY MOUSE

Ironically, they take their mandate from science. They believe that Copernicus and Darwin prove that Christianity is wrong. They base that belief on several minor miscalculations. Christians who make the same mistake in their interpretation of Genesis further enhance it as Scientists do in their rejection of it. Yet, it is science itself that demonstrates this mistake. Scientists will dismiss Genesis by saying the world was not created in seven days. Good. Christians say if that the bible teaches the world was made in seven days, therefore, it must have been made in seven days. The problem is no one asks the question if people at the time when Genesis was first told would understand a scientific creation account. The point that the world was made in Seven Days is to teach that there is only one God. There is no tree God, Cow God, Sun God, Wind God, Ocean God and finally there is no Time God. God is the source of all being and the creator of all things. Scientists use the same technique.

Does the Water Molecule look like the silhouette of Mickey Mouse? Scientists portray that figure to indicate that water is comprised of two oxygen atoms and one hydrogen atom, yet does anyone on this whole planet know whether or not the water molecule looks like Mickey Mouse? That same technique which in a simple and easy to understand format is the technique that God uses through his people to demonstrate a simple principle, there is no time God. There is God. As any scientist will tell you the sophistication of the message is not based on the comunicator, but the communicatee. We are the communicatees and we are not very sophisticated.

EVOLUTION INCOMPLETE WITHOUT CHRIST

Scientists will tell you that you cannot believe in evolution and in God. People of faith will you that you cannot be a Christian and believe in Evolution. Guess what, you both got it wrong. Christianity is an evolutionary faith and evolution is the reason for Christianity as is God's plan. It is in the bible. Jesus came at the fullness of time. When people had evolved to the point that they could understand his message. If you do not understand Christianity, you will never fully understand evolution and if you do not understand evolution you will never fully appreciate the deepest truths of Christianity.

I have tried to get the science community to understand this and finally realized that is futile. Now I realize, however, I had it backwards. I will never convince the atheist members of the science community because they are not open enough to listen. So, we need to go the next stage of war. We need to get our weapons and act as servants of God.

PRAYER, THE WEAPON OF OUR FAITH

Prayer. Yes, that is our real weapon. It is also the same weapon of victory that Moses uses on the mountain. What do we pray for? Let's listen. There are two kinds of people in the stem cell research debate there are those who are pushing for the profit motive. For those people who in their pursuit of riches are willing to seek to silence the Church for which Jesus Christ went to the Cross in the beginning of his death and his resurrection good luck to you. Don't expect me to stand next to you during a thunderstorm.

Yet, there are others these are the people who seek simply to be healed of their Spinal cord injuries and their neurological distresses. So do many others. When we say no to embryonic stem cell research, they do not hear the reasons, they hear one sentence, "No, because we said so." None of our reasons are good for them because they do not hear them, they only hear "No." Indeed, they may not even hear that there are four types of stem cell research, the church stands against one, embryonic, and it is the only one that has consistently proven to bear no fruit. The others have been quite successful even in healing paralysis.

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We need to find another solution. We as Catholics have a duty to do that. Therefore, we have a duty in our so called war to pray that the scientists find the solution to paralysis especially spinal cord injury, MS and other such diseases. We have a duty as Catholics to do that. The scientists will laugh at us. Go right ahead.

JESUS, HEALING AND MEDICINE

Jesus healed the people who were unhealable, either they did not have the money, or the doctors at the time could do nothing for them such as the case of the woman who touched his cloak. We can pray over people with spinal cord injuries individually and I am sure some will be healed. However, we do not need individual healing, we need a cure. You and I cannot say no, without saying Lord give us the answer to our quest. Give us the answer to that simple problem that all the money in the world has yet to solve.

If we were robots, I as a former Sonar Electronics Technician, could fix the problem in five minutes with a soldering iron. However, we are human and the medium of biological tissue is not as fixable as the simple medium of wire, despite the ultimate purpose is the same. We as Catholics have a duty to ask our Lord to give us the answer to this conundrum that is baffling scientists. We need to pray that God is glorified and that finally the forces of Science and Faith will no longer be enemies but at peace working together in service to the Father. When that happens our battle is over and we need to work together to fight the next one whatever that may be.

Contact

Catholicism Anew
http://www.catholicismanew.org MA, US
Fr. Robert J. Carr - Priest, 617 542-5682

Email

frbobcarr@earthlink.net

Keywords

Prayer, Spinal Cord Injury, Science, Faith

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