Today’s Gospel reading gives rise to a common non-Catholic assumption (pardon the pun) about Mary:

While Jesus was speaking to the crowds,
his mother and his brothers appeared outside,
wishing to speak with him.
Someone told him, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside,
asking to speak with you.”
But he said in reply to the one who told him,
“Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?”
And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said,
“Here are my mother and my brothers.
For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father
is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Matt 12:46-50).

Some have understood Jesus as being very dismissive towards his mother with these words. Not so. First, Jesus always honored his mother, as any good Jewish son would (As God, he’s the very author of the fourth commandment, by the way). Plus, no one was actually more docile, more obedient to God’s will than Mary, who be came the first Christian disciple by her famous “Fiat”. In enfleshing his Word, she proved to be the doer of the Father’s will par excellence.

Yesterday was the feast day of St Bonaventure. Although much could be said about the Seraphic Doctor, I’d like to focus on this: he was a proponent of a fascinating apologetic, called the Kalam cosmological argument.

Now, cosmology has nothing to do with cosmetics, cosmetic surgery, or anything like that! Cosmology has to do with the cosmos -the universe, and its origins. The Kalam argument became popular among Islamic philosophers in the Middle Ages, but not so much among Catholics. One notable exception was St Bonaventure.

The argument goes like this:

1) The universe (obviously) exists. 2) The universe either had a beginning or no beginning. 3) If a beginning – the beginning was either caused or not caused. 4) If it was caused – the cause was either personally caused or not personally caused.

If accepted, the argument ends with the universe being caused by a personal God. Each part of the argument presents you with a dilemma. Once you answer one question, it presents you with another, until you come to an inescapable conclusion.

Let’s take a look at point 2: The universe either had a beginning or no beginning. There are many who claim that the universe need not have a beginning point, or a first cause. They advocate an infinite number of causes stretching back in time through the history of the universe. However, there is no such thing as an actual infinite number of causes. There is no such thing as as an actual infinite number of anything!

For example, imagine, if you will, a library where there is an infinite number of red books, and an infinite number of black books. If someone signs a red book out of the library, there would still be just as many red books as black books in the library, since there is an infinite number of each! But this is obviously not the case in actuality. Hence, there can not be an infinite number of causes stretching back through the history of the universe. There had to be a first cause, a beginning, to the universe.

In future posts I’ll take a look at the rest of the Kalam argument.

The New Mass App has found its way on to Canterbury Tales, the popular blog by Taylor Marshall! Read Taylor’s review here. Taylor has authored an amazing book called The Crucified Rabbi, which I reviewed not long ago. I can’t wait to read parts two and three of his trilogy, which will be on St Paul and the role of Rome in Catholicism, respectively. Taylor’s a former Anglican priest who is a convert to Catholicism. He’s one of the most exciting young converts and scholars to come into the Church in recent memory. His blog is always relevant and insightful, and it’s one you’ll bookmark for sure!

It’s finally a reality!

I’m proud to announce that our first iPhone App, The New Mass, is available now, from the Apple App Store. You can find out how to download it here, or simply access the App Store from your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad!

As you probably know by now, there is a new English translation of the Mass, approved by Pope Benedict XVI, that will be in a parish near you within a few months – most likely by Advent 2011. This new translation is both more faithful to the official Latin text of the Mass, and helps to explain the biblical roots of the liturgy. The New Mass App will help you to learn the new responses you’ll have to know for the Mass (we can’t go from memory anymore, folks!), while giving some of the reasons for each change. Best of all, you can still use it with today’s Mass!

I’d really like to thank Batsirai Chada, my co-developer in producing this app. Couldn’t have done it without you! We served as each other’s best man at our respective weddings, and I’m happy we could stand together once again for this important project.

I was so thankful that when I showed the New Mass app to my Archbishop, His Grace, Thomas Collins of Toronto, he liked it, saying that it was “wonderful”.

I think you’ll like it too. Happy downloading!

In today’s Gospel reading from Matthew 7, Jesus says this:

“Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.

Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?

How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’while the wooden beam is in your eye?

You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.”

First of all, I want to point out that our Lord is actually being quite funny here. Hebrew humor is often humor by exaggeration, so you can imagine he probably drew a few laughs by saying something to the effect of, “Before pulling that splinter out of somebody else’s eye, you might want to pull the telephone pole out of your own eye, so you can see what you’re doing!”

All joking aside, Jesus’ main point against wrongfully judging others has been grossly misinterpreted by many, who wish to use Jesus’ words to justify sinful lifestyles. The argument goes something like this: “Jesus says not to judge others, so you can’t possibly judge my behavior to be wrong.”

Actually, I can – and I should! And so should you. We must make judgments on particular behaviors. Objectively, certain behaviors are wrong (that’s why we have laws against things like theft, murder, etc.). What we can’t judge are people’s motives (why they do what they do), or the state of their soul before God. We just don’t know the answers to those questions – the Church doesn’t even venture a guess as to who may be in hell. And the only way we know some are in heaven (saints) is because they’ve given us evidence that they are there (miracles).