2006 December archive at Being Frank

Archive for December, 2006

Dec

“My cat smells like cat food”

By Methuselah's Beard Closed

Categories: Being Frank...

I don’t have a cat and I don’t think it would smell like cat food if I had one, but I couldn’t think of a title and I’d already used “Musings” a little too often…

I think all the good news stories have already been taken this week* so instead I will tell you about my recent shopping experience.

“Isn’t it amazing how everyone knows Christmas is coming but leaves it until the last possible moment to get into the present buying spirit?” I thought while stuck in a queue to get into another queue to get into the carpark.

It was around 7pm and it was already madness inside. Don’t people have tv to watch?

I think I saw someone from UNICEF there trying to talk to people about whatever UNICEF does (I think sponsoring a child?? Am quite ignorant / forgetful sometimes… forgiveness please). I know UNICEF probably isn’t on the good books of everyone here but surely at times like this we would be better off thinking of those less fortunate than us? (Cue abuse for suggesting support of UNICEF when what I meant was just any other charity).

Anyway, I was distracted from my musings by a demonstration of a remote controlled helicopter that was whizzing around. How cool is that?!? Sure the novelty would wear off in about an hour, and it cost around $60, but it was a remote controlled helicopter! Remote. Controlled. Helicopter. Didn’t buy it of course. Shame factor was just a little too high.

Well we may leave our Christmas buying until the last possible moment, but let’s not try leaving our living a good and wholesome Christian life until the last possible moment!

See, I had some sort of point this week. Wishing all of you out there a safe and Merry Christmas!

* I have not read the paper at all this week apart from NZ’s demolition in the cricket, so there may actually be quite a few newsworthy stories out there.

Dec

Go to Hell (hehehe)

By The Captain 6 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

I’m loathe to say this after the last time, but I’m pretty much more than certain we’ll all agree on this…

The esteemed editor of our national newspaper recently wrote a very well-balanced editorial calling for a boycott of Hell Pizza following the recent condom-in-the-mailbox stunt, and our not-so-esteemd national newspaper picked it up online and ran with it.

I have read a small selection of the comments posted in response to the boycott call. Only a small selection because my blood pressure and work commitments won’t allow me to trawl through the endless garbage comments.

Point number one: Hell makes pretty, relatively, damn fine pizza (pun intended). It’s not gourmet but it sure is tasty! While I’m not overly comfortable with the concept behind the chain, I’ve never had a real issue eating it.

Point number two: What Hell did with the recent promotion for the Lust pizza was a step too far. Catholic or not, Christian or not, it’s not ok to expose children to condoms without their parents’ knowledge or consent. Hell doesn’t have the right to make that decision.

Point number three: People love to bash the Catholic Church! Not sure where the logic is in comments along the lines of: “The Catholic Church encourages sodomy of young boys, perhaps it should clean up its act before it attacks harmless things like condoms” but unfortunately that point-of-view isn’t entirely uncommon.

My view: We have a responsibility to stand up against stupid acts that seek to undermine the importance and integrity of family, like the recent promotion. We also have a responsibility to stand up for our Church, and ensure Kiwis see it for what it is.

Saying condoms don’t work leaves us open to be dismissed and/or ridiculed. Saying putting condoms in letterboxes exposes them to heat, thus rendering them useless, is smart.

Given the current climate, when so many are just hankering to pounce on the Church for anything it says or does, wouldn’t it be in our best interests to keep our heads on and make sure our messages are clear and intelligent?

The now-dubbed (by me, so not sure if that counts) Boycott Editorial is a perfect example of exactly this. It lays out an argument, without taking it too far. It represents our Church in a reasonable, loving but firm light.

And yes, for now, I have stopped eating Hell Pizza. Damn them.

Dec

Counting sheep

By Peter the First 12 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

I just read this article in NZ Catholic, and it reminded me of a common mindset in the Church.

No disrespect to the article in question, but it seems to me that we too often reduce our faith to a numbers game. We worry about which denomination or other religion is going to outbreed us. We worry about the number of bums on pews. We worry, very vocally, about the declining number of priests.

And yes, these numbers can be useful tools, and good to be aware of. But sometimes, it feels to me, we are staring at the odometer, the speedometer and the fuel gauge, when perhaps we should be paying more attention to the road we’re driving on.

Dec

Salvation outside the Church?

By Agnes Day 30 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

CCC 776 As sacrament, the Church is Christ’s instrument. “She is taken up by him also as the instrument for the salvation of all,” “the universal sacrament of salvation,” by which Christ is “at once manifesting and actualizing the mystery of God’s love for men.”¹⁹⁹ The Church “is the visible plan of God’s love for humanity,” because God desires “that the whole human race may become one People of God, form one Body of Christ, and be built up into one temple of the Holy Spirit.”²⁰⁰

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, following historic Christian theology since the time of the early Church Fathers, refers to the Catholic Church as “the universal sacrament of salvation” (CCC 774–776), and states: “The Church in this world is the sacrament of salvation, the sign and the instrument of the communion of God and men” (CCC 780).

Many people misunderstand the nature of this teaching and it can often be taken to extremes and claim that it makes no difference what church one belongs to. Certain radical traditionalists, going to the other extreme, claim that unless one is a full-fledged, baptized member of the Catholic Church, one will be damned.

The following quotations from the Church Fathers give the straight story. They show that the early Church held the same position on this as the contemporary Church does—that is, while it is normatively necessary to be a Catholic to be saved (see CCC 846; Vatican II, Lumen Gentium 14), there are exceptions, and it is possible in some circumstances for people to be saved who have not been fully initiated into the Catholic Church (CCC 847).

Notice that the same Fathers who declare the normative necessity of being Catholic also declare the possibility of salvation for some who are not Catholics.

The Fathers likewise affirm the possibility of salvation for those who lived before Christ and who were not part of Israel, the Old Testament People of God.

However, for those who knowingly and deliberately (that is, not out of innocent ignorance) commit the sins of heresy (rejecting divinely revealed doctrine) or schism (separating from the Catholic Church and/or joining a schismatic church), no salvation would be possible until they repented and returned to live in Catholic unity.
www.catholic.com

Dec

WWJD?

By James the Least Closed

Categories: Being Frank...

Sitting in Mass on Rose Sunday yesterday, our local parish priest made a point of the fact that we usually spend most of December running around like nutters, trying to buy that last present for little Suzy, ensuring that the plastic leaves are all perpendicular on our tree and cooking, cleaning and praying that the in-laws like your decorating. Preparation left, right and centre, but none of it for the right reason.

So, our priest took the opportunity to allow us a couple of minutes of silence, just to contemplate the wonder of the Incarnation, and to remind ourselves that the purple and pink around the church are there for a reason. It was a great idea, and everyone took advantage of the opportunity…everyone except my wife and I who were in the crying/baby room at the back of the church with our son and a half dozen toddlers high on sugar from Christmas parties earlier in the afternoon. There wasn’t much silence to behold.

But I managed to get some contemplating in, and as I looked into my son’s eyes as he lay on the ground gurgling at me, I started to wonder…WWJD? For those in the know, this acronym usually means What Would Jesus Do and it’s a nice little tool that can be used to help us gain some perspective on life at any particular moment. But I was thinking of a different J.

I was thinking about Joseph.

Without boring you all with the details, being a first-time father is not easy. It’s joyous, fantastic, worthwhile and amazing all at the same time, but it’s not easy. Well, I don’t find it easy anyway. Above all, it’s a big test of your faith and your trust in God as you are reminded on nearly an hourly basis that you are not in control – He is. Babies don’t make it any easier – they seem to need more maintenance and more diagnostic tests than an F1 racecar! Plus, they have this innate ability to come up with the strangest and most disconcerting sounds at the most inopportune moments, leaving you baffled as to what is going on.

So, while our priest placed three questions up on the overhead taken from the Gospel readings these last three weeks (so as to help with the reflection time), I was pondering three other questions that all parents out there will no doubt be familiar with: What was that? Is he okay? Is that normal?

I then started to think about Joseph. What would it have been like for him, over 2,000 years ago, to have this little Christ-child introduced into his life? I mean, it’s easy to get wrapped up in the halos and totally unrealistic Renaissance paintings and Hallmark greeting cards and think that’s what it was like. But the Gospels don’t cover off what life was like every day, and with Christ being both fully human and fully divine, you can bet that Joseph would have been asking those same questions.

But you know what? As I looked at my son, all the songs and poems and books suddenly made sense and stopped being metaphors. He is everything to me. Just seeing him smile makes all the fear, worry and doubt disappear. What remains is an echo of God’s love for me. What an amazing gift.

And I bet Joseph thought the same thing.

Dec

Discipline

By eyeWitness 4 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

I guess this post is sort of on the theme of what I wrote about last week. I have just finished a book – it was a shallow romantic kind of book I admit. I couldn’t handle any heavy books after studying for so long! Anyway, it was set in the time of the depression, and the characters in the book were striking from the factory they worked in, so were very poor.

The main 20 year old, just married, female character, worked so hard for every material possession she had. She unthreaded jumpers to make new ones and turned coats inside out and added new features to make a new coat. Her little boy wore a girl’s jumper, and hid the frill with his coat, because that’s all he had. Things I would just never contemplate doing as I look through my crammed drawers and contemplate what else I could buy to cram in there.

Even over and above the fact that they were poor, it was a time when a watch or a pair of shoes was handmade with love and care by someone, and cost (relatively) a lot to buy, so was treasured by its owner – as opposed to shot out at the fastest rate possible from a factory somewhere in China.

Perhaps I am a little caught up in the warm fuzzy feeling that finishing a good book always gives you, but it crossed my mind that we have a culture that really doesn’t look after things, or take pride in possessions. Or maybe you do and it is only me who has this problem – But I do think as a society we have the attitude that there is plenty more where all our possessions came from.

I am even in the habit of buying coffee everyday. Regardless of whether you can afford to do this (which actually I’m not sure I can!!), I think it makes for an undisciplined sort of life style and even unhappiness. Believe or not it makes me happy to have to save for something I really want, because then I appreciate that thing so much more. If I only allow myself two coffees a week they bring me so much happiness – If i have one every day it is minimal.

This train of thought led me to thinking that maybe fasting or some such denial (such as what we do at lent), is really a very beneficial thing, because it teaches us discipline, restraint and a sense of appreciation of all that we have.

Dec

Communication error

By Methuselah's Beard 11 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

Grrr…. I wrote a post before but the techonolgy gremlin struck and it’s all gone. Gone, gone, gone. So in protest, I will just post a link to this article for your perusal.

The authors make a good point – Christianity is about loving God and loving your neighbour. They also wonder if Christians are supporting laws that force others to live by their standards. Not sure which laws they are talking about. Abortion maybe?

If we love God, we try to live up to his standards, and if we truly love our neighbour, won’t we want them to try and live up to God’s standards too? If we love someone, we’d want the best for them. Won’t heaven be the best thing we can give them? (I guess we don’t give heaven away… but we can set people on the right track!).

But is the way we’re putting our message across turning people away from Christianity? Or tuning people out?

In future, if the technology gremlin strikes again I will simply post a picture of a polar bear.