Fr. Josh's Blog

"This teaching is not a body of abstract truths.
It is the communication of the living mystery of God."
-St. John Paul II

Welcome to Fr. Josh's blog! Check here often for Fr. Josh's monthly newsletter articles as well as other items of interest as they come around! Happy reading!

Lent 2019

The Habits of Lent and Seeing Christ
Fr. Joshua J. Whitfield

December
 

Our Father is Younger than We
by Fr. Joshua J. Whitfield
 

It is a repetitive and sometimes maddening rush that comes upon us this time of year. Planning routines and rituals and then the routines and rituals themselves sometimes take us through the holiday season so quickly that we forget or seemingly never have a chance to enjoy the beauty of the Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany seasons—this beautiful time in the Church’s year that opens up to us the story of our own salvation and of the new humanity that is the peaceable Church of God. Often, by the very routine of the holidays, we are hastily ushered past the shining grace of the coming of our Savior. We catch our breath, and it’s gone.

Now I have no secret wisdom or experience to impart to keep you from the frenzy of the season other than to say that there is grace, virtue, and joy in the simplicity of the Church’s biblical rhythm of prayer, worship, and celebration of Christ’s birth and the promise that he will come again upon the clouds in great glory. That is, scripture and the Church—if we’ll pay attention—can offer a more graceful schedule, a more spiritual rhythm by which we can be brought to gaze upon the Christ born for us. In this gospel rhythm (as opposed to the rhythms of sales, parties, and so on) we are ushered into something of the joy, vitality, and exuberance of the infancy of God. That is, there is something beautiful and true in our salvation being wrought in the birth of a child. It shows us not only what God goes through for our salvation, but it also shows something of the character of God’s love for us. His love is like the inexhaustible love of a child, love that is constant and always hopeful about the love it seeks. That God was born a child means that he still has hope for us.

Perhaps, then, we can take heart in the constant newness of God. Perhaps we cannot so much look to escape the routines and rituals of the season as to transform them more into the shape of our original story. When we are lethargic and dull-hearted about what we are doing, then perhaps we can pause and remember the infant-like exuberance with which God loves us and saves us. It may not be the routines that are the problem. It may be that we need to remember the childishness of God. This point is made wonderfully by G.K. Chesterton in his classic book Orthodoxy:
 
The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy…Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged.  They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead.  For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.  But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.  It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon.  It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them.  It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.
 
During this busy time of year, when we’re run down by the rush, perhaps we can reflect upon the infancy of God and be renewed. Prayers for you in this season of God’s infancy, this season of our hope!
 

November 2018

Catholics and Thanksgiving
by Fr. Joshua J. Whitfield
 
It’s a secular holiday, mind you. Thanksgiving is not a Christian holiday. We may mark this holiday in the Church with prayer, but it is not part of the “sanctoral cycle.” It’s a holiday thoroughly secular in its origin and maintenance. It is a national holiday, not a Catholic feast. We must always be clear about such distinctions, for they keep both our civic virtue and our Christian piety in right order.

Nonetheless, this particular secular holiday sits well with our Christian faith. That is, this national holiday is set aside for giving thanks—expressing gratitude for the nation, the Constitution, our liberties, freedoms, and provision. As citizens, we’re invited each year to give thanks for the goods and goodness of our common life. There is something plainly decent in the fact that we name thankfulness an element of our national character. That we celebrate Thanksgiving is one of the more beautiful, enduring, and hopeful things we do as Americans. It’s good and just that we Americans are a thankful people. Reflecting more seriously on this simple fact may do us some good in this conflicted and wearied age. It’s hard to be thankful and hateful at the same time.

This holiday sits well with our Catholic faith because we Christians know something about giving thanks. Indeed, the word we use to name the very heart of our faith is simply “thanksgiving.” Eucharistia was the word the first Christians used to name the principle and living gift Jesus made of himself in the “breaking of the bread.” The Eucharist expresses and makes available that eternal and inexhaustible love and gratitude Jesus has for the Father. The Son loves the Father and expresses it in thanksgiving. In turn, we who are in Christ, give thanks with him to the Father—“Through him, and with him, and in him” as we say in the Mass. As Christians, we share in an eternal thanksgiving insofar as we live in Christ. Thus, we understand that at the heart of everything is a divine gratitude that is eternal, resurrected, and sanctifying. We know that thanksgiving really is the secret logic of the universe. Chrysostom said that the Eucharist works upon us to be thankful in all things (Hom. on Matt. 25, 4). It’s the first principle of justice, the begetter of all love, and the very work of God among us. Paul taught this as well, that we should give thanks in all things because thanksgiving is “the will of God in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess. 5:18). This holiday sits well with our faith because we know that it is always good to give thanks, that giving thanks mirrors the divine and that it can actually be divine when consecrated with the name of Jesus.

As Christians, also, we know that thanksgiving is a dynamic act, not some isolated indicative statement. When we give thanks in prayer (and especially in the Eucharist), we always speak about the past, present, and future. We name what God has done; we believe in what he is doing; and we look forward to what God will do. The Christian practice of thanksgiving takes in the breadth of history and whole of God’s dealings with us. That is, as Christians when we give thanks, we do so armed with the virtues of faith and hope. We believe what God has done and trust what he will do. As Christians, we know that giving thanks can’t help but bring the mind nearer God. Giving thanks naturally opens our minds to consider things beyond our present experience—the past and the future. Giving thanks offers evidence of something greater than us and our present moment, something eternal and transcendent.

Thus, when we Catholics celebrate Thanksgiving, we should celebrate this wonderful national holiday with all the depth and wisdom of our faith. True, it’s a secular holiday. However, our Catholic faith should inform our celebration as well as our citizenship. When we gather around our family tables, hand in hand, our thanksgiving should be rooted in the knowledge that gratitude is a godly thing, bringing us closer to him as a Church and hopefully as a political people. Our thanksgiving is also prayer, dedicating our service to this country in the name of God, giving greater depth to that “more perfect Union” we all seek. Give thanks this year with full Catholic hearts. This is our faith and our privilege. It’s the gift we give to this wonderful country of ours. Happy Thanksgiving!
 

October 2018

The Saint Rita Prayer Project
by Fr. Joshua J. Whitfield

“At dusk, dawn, and noon…my prayer will be heard.” -Psalm 55:18
 

Christians pray, as Paul wrote, “without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). In Christ, by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, we are able to cry out in prayer, in intimate union with God, “Abba” (Rom. 8:15). When Christians talk about having a personal relationship with Jesus, this is what’s meant—that in Christ are in union with God the Father by the gift of the Holy Spirit. Such is how we are in relationship with God.
           
Which means prayer. That’s the reason Paul said Christians should pray “without ceasing,” because we are always in Christ, every moment of every day. Always conscious of him, always offering God our best, we live in Christ always in some state of prayer, a “living sacrifice,” Paul called it (Rom. 12:1). God who is always present to us in Christ, we strive make ourselves always present to him in all we say and do. Like two people in love, always aware of each other, of God we want always to be aware of his love and his presence, at every moment.
           
Which means daily prayer. We can only accomplish this by incorporating moments of actual prayer into our lives, daily prayer. Which is what the Bible teaches, look it up: Daniel, the Psalmist, the apostles, all of them prayed every day at certain times of the day (Dan. 6:11; Pss. 55:18; 119:64; Acts 2:42; 3:1; 10:9; 10:30). They punctuated their days with prayer. It’s how they kept themselves present to God; it kept them holy. Again, like two people in love: they often give each other a little peck on the cheek every day, small signs of affection, don’t they? It’s how they keep their love warm. That’s what daily prayer does to our life with God. It helps keep our love for him alive.
           
But it’s a spiritual tradition, spiritual power, we’ve largely lost, at least among the laity. The biblical tradition of daily prayer continues, always has, as the Liturgy of the Hours. The practice of daily prayer in the Church, however, has largely become something only clergy do. Bishops, priests, deacons, and religious are bound to pray daily the Liturgy of the Hours, but it’s a way of prayer open for everyone. In fact, Vatican II clearly hoped to restore this biblical practice to the whole Church, laity included; it’s one of the Council’s yet unrealized visions.

The hope was that as many people as possible would take up the ancient, biblical practice of daily prayer by praying the Liturgy of the Hours publicly in parishes. In the contemporary Church, we celebrate the Eucharist daily, sharing in the sacrifice of Christ every single day, offering ourselves to the Father in the Body and Blood of his Son. This has undoubtedly been a blessing for Church. However, still there’s something missing, and that’s the biblical way of daily prayer, the tradition of the Liturgy of the Hours.

In the Eucharist we receive Christ; we’re offered with Christ to the Father. In the Liturgy of the Hours, we praise the Father in Christ, praising him in the voice of Christ as we praise God with the Psalms and words of God. These two ways of prayer belong together; together, they make for a healthier Church, a healthier parish. As with Daniel and the apostles who prayed every day, it’s how we keep ourselves present to God; it’s one of the ways we strive for holiness—by praying every day.

Which is the reason for the Saint Rita Prayer Project. Beginning in November, we will reintroduce this ancient, biblical form of prayer, opening it up to everyone. Our hope is to pray publicly the Liturgy of the Hours almost every day at St. Rita. Precisely, we will pray Morning Prayer at 7:00am in the Eucharistic Chapel, Monday through Friday, before the Rosary at 7:20am. At 5:10pm, Monday through Friday, we’ll pray Evening Prayer (Vespers) in the Eucharistic Chapel just before the 5:30pm Mass. Our hope is that this becomes part of the rhythm of our common prayer life, something ordinary.

Again, the purpose of the St. Rita Prayer Project is to gather us together in prayer, praying in this ancient, biblical way, which has proven throughout the millennia to be a way a community is sanctified, binding us closer together and closer to God, keeping us in his presence. It’s how we can better live out what Paul wrote about, a life of prayer without end.

But where do you come in? Well, you’re invited to pray with us! If you’d like to experience this prayer, just show up. Come see if this is something that can help you reignite or deepen your prayer life. If you can come just once or a few times a week, if you just want to drop in from time to time, still, you can take part in this project of prayer with us. And even if you can’t join us, know that every day, twice a day, someone is praying for you—because you are one with us, in Christ by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.

In the world today, in the Church today, we often ask ourselves what we can do to help. In an unstable society and struggling Church, what can we do that does anything? Often, we answer this question with gimmicks and slogans, with books you can buy and videos you can watch, all of which does little, to be honest. All of it’s just sales.

But really, what can we do? The answer is simple, ancient, and biblical. It’s what we’re calling the Saint Rita Prayer Project, restoring the way of daily prayer at St. Rita. No gimmick, nothing fancy, just daily prayer, ancient and alive. But, be assured, simple though it is, daily prayer has the power to change things—to change you and even the Church. Which is why we’re going to do this at St. Rita; because it’s what we need to do.

Want to help? If you’d like to learn more, come to our information session to learn more about daily prayer and the Liturgy of the Hours and how we want to implement it in the Parish. This brief, no-commitment, information session will help you discern if this is for you. Or, if you just want to learn about this beautiful tradition of prayer for yourself, please feel welcome to come! Or brief 45-minute information session is on October 15 at 6:15pm in the Parish Commons. Please come!

pax,
Fr. Joshua

September 2018

What the Hidden Christianity of A. A. Milne Can Teach Us
by Fr. Joshua J. Whitfield

This summer I took the family to see the new Disney movie, Christopher Robin. I’m a pretty serious Winnie-the-Pooh fan as you know, so I made the whole family tag along. I’m glad my kids enjoyed it, but I was there, really, for myself. I wanted to see it.

This latest addition to the mythology of Winnie-the-Pooh is as profound as it’s delightful, answering what so many have been asking for more than 80 years: what had become of the boy, Christopher Robin, that child both imaginary and real. It’s easy to imagine it’s how A. A. Milne himself would’ve continued the story, likely as a play, the story of Christopher Robin all grown-up.

Beginning brilliantly where Milne left it, the movie begins in that “enchanted place,” that beautiful liminal green atop the Hundred Acre Wood described at the end of The House at Pooh Corner where Christopher Robin bid his sad farewell to Pooh. Soon to school, Christopher Robin was to give up doing “Nothing,” which he so much enjoyed. “They don’t let you,” he told Pooh, anxious and pensive, as only a child leaving childhood behind could say it.

The film’s beauty is that it begins and ends there, in that enchanted place where wonderfully “Nothing” is done, and that it draws Christopher Robin, his family, and the audience there too. It’s a commentary on the freneticism of modern parenting, our over-scheduled lives, too much sports, on living to work instead of working to live. At the heart of it is an invitation to conversion to a life less planned and less overworked, a life better lived.

And there is, of course, something deeply Christian about the film, and also about a great deal of A. A. Milne’s work, especially his children’s writing. Which is something I’ve always thought interesting given Milne’s own lack of religious belief.

For instance, the movie recommends the virtues of simplicity, of a father rediscovering his family and the joy of childhood, obviously akin to the teaching of Jesus about children, the childlike, and the kingdom of heaven (Mk. 10:15).

Of Milne’s original stories, in Winnie-the-Pooh, there’s the one of Pooh wedged in “Great Tightness” in the door of Rabbit’s house. All that could be done, of course, was to “get thin again,” to fast from his beloved honey while Christopher Robin stayed with him, keeping him company, reading a “Sustaining Book.” It’s as wonderful a story of sin, ascesis, and friendship, I think, as ever written.

And then, of course, there’s the story of Piglet giving his house to Owl in The House at Pooh Corner, a story of the beauty of spontaneous sacrifice, born of love and community, and of the ripple-effect of such an act. Piglet’s sacrifice is rewarded by Pooh’s own hospitality, welcoming Piglet into his home, friends hand in hand: “Thank you, Pooh, I should love to.” It’s a story untellable without the gospel, a story in substance that is the gospel itself.

And it’s this clear Christianity of Winnie-the-Pooh I find so interesting, as I said, because of Milne’s own religious views, or lack of them. “I cannot say what my God is,” Milne once wrote. As far as I can tell, aside from a wandering assortment of spiritual inklings, he never held any traditional religious beliefs, associating religion and its tenets with the “establishment,” which he always deeply despised, thinking it all hypocritical and compromised. A view for which it’s hard to blame him.

Which is the point for we Christians and Catholics, we preachers, priests, and bishops—that, hopefully, we mustn’t tire of looking for the Christianity still so present in our culture, albeit sometimes hidden and unconnected to the Church. But also, self-critically, that we need to acknowledge why so many, like Milne and millions of others, fail to associate the truth of the gospel with the Church to which the truth belongs, about why someone like Milne could be such a deeply Christian writer but never see it.

It’s something we Christians should reflect upon in this so-called post-faith world, about the truth still at work and of the quality of our service to it. Something, like Pooh, about which we should “think, think.”
 

Fr. Josh's column for Aleteia: "How to preach in pain amid scandal."

Fr. Josh's Op-ed in the Dallas Morning News
about recent scandals in the Church

August 2018

The Gospel of John, Chapter 6
by Fr. Joshua J. Whitfield

All through the August, the Church asks us to focus on a single chapter from the Gospel of John. John 6, one of the longest chapters in all of the Gospels, is also one of the most important for understanding the unique truth of the Catholic faith. Below are a series of talks on the Gospel of John, Chapter 6, given by Fr. Joshua several years ago. With these talks you can walk through this chapter verse-by-verse and learn why it's so foundational to our Catholic faith in the Eucharist. Enjoy!

John 6, Part 1
John 6, Part 2
John 6, Part 3
John 6, Part 4
John 6, Part 5
John 6, Part 6

 

February 2018
 

Simple Christian Radical Forgiveness
by Fr. Joshua J. Whitfield

We don’t get how radical it is.

Usually, after a brutal war of words or a fight, after we’ve been mistreated or attacked, we don’t immediately think about forgiveness. If we’ve been wronged particularly grievously, we may not think forgiveness a possibility at all. We may say, “I’ll never forget that so-and-so as long as I live!” Or if we’re not as offended as that, we may think about forgiving the other person, but only after certain conditions are met. We’ll often say something like, “As soon as that so-and-so apologizes!” We may entertain the possibility of forgiveness, but we treat forgiveness as if it’s a goal, as if it’s something that is achieved only at the end of a long process of apologies and righting wrongs. We treat forgiveness as if it’s some great moral achievement reached only after hard work. We’re proud of ourselves when, after a long moral struggle, we finally bring ourselves to the point of forgiving someone. “Finally,” we think, “I can forgive.” And we congratulate ourselves.

But, of course, this isn’t Christian at all.

To put it bluntly, God doesn’t tell us to try to forgive or to work toward forgiving our enemies. He just says, “Forgive.” Jesus doesn’t get very complicated here. He simply says, “forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Lk. 6:37). Paul taught that since God forgave us, we should forgive each other (Col. 3:13). Christian teaching is simple and to the point here. We must forgive. Yet we immediately put forward conditions and reasons that hinder forgiveness. We say, “That’s well and good, but...” Or we say, “These circumstances are different.” We offer complications to avoid the radical teaching of Jesus. And so we depart from Christianity.

The early Church understood this radical teaching, though. Repeatedly, in early martyr accounts, for example, when those who suffered for the faith were returned to the jails filled with their brothers and sisters, the first thing they did was forgive those who had faltered and failed. Of the martyrs of Lyons it was written, “Nor did they gloat over those who had fallen; rather, they gave of their own abundance...shedding many tears on their behalf before the Father” (2.6). They forgave them immediately, and those who first failed were restored by the “infinite mercy of Christ” (1.45).

What is unique about Christianity is that there is an imperative to forgive. We just do it, in imitation of God. We forgive first and ask questions later. Saint Maximus the Confessor teaches this beautifully in his Centuries on Love: “Do not be overcome with hate but overcome hate with love...Pray for him to God, accept his apology, or else come up with an apology for him yourself...” (4.22).

Come up with an apology ourselves? Surely not! Yet, this is Christian teaching. To forgive one’s enemies, even when they remain enemies, is the true mark of Christian mercy. Because it’s what God did, loving a rebellious world, dying for it on the cross. Argue with it all you want, but this is the plain blunt truth of Christian love and mercy.

Radical, as I said.
 

January 2018

A Meditation:
On the Gift of Life and the War of Heaven
by Fr. Joshua J. Whitfield

After my first child was born, I’ve come to think that a newborn baby is the most persuasive thing there is about God.

As a matter of theology, I learned long ago that God and human life were intimately intertwined, that God’s knowledge and love for us precedes even our formation in the womb (Jer. 1:4). As a young man, I learned from Saint John Paul II that my life was a gift and not entirely my own; that my life, and indeed all life, should be seen and cherished as a gift invested with rights inseparable from the will of God and not some late theory of autonomous subjectivity, some hidden will-to-power.

Intellectually, I knew this, but when my wife and I failed for years to conceive a child, month after month weeping over what wasn’t happening as readily as we expected, some sort of anger and tender sadness invaded our souls, and we began to see the gift of life as something frighteningly sublime, something we couldn’t control or command. All we could do was pray with Hannah-like sadness. “See my humiliation!” (1 Sam.1:11) was our prayer those many years, bitter prayer some of you may know. Desire and pain now marked what had previously been but an academic view of life. We desperately wanted life, and in failing to conceive life we discovered how false was the notion of completely controlling it, of calling it forth and disposing of it upon command, how sinister such an illusion.

Graciously, though, in the fullness of our time, Magdalene was born. Nothing is more religious, outside of the most tremendous sacraments of our faith, than the birth of a child. My wife, at once more frightened and more strong than she had ever been in her life, gave to this world a beautiful human being, one divine gift among trillions, but more precious to me than anything else. At this moment, bitter lament gave way to unearthly joy, and thenceforward my view of life became something more visceral than intellectual. Now I could recognize the emotion, anger, love, and invitation of Evangelium Vitae. I understood the sainted Holy Father’s anger and passion against the “conspiracy against life” (EV 12). I knew what he meant.

In my meditation I sometimes imagine heaven.

Beautiful, of course, heaven must be, but in my vision it’s also stark and silent surrounded by the eerie horizons of war. I see the Blessed Mother, regal and resplendent, but her eyes are red and her face is dry, pale, and worn by too much crying. She stares forward silently. Attending angels look with her, each aghast at the sight—some even jostling to wage the final holy war of heaven. The singing of Ave has stopped, and her countless children are silent, like children shocked out of their playful joy. Among them, a few begin to cry. Heaven sees the holocaust of her children, and our violence stills the joy of angels.

These are things I just see and know in the same way I know and love my children, four now. I’m convinced by them, completely vanquished by my love for them that just is—love given in the sacraments of their smiles. I know now in a way I didn’t know before that life is from God, a gift invoking all the jealousy of heaven. Thus, especially now, I am mystified by Catholics who see the good of abortion under any circumstance. I’m mystified even by those who do not share the anger of heaven. Give me your reasons, and I will give you inexplicable love and the face of a little girl. There is no excuse. It is evil. I am mystified by such Catholics, more heartbroken. I think of what Jesus must’ve felt—his sunken heart and breathless tears, turning to receive the false kiss in Gethsemane. One of his own brought the instruments of death to bear upon the innocent. I think I know what he must’ve felt.

I give you no rational arguments. I make no appeals to natural law. I just beg you to see. Look at the persuasive beauty of life. Pray to see. Don’t arm yourself with your alleged common sense.

Again, I imagine heaven: The Lamb that was slain steps forward. Those crying, now pray, and the Blessed Mother speaks. “Look!” she says to the Lamb. “Say it again!” she begs. “Say it again! Forbid them not! Rebuke them again! Call your children! Forbid them not!” Her prayers are perfect. The Lamb does speak. “Let the children come to me,” he says (Mk. 10:14).

And so, the eternal verdict is given, and all earthly tribunals stand judged.