aeternus

This morning’s second reading from the office is from St. Boniface whose feast day we celebrate today. The opening paragraph is just wonderful and is as pertinent today as it was back in the 7th Century. Boniface writes:

In her voyage across the ocean of this world, the Church is like a great ship being pounded by the waves of life’s different stresses. Our duty is not to abandon ship but to keep her on her course.

Boy, what words of wisdom. Boniface surely could help us out today in Germany. Yesterday I read an article by Dr. Jeff Mirus who talks about how we are under constant and most ridiculous battle not just from outside our church, but most fiercely from within. In his article entitled, “When Fear and Anger Give way to Laughter” Mirus uses a current silly situation where 130 theologians from Germany and Austria have signed a petition for reform of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He jokes in the article:

“Tell the German theologians to pin their 95 Theses to the door and we’ll get back to them.”
On the other hand, there is a priest in Minnesota who is being censured because he is trying to protect the innocent young minds of our school children. In his attempts to expose the insanity behind Virtus a program which is mandated for all Catholic schools and religious education programs. Virtus is being implemented in the archdiocese’s 220 parishes to comply with a 2003 mandate by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in the wake of the clergy-sex-abuse scandal.
MANY believe that the program violates Vatican teachings (the magisterium) and that only parents should talk to children about sex.

I can hardly believe that the Bishops feel forced into implementing such a program as this! It is astounding. In the name of protecting children (through a some delusional secular culture mentality) should we expose 5 and 6 year old children to point to pictures of naked bodies to say what part is what and who should and should not touch them!? Or, should we love children and protect their little souls by centering our efforts of education to the adult population who has gone sex mad and gender nutty? Would not it be wise to turn our attention to battling the pornography industry and clean up television, movie and news media hype?! Can we PLEASE put a ban on having advertisements for “enlargement” medicines on every channel at every commercial break?!! We should be fighting the adult battle and not showing our 5 year old children how to protect themselves. If we can not battle, why, no - HOW could we possibly think they could!!! It is insane!!!

O.K… I had better stop this rant and get back to our saint of the day…
As we can see we have both sides of the Christ’s church being bombarded with waves today! The good forces and the bad are often mistaken for one another! We surely should pray to our dear Saint Boniface today for we need his and everyone’s help!

It was said Boniface showed a great zeal for meditation as a youngster. I found a short, but so wonderfully written biography on him from the Medieval Sourcebook at Fordham. I will include this paragraph about his contemplative aspects and how he shows us a great example in attaining a life of saintly union with our Lord:

… the saint’s daily contemplation and to his perseverance in fasting and abstinence. In this way, making gradual progress, we shall relate with conciseness and brevity his wonderful deeds, follow his life to its close, and examine it in greater detail. By balancing one aspect of his life against another we shall show that the venerable and holy Boniface was an example for us of eternal life in his evenly balanced moderation and that he laid before us the precepts of apostolic learning. Following the example of the saints, he climbed the steep path that leads to knowledge of heavenly things and went before his people as a leader who opens the gates of paradise through which only the upright shall enter.

from the Medieval Sourcebook: Willibald: The Life of St. Boniface