Some choice bits from Fr. George Rutler at Catholic Exchange (originally published by Crisis Magazine).
“The Catholic saints are never surprised by joy, because they are only surprised by a lack of it in the world around them.”
“It is sad but predictable that those Religious communities that abandon this purpose of their existence tend to embrace a neo-paganism that lacks the nobility of the best ancient pagans. “Peace and Justice” become to them what the virtues were to the Stoics, but nothing more. Half-baked paganism lacks the savor of the original dish, and the end result is a loss of radiant joy. We may have to endure for a few more years the degrading spectacle of arthritic Religious walking their labyrinths like superannuated debutantes, but the actuarial tables are against them. In the Catholic scheme of things, they are sadder than the Boethians were to the Athenians, for the one thing lacking in the most virtuous pagan soul is the confidence that moved Saint Bernard of Cluny to sing: “I know not, O I know not/ What joys await us there,/ What radiancy of glory,/ What bliss beyond compare.”
When Sinsinawa Dominican Sister Laurie Brink told a 2007 national gathering of the LCWR about “moving beyond the church, even beyond Jesus” it displayed this attitude. Though there is nothing beyond Jesus. Moving behind Jesus and even moving behind Paganism. Jesus once told Peter “Get behind me Satan” as Peter refused to accept Jesus’ predicted suffering and death. “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” These types of religious communities also tell the descendant of Peter, the Pope, to get behind them and really see him as Satan. But the role is reversed where Peter is teaching with the keys and these communities think as secular human beings do in a world directed not by God through his Church, but in conformance with shallow secularists thinking.
