Tag Archives: Faith

MY DISTURBING THOUGHTS ABOUT PRAYER

April 24, 2026 – 1:37 pm

MY DISTURBING THOUGHTS ABOUT PRAYER

  1. FAITH In Prayer

Even as my faith in God remains as strong as it has ever been, I am realizing that my faith in prayer to God is another matter.

I know that many prayers do not seem to be answered (or at least the answer is all too often “NO”.)  When this happens, we fall back upon the secure truth that God knows our needs (and the needs of others) much better than we do. 

And I believe that God is the God of Love, that He wills what is best for us.  I have faith in God’s love, even where that seems least likely.  God knows His business better than I do.   

And He knows our needs and wants before we bring them to Him in prayer.

So why do I pray?

You might as well ask why I breathe. If I stop breathing, I die. (That line is a slightly adapted borrowing from Victor Lazlo in the movie Casablanca.)  Prayer is a natural human response to any problem or need that we feel powerless to satisfy. 

Everybody prays.  After all, what does it mean when we say “I hope…that this medicine works for me.” Or “I wish that…..  The subjunctive mood is often used to express such prayers without an address: “May you live long and prosper,” or “May this house be safe from tigers” (google author Alexander King.)

But this type of prayer is not addressed to anyone; it is simply tossed out into the universe like a note “To Whom It May Concern…”, stuck in a bottle and dropped into the sea.

With faith in a loving God, we know who to address and even how to pray properly.  That is a large part of what I get from the Church.

But I am also aware of conflicting guidance about the prayer process.  On one hand, Jesus tells us that our prayers, even extreme ones like uprooting trees or mountains, will be answered IF our faith is strong enough. On the other hand, when He prays in Gethsemane, He asks for release from His destiny on the cross. But in His next breath He qualifies it, with “but nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.”  And in His model of prayer, He tells us to pray “Thy will be done” just before “Give us this day our daily bread.” Beg and qualify.  Ask and prepare to not receive.

My conclusion(such as it is)?  Never resist the urge to pray, but always be prepared to accept an answer other than an obvious “Yes”. 

2. PRAYERS OF PRAISE

I have been taught that there are three types of prayer: thanking God; asking for God’s intercession; and praising God.  

I feel deeply and always and everywhere the need to thank God for the many blessings He has given me. 

And I certainly have a long list of things I ask Him to intercede for, leading with the healing of so many loved ones. Those suffering from physical or mental illness or persecution or other ills inflicted by other people.

But I have long felt ambivalent about the “praise” component.  Praising the God who created and rules the universe, well that has always struck me as odd: like telling Jascha Heifitz or Itzhak Perlman “You are a very good violinist.”   I may have been influenced by the Monty Python sketch in “The Meaning of Life” in which a priest makes a groveling, obsequious prayer beginning with “Oh Lord, Oooh, you are so big!  All of us down here are really impressed with you…”

So why do we make a big deal about praising God?  To please Him? Possibly.   Or to demonstrate our humility?  That sounds closer.  Then I realized: it is to build and maintain the foundation of true humility in us.   

The Psalms make this clear.  Amidst all these hymns of praise, we read:

“Know ye that the Lord He is God.  It is He that hath made us and not we ourselves.  We are His people and the sheep of his pasture.” (100:3)

“Be still, and know that I am God.”(46:10)

That is why we praise Him.  To remind ourselves that He is God and we are not.

(And that is why I gave up looking to Monty Python for religious instruction. Though they were early leaders about the insanity of “transgenderism”.)

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Something Old to Think About

February 19, 2026 – 5:39 pm

[In which Ben engages in naked plagiarism.]

I may be running into what “writers” refer to as “writer’s block”. I am not coming up with much to say that has not already been said by other, better writers. So I am going to try simply engaging in open plagiarism, quoting some of the greatest minds whose words have inspired me.

Like many converts, I have been asked: “Why the Catholic Church, Ben? We get that you have awakened to the fact that the world makes more sense and generates more hope and love and gratitude if it is not regarded as some pointless accident. But why, of all churches, pick the Catholics? With their bells and smells and pointy hats and other silly rigamarole. Why them?”

“The Catholic Church is for saints and sinners only.” (Oscar Wilde)

And it happens that I am a lifelong member of that second group. It is where I belong. They get me.

Many have spoken of the Church needing to be a Field Hospital for wounded souls, and that is true; the Church must go to the people who need them, and missionary outreach is essential. But I also believe that the Catholic Church serves as the best possible Intensive Care Unit for souls. The Sacraments, to treat every important need; the full-time clergy staff available 24/7, offering soul surgery every day of the year. If sin is your sickness (as it is mine), its care is both urgent and intensive.

And another thing:

“The Catholic Church is the only thing that saves a man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age.” (G.K.Chesterton)

The Church has a firmer grasp on eternal truths and realities than any other outfit in town. When the Church starts teaching that men can get pregnant and children don’t really need both a mother and a father, then I will have to reconsider. But until then, here I stand.

How about you?

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I Was Glad When They Said Unto Me…

April 12, 2020 – 4:24 pm

[My friend Dan Wing has asked my thoughts on this strange Easter. Here they are.]

Dan, I have often shared with you my love for our Cathedral and how I miss it during the long winter months I spend in Florida. The parish I attend there is a sad affair, a church that feels old and tired. Literally old, as the congregation is almost 100% retired and 65+. And figuratively tired, as there seems to be no awareness of any of the challenges the church is now facing.

In Montana, I feel old; but in Florida, the world feels old. I prefer the Montana feeling. And throughout the Florida winter, I dream of attending mass in the magnificent Cathedral of St. Helena when spring arrives.

At my conversion, you helped me find my place in God’s world.  At the time I especially felt the truth in Psalm 122: “I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord.” You and Cherie were two of the ones who most persistently said it unto me.

And I remember that joy I felt, and still feel, whenever I have the chance to enter our Cathedral.

Yet now I have been back in Montana for a month, and still have not been to a single mass here. I am of course grateful for the opportunity to be of help to my family in this time of crisis. And my heart leaps with joy whenever I see our beautiful Cathedral on the hill as I drive through town. But still…

I know you and so many others feel the same sense of loss that I do.   In my case I wonder if this sense of loss could be a part of the purgatory my sinful heart needs.

The emptiness that has often hit me this month has sometimes seemed like an extended Holy Saturday, a day with a conspicuous absence in its heart. Now, He is Risen!

But the challenge continues. How to keep the holiness of God in my heart without the help of the sacraments and our priests?  Very hard, indeed. The Magnificat helps with regular devotions. And my daily diet of “Thank You, Lord” prayers find no shortage of occasions.

But still I long for the day when I again hear “Let us come into the house of the Lord” for mass. And I think it may be a foretaste of the day I can walk joyfully into God’s full and complete presence. God willing.

Yours in Christ

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The Little Girl Hope

May 24, 2019 – 9:45 pm

Christians have hope because they have faith – the very substance of things hoped for. Christians have hope even in the darkest prison cell (as demonstrated repeatedly from St. Paul to Solzhenitsyn.)

The rest of us? Some substitute optimism for hope, based on a faith in humanity and its inherent goodness.  Others simply avoid thinking about it, relying by osmosis from the ambient cloud of hope generated by a Christian civilization. But can that last? Can we forever be parasites of Christians’ hope?

In Mystery of the Portal of Hope, French poet Charles Peguy describes hope in familial terms.  Two older sisters (Faith and Charity) lead their little sister Hope by the hand.  But in fact, Peguy explains, the little girl Hope is actually leading them, the big sisters.

The little hope moves forward in between her two older sisters and one scarcely notices her.

On the path to salvation, on the earthly path, on the rocky path of salvation, on the interminable road, on the road in between her two older sisters the little hope

Pushes on…

It’s she, the little one, who carries them all.

Because Faith sees only what is.

But she, she sees what will be.

Charity loves only what is.

But she, she loves what will be.

 

But I know this family; they are my neighbors and friends, and Peguy has miscast them. In reality, Faith is the father. Charity, love, is the mother.  But he got the most important part right: Hope is indeed the little child, the daughter whose faith and love are so strong that she cannot help but trust.  And it is she who leads the family along through this valley of the shadow.

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Hope Without Faith?

December 30, 2018 – 12:16 pm

There can be no greater blessing than faith in a loving God.  This much I have learned.  But this blessing is not easily achieved; at least it has not been for me.

“Now abideth these three, Faith, Hope, and Love,” writes St. Paul.  Hope seems to me the future tense of faith and love.  Hope  for the future, without faith in something that can save us from ourselves, seems impossible; without faith we live hopeless lives. But how do we do that?

Surprisingly well, for the most part. The  hopeless life can apparently be lived in a condition of general self-satisfaction.  The Swerve, a recent book about Lucretius and his Epicurian writings, sings the praises of just such a life.  It has become the default setting of modern life: “happiness” as a goal in itself, looking away from ugly things, ignoring the things others must do for me so that I may achieve my happiness.

The other alternative to hopelessness is faith in something – anything – that we can persuade ourselves is greater than ourselves.  If one cannot believe in a loving God, one has other choices.  One can believe in saving the world through political action; countless lives have been sacrificed to the belief that a political party holds the key to the salvation of the world.  Hegel first gave scientific pretensions to the faith in historical progress, freeing envy and the will to power to masquerade as world salvation, thereby making a better world by putting me and people just like me in total authority.

Faith in a warrior god, such as some strains of Islam, is an ancient alternative that is reasserting itself.  But faith in a god of bloody conquest tends to be a close kin of the Marxism that gives supernatural authority to our natural desire to destroy our enemies and elevate ourselves.

Or, at a less intense level, one may believe that People Are Basically Good (the PABGoo assumption) and that therefore things will somehow work out.  This variety of the unexamined life, which goes by the name of optimism, is generally coupled with The Swerve’s Epicurianism in the modern default mode.  The only sacrifice most PABGoos are called upon to make for their faith is their contact with reality; most seem only too glad to make it.

I have gone through these alternatives throughout my long life.  They no longer work on me.  I am no longer willing to deny reality, and I am no longer comfortable dressing my will to power in Marxist or Hegelian costume.

And so I have come to the Church, the reality of God’s existence and purpose on earth.  Nothing will be saved without God. God is in fact the only hope which remains when false faiths have fallen away.

 

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A Cry from the Heart of the Laity

August 21, 2018 – 11:46 pm

To anyone concerned about the health of the Catholic Church, I highly recommend a post on First Things by Luma Simms, entitled “Fathers, Help Us”.  It is a pained and troubling cry from the heart of the laity, and it expresses a view that I share.

“There are many faithful and trustworthy bishops and priests…My last plea is to them: Heed your responsibility before God. Do you not know that you corrupt yourselves by your silence?”

There are some positive signs, such as Bishop Morlino of Madison WI, whose statement here confronts the elephant in every room of the Church.  Homosexual clergy and the resulting tolerance of sexual corruption, along with its accompaniment of cover-up, must be identified by name.  It appears that few of the worst perpetrators remain among the priests.  But the McCarrick scandal has revealed that the corruption in higher levels persists (to say the least).

And the cleansing of the Temple will require the naming of names. Apologies that start “We deeply regret…” are frankly of no use at this point.

Fathers, especially bishops, must shoulder the job of cleansing and rebuilding. They must lead in driving from the Temple those who have profaned it.  If the USCCB continues to stonewall, and the pope continues to dance around the issue, the Church may be deservedly wrecked.

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I’m back…

January 8, 2018 – 10:53 am

I must apologize to you, faithful reader, for my long absence.  I have been busy with a big change in my life.

I have joined the Catholic Church.   Finally.

You, faithful reader, are probably not surprised.  If you have followed my “spiritual progress reports” on this site, you must have seen it coming.  Strangely, I did not.

My reasons are easily summarized.  The gratitude problem: having no proper way to say “Thank You” for so many inexplicable blessings.  My need for moral guidance and support in battling my pride, my selfishness, my sloth, and my many other sins.

My need to make sense of existence.  My need for awareness of sanctity.  My need to learn to love better.

And, perhaps above all, my need for Hope in the face of despair.  Seeing this beautiful western world falling apart, seeing evil triumph on every side, seeing madness replace sanity.  If we are not in God’s hands, then all is lost.

“But what about the Pope?””, I hear you ask.  This bizarre modernist clown of a pope?  Join him?

For decades I have been growing closer to the Church precisely because of its popes.  Saint John Paul II and Benedict XVI were the world’s clearest voices for reason, reality, and love.  JPII on communism, BXVI on Islam, and both on Western modernism, were lighthouses in a darkening world.  They showed the way.

I have written elsewhere on the shabby, secular, relativist, liberation-theologist, enemy of all that his predecessors built.  His presence was the final hurdle I had to get over before I could seal the deal.

But I was reassured by several thoughts.

First, I was asked by a counselor: “Who is the Head of the Church?”  I am old enough to spot a trick question when I hear one, so I caught the point.  Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church.  Not the Pope.

Second, I was reminded that the Catholic Church has survived intact, with doctrine essentially unchanged, for twenty centuries of  turmoil, often led by bad, weak or foolish popes and filled with cynical, power-hungry, licentious agnostic priests.  The only word for such vigorous survival is “miraculous”. No other human institution even comes close.

Third, I see daily demonstration that my concerns about the present pope are shared by many, many others in the Church.  I want to join and support them in their brave, often lonely defense of truth.

So, on September 21, I became a Catholic.  A dissident Catholic, but Catholic nonetheless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Hope for the Hopeless, O, Abide With Me

November 9, 2013 – 1:20 pm

 

News today from the Mideast – all bad.  The Israeli-Palestinian “peace talks” drag on, with the US Secretary of State publicly blaming Israel for the lack of success.  In Geneva the US is on the verge of giving Iran the kind of deal the Mullahs want; in response, the Saudis are ready to buy their own nukes from Pakistan.  It will take a miracle to prevent a truly horrible all-out war in the region within a year. (My friend Mr. Hans Moleman has an insightful take on all this at his site mistermoleman.com.)

Back home, the trend towards undermining of the family continues at a rapid and yet accelerating pace.

Meanwhile, I continue my lonely search for Faith. And I sometimes wonder why.  What is so imperative about Faith?

I could, like many good people I know, put the Big Questions aside. Without Faith I could live a relatively moral, or at least decent, life, and when the time comes die a bravely accepting death.  It mightn’t be too bad.   I have lived an extremely easy life; with luck I could just continue on until it ends.

But without Faith there is no Hope.  And that I cannot do without.

As a young man, I saw the world as do most young men fresh out of (liberal arts) college: a cesspool of suffering and misery, caused by greed and folly, and just waiting for some brave, bright young man like me to set all things right.

The course of my adult life was one of gradual discovery (re-discovery, some might say) that there was much to love and value in this world.  The beauty of art and music, as humans re-capitulate the wonders of nature. The courage shown throughout history by those fighting (what they believed was) the good fight. The endless search to find the truth about ourselves and our world.   In a word, the great culture we have been blessed to inherit, and graced with the opportunity to hand forward to the future.   (In a word, I became conservative.)

But all this appreciation brings with it fear – the fear that every parent feels when gazing into his child’s future.  Can it possibly be safe, in such a dangerous world?

What if everything exists by accident, constructed on nothing, the result of an inexplicable chance pinpoint explosion called the Big Bang?  If we are accidental, then all we have done and built is doomed, if only by the force of Entropy.  We see these forces of entropic doom all around us every day, and we keep our sanity only by extreme mental exercises.

Some place their hope in mankind and science as the forces that will save us.  This is a fool’s hope, available only to those who haven’t looked into it too deeply.

Some avert their eyes and seek constant distractions to avoid thinking about it.  This works well until it doesn’t.

And some find Hope in their Faith in a loving God who cares about us and has a plan for us.

I have tried the first two, and they no longer work for me.  So I keep knocking on Door Number Three.

I still don’t know if God exists. But I know that without God, there is no Hope.

And I don’t think I can live without Hope.

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