Letter from the Editor
Greetings to our readers! I just want to thank everyone who has subscribed to Missio Dei. Our mission is rooted in getting back to the basics of proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ—the call to repentance and the forgiveness of sins, and eternal life. Many publications focus on what’s going on at the Vatican on a day-to-day basis, but we differ by our focus being theology driven, focusing on proclamation through theological analysis, philosophy, and exegesis.
Our writers at Missio Dei are both talented and experienced, many of who have theology degrees or are currently students working on theology degrees. Missio Dei is a part of the fruit of their hard work. Our hope at Missio Dei is that our readers become more acquainted with our writers and begin to follow their careers independently. Our efforts are grassroots oriented, so the best way our ministry can grow is through you—our readers. Please share Missio Dei with everyone you know and tell your fellow parishioners, friends, and family about us.
A great way to help our ministry is by becoming a paid subscriber. I am happy to announce that Fr. Chris Pietraszko has sent me the introduction to his book, which will soon be published to paid subscribers. It may be the opportune time to become a paid subscriber. You, the reader, keep our mission alive.
Blessings,
Phillip Hadden
Editor-in-Chief
Oratio
O my God!
I ask you for myself and for those dear to me
the grace to fulfill perfectly your holy will
and to accept for love of you
the joys and sorrows of this passing life,
so that one day, we may be reunited in Heaven for all eternity.
Amen. - St. Thérèse of Lisieux
Featured Weekly Articles
Early Christian Medicine
by Judson Carroll
…Christian hospitals continued to develop, taking in the rich and poor alike. The most significant figure of this period in regard to medicine, and truly one of the most significant figures in Christian history was Benedict of Nursia, later to be canonized Saint Benedict. Saint Benedict's approximate date of birth was 480. Nursia, the place of his birth is now the beautiful Italian region known as Umbria. He was educated in Rome, but had no interest in wealth or city life. Like many of the legendary Catholic figures we will discuss who had connection with Herbal Medicine, he wished to become a monk and a hermit. As a young man, he went off on his own to live in a cave. This was approximately 500 AD, a time of great turmoil in in the region, as we will discuss soon. But, suffice to say for now, Rome had been sacked repeatedly by invading hoards, chaos, pestilence, plague and poverty were the conditions of the day for most people. The Arians held power throughout most of central Europe and were heavily persecuting Christian peoples and European civilization largely lay in wase.
Although Saint Benedict desired to live as a hermit in prayer and introspection, his piety and holiness gradually became known throughout the region. At first, he garnered a small following of local shepherds. Soon, nobles began to entrust their sons to his care and educated people began to seek him out for advice and instruction. Eventually, he would establish twelve monasteries. These and the monasteries and abbeys that followed, would become the Benedictine Order, largely responsible for evangelizing, educating and civilizing Europe, England and much of the world. The Benedictines founded schools and libraries, preserving the knowledge of ancient Rome, Greece and all that came before. They would found charitable hospitals and become the dominant force in medicine for more than 1,000 years…
The Maternity of Consecrated Life
by Christina M. Sorrentino
…Religious Sisters are called to live in imitation of Mary's "Fiat" by their consecration, and the living of the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty, and obedience, and become 'Spiritual Mothers,' especially to the most neglected and spiritually abandoned children. It is imperative today, especially during this turbulent time of such upheaval in our society that consecrated religious women reach out to the children to protect and preserve their pure, little hearts.
As the most innocent in our society it is the children who are harmed by the culture, a culture that exists in a seemingly post-Christian world. The innocence of the pure in heart is threatened by a culture that aims to destroy the morals and values of which this country was founded upon; Christianity.
When I taught religious education to sixth graders when I was in religious life it broke my heart to see how many of the children questioned the existence of God, and rarely attended Sunday Mass. It is through the child that our Catholic faith can help to transform entire families. It is the innocence and purity of children that can help lead family members back Home to the Church…
A Catholic Defense of Social Contract Theory
by Michael Joseph Carzon
Many Catholics, who otherwise identify as Aristotelian-Thomists, disapprove of a theory of government known as the Social Contract. The foundations of social contract stretch before the time of Christ but were popularized more recently by thinkers such as Hobbes, Rousseau, Jefferson, and others. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines it as “the view that persons’ moral and/or political obligations are dependent upon a contract or agreement among them to form the society in which they live”. This essay will show that social contract theory is not incompatible with Catholic social doctrines. Rather than go through the details of each thinker in order, an attempt will be made to paint a holistic picture, with references provided.
According to the above-linked IEP article, Thomas Hobbes tried to provide a middle ground between the warring factions of the King and Oliver Cromwell. Hobbes rightly discards the belief of the Divine Right of Kings, meaning that the monarch’s power comes directly from God, and should be obeyed as part of religious obligations. Hobbes builds his social contract theory in the state of nature, or as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy puts it, “a condition without government”. This begins with a state of “mere nature”, where the only laws are what each individual person decides for himself. Leaving people in this state of Nature would paralyze what we would consider any progress towards normal life, or indeed, civilization.
Man’s Free Will
by Chantal LaFortune
The question of free will is of vital importance in the study of philosophical anthropology, theology, and even everyday life. There are some who claim that the human will possesses absolute freedom, with no influences on it whatsoever; others hold that it does not truly possess any freedom at all, but instead is controlled by something else. A proper Catholic understanding of the human will, however, lies between these two extremes and is beautifully expressed in the writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas. The necessary influences on man’s will are what enable it to be truly free.
Aquinas begins by distinguishing between instinct and free will. He cites the Book of Ecclesiasticus, which says that “God made man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his own counsel” (Ecclus 15:14 DRB). Aquinas defines this “counsel” of man as his free will.[1] He then differentiates between free will and instinct. Animals are drawn toward or away from certain things by instinct; they have an innate knowledge whether such a thing is good or bad, whether it will lead them closer to or farther away from their temporal end.
Breaking a Priest’s Heart
by Fr. Chris Pietraszko
My friends, there is nothing as painful as encountering a lost soul who wishes to remain lost. It happens often that in the midst of such an experience of loss we attempt to avoid the harsh reality by some silver-lining of hope. We speak about the seconds before a person’s death and how God can accomplish His saving work in such moments. All of that is true. Yet, while that hope remains, there is also the knowledge that the opposite occurs - as St. John Paul II and the Catechism put it: Mortal Sin is as radical a possibility as is love itself.
Bonus: For Love Alone-St. Teresa of Avila
by Christina M. Sorrentino
"It is love alone that gives worth to all things." (St. Teresa of Avila)
St. Teresa of Avila, Mystic and Doctor of the Church was a Carmelite nun in the 16th-century who called for reform in her order when she realized that the Sisters were no longer living a life giving all to the Lord. Their hearts no longer burned brightly with a zeal for Christ as they failed to authentically live out the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty, and obedience.
It was with another beautiful saint, St. John of the Cross, that St. Teresa was able to begin the reform. She was confronted with great suffering as the devil will fight hard to destroy any vocation, but St. Teresa was borne fruits for her labor, and ultimately she was able to establish seventeen convents. With zealous hearts the Carmelite nuns in these communities lived out their vows faithfully, and St. Teresa of Jesus, forty years after her death, was canonized in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV. (1)
The Divine romance that she shared with her Beloved Spouse, ignited her desire to completely empty her heart of self and fill it whole and entirely with God alone. We are all called to a life of holiness, to be united in heart, mind, and soul, with the Bridegroom who waits for His Bride as she prepares herself to become spotless and without blemish.