Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe Lacrosse, WisconsinJuly 31st Archbishop Burke dedicated the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Lacrosse, Wisconsin. Apparently this shrine has been a dream of his since he was a priest and bishop in LaCrosse. It's valued at 25 million dollars and is really quite lovely. Ground was broke in 2004 and it was completed early this year.
In the LaCrosse diocesesan newspaper Archbishop Burke was quoted as saying that a place of pilgrimage was needed to combat the 'lack of a sense of sin' he had encountered in his ministry and also the "lack of belief in the teaching authority of the church and in sacramental life in general."
I have some real problems with the theology and concept of Church as espoused by Archbishop Burke. For readers of the blog, that's no secret, but I have more than just the usual reasons. In order to elaborate on those reasons I quote the following from Archbishop Burke's dedication sermon:
"She teaches pilgrims the truth that in Jesus Christ alone we find our salvation, the truth that Jesus Christ, by his continued presence in the church, gives to St. Peter and to his successors the keys of the kingdom of heaven for the sake of the salvation of all mankind," he said.
True spiritual unity, therefore, is found in the church and is effected through the sacraments celebrated within a church building like the one about to be dedicated, the archbishop said.
"Through his eucharistic sacrifice, God's Son will dwell with us here in the most wonderful way of all, in his body and blood, soul and divinity offered and poured out for us on Calvary," Archbishop Burke said.
"The altar of sacrifice represents for us the deepest meaning of our lives, the truth which we seek and find on pilgrimage," he continued. "Because we are united to Christ in the eucharistic sacrifice, we in turn become altars of sacrifice with him, offering our lives totally for love of God and of our neighbor. We are called to offer our lives as a pure and holy sacrifice."
In the first statement we have this: gives to St. Peter and to his successors the keys of the kingdom of heaven for the sake of the salvation of all mankind,"
I have a real problem with this continued emphasis on the successors of Peter as holding the keys to salvation. This is not true. Jesus is the key not to salvation but to Reunion and Remembering. It is in my opinion, folly in the extreme, to actually believe the authority structure of the Church can determine who is and who is not saved. Judgement is reserved to Jesus and His father, not the successors of Peter. The successors of Peter do not hold the keys to my salvation nor the Kingdom of Heaven.
In his next statement he says: "True spiritual unity, therefore, is found in the church and is effected through the sacraments celebrated within a church building like the one about to be dedicated."
I always thought unity was found in community and celebrated in the sacraments, not in Church buildings. This is a huge difference. It is true that the sacraments can foster unity, but I don't know that they effect unity. One is not even allowed to receive six of the seven sacraments until one has been baptized INTO the community. Church buildings are places in which the community gathers, but have no validity outside of that gathering. If they had validity in and of themselves, AB Burke and others would not be selling off these buildings to pay off their sexual abuse debt.
"Through his Eucharistic sacrifice, God's Son will dwell with us here in the most wonderful way of all, in his body and blood, soul and divinity offered and poured out for us on Calvary,"
Jesus died on Calvary as a prerequisite to his Resurrection. I no longer believe His life was a sacrifice to His vindictive Father, to pay for my personal sins. I pay for my personal sins. I'm an adult. Jesus came to show us how to get out of this material reality and get back to the truth of our eternal selves where we are ALL children of His Father. In the process of giving us the teachings we needed to return to the Father, He irritated a lot of powerful people and they crucified Him. End of human story. His Resurrection is the beginning of His and our Real Human story.
"Because we are united to Christ in the Eucharistic sacrifice, we in turn become altars of sacrifice with him, offering our lives totally for love of God and of our neighbor. We are called to offer our lives as a pure and holy sacrifice."
Yes we are called to sacrifice, but the sacrifice is everything we hold onto which impedes our capacity to love, to become the REAL spiritual beings we are. Jesus talked about the Eucharistic meal as a remembrance. If He calls us to do anything it's to REMEMBER the truth of our eternal selves. He shows us the way to do that. This is not exactly calling us to sacrifice ourselves. It's calling us to understand and remember that we are more than this one lifetime. We are eternal and have always been so and so is everyone else around us. Even the least of us.
Like Jesus we CHOSE to incarnate for a reason. We need to find our reason, and when we do we will begin to REMEMBER. Unifying our lives to His helps us to remember. If we choose to see His life as an atonement sacrifice, and ourselves as disempowered victims of our own sins, dependent on the very fallible men of the Church for our 'salvation', we will get to do this again, and again, and again, until we get what Jesus taught. Guaranteed.
Following Archbishops Burke's theology and the definition of Church leads to one place. Not the Kingdom of Heaven, but right back here, in this material reality, to do it again.
But the biggest problem is that following this old energy theology precludes us from making the changes necessary to live in the changing energy of this world. An energy change which is shifting the quantum reality in which we live, and is allowing for the intersection of different dimensional realities. In other words the planet is vibrating higher and we need to change with the vibration or we will be left out of the coming world. We really do need to get rid of our personal garbage which impedes our ability to demonstrate love and compassion. The coming energy is about love and peace and joy. Disempowered human beings do not experience much peace and joy, and demonstrate very little real love. Archbishop Burke's theology invites us to stay disempowered and therefor disconnected from real community and our coming future. It's a recipe for being left behind.
Great, just what I want to do, come back here and do it again. It would seem that a lot of people have come back to do it over again and are making the mistakes as before. If things continue the way they are going we will have another World War and more than two nuclear weapons being detonated on two cities. This is the repetition that will occur from the spirituality of Burke, which brings back the reasoning of Medieval times, which the dummies don't consider unchristian behavior or immoral. They have a mile long list of excuses for perpetuating their own sins, yet there is Burke preaching about "lack of a sense of sin." He certainly does have a lack of a sense of sin, his own.
ReplyDeleteInteresting how Hans Kung has identified historically how the Vatican has created over several hundred years the idea that the Pope and Magisterium are the sole one's on the planet to receive the "deposit" of faith. Any reasonably thinking person who is not brainless or have air for brains can see and deduce that the deposit of faith that Jesus spoke about was for all. The Church is misusing the name of God, and that break the First Commandment. They've replaced the true God into making themselves like Kings.
The spending of $25 million for the Shrine while there are so many people starving and in need is in my mind and heart a selfish deed, for selfish purposes.
Just imagine what Mother Teresa could have done with $25 million?
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree. I would like to add that I believe 'atonement' theology achieves the opposite result it would like us to believe it achieves. If one believes that Jesus died for one's sins, then why should one try to live a holy life? I prefer to believe that Jesus models for us the way one should live with and treat their brothers and sisters on this planet. Bishop Burke and those of his ilk are on a 'head' trip believing that they and the hierarchy hold the keys to heaven for all of us.....wait till they find out the locks have been changed when they try to use them!!!
ReplyDelete.....wait till they find out the locks have been changed when they try to use them!!!
ReplyDeleteI just roared out loud. They'll have to come back and look for a different set of keys.
Del, imagine what Mother Theresa could have done with 25 million, and while you're at it, imagine what she could have done with the 55 million Mother Angelica spent on her shrine. In Mother's shrine the tabernacle is reputed to be diamond encrusted on the inside so that Jesus can see them.
diamonds on the inside so Jesus can see them ... hmmm.....
ReplyDeleteBet Jesus is really proud of that shrine!
COLLEEN: off topic here a bit, but relevant to many of the discussions, something that all might find interesting.
The question that seems to be at the heart of everything that is transpiring within the church right now is "Why do men fear women so much and work so hard to keep them subservient?".
In book 3 of the Conversations with God trilogy, chapter 2, there is a very plausible explanation.
It is a story of a time in prehistory, (pre-male history that is) when the matriarchy ruled, and how men used fear, deception and violence to usurp the ruling power for themselves. It is fascinating reading. Well worth taking the time to find it and read it.
DEL: There are rumors that Mother Teresa had large sums of money, donations she had collected, hidden in bank accounts around the world. The burning questions that are being asked now are, "what was it for?", "why didnt she use it?" and "what will the church do with it now?"
If she had $25M, it probably would have ended up the same place.
BUTTERFLY: I've always privately believed there was a hell, not the traditional Christian version, but the Buddhist version. Hell is coming back for a do over, and remembering you are in a do-over. That is enough to scare anybody into righteousness. I'm really surprised the catholic church hasnt used that one. It would be a great tool for their control freak mentality.
Here's another interesting fact about Mother. She built her shrine because she had a vision while in Columbia, where a statue of Jesus as a child turned to her and asked her to build a 'temple' to him.
ReplyDeleteSomehow five anonymous 'families' ponied up the money for the entire shrine. Do you smell drug money?
The Shrine that Burke built reminds me of the Cloisters in New York, which is a building that the Rockefeller family bought from Europe and shipped it here in pieces and assembled it back together. It was filled with pricey medieval artifacts and huge tapestries of unicorns. While I appreciated the bringing of a little of the time and a piece of Europe to NY it still seemed a selfish concept of the wealthy to hoard expensive things, make their treasure material things and spend their money frivolously.
ReplyDeleteThere was another huge shrine or cathedral built in LA which cost a fortune and I recall when hearing about it the extravagant cost which I believe was $125 million (I'll have to look that up). I couldn't believe the Church was spending so much money on a building when my mailbox was being flooded by charitable causes with pleas for donations for people who were hungry and/or living in squalor, poverty, hopelessness, despair.
Burke's quote says that the "the altar" is more important than the gifts, and that we pilgrims as he defines us, are to become fixed and unmoving stonelike disempowered altars too. If we followed Burke's theology we would become "altars of sacrifice with him."
"Yes we are called to sacrifice, but the sacrifice is everything we hold onto which impedes our capacity to love, to become the REAL spiritual beings we are." Thanks Colleen for putting into words what we "know" or "remember" to be the truth from Jesus' teachings.
Carl, I have not heard those rumors about Mother T hiding money. Perhaps she was giving it to people, places and things the hierarchy would not approve of... no one will ever convince me she was a money grubber ... lol.
ReplyDeleteColkoch, Angelica has a $55 million dollar shrine??? holy cow! Perhaps they need to chip off a few diamonds to pay some of their bills... Deacon Bill says they are $600k in the red... (every month it gets higher and higher) lol
One more note that came to my mind about the Church building shrines and Cathedrals at enormous cost recently, is there might be a parallel in secular thinking and planning: no investment in the infrastructure in over 30 years in building or maintaining bridges, energy sources are stagnant with no new refineries-which impedes the availability or makes it more scarce & expensive, no new hospitals and hospitals closing down despite onslaught of aging baby boomers and the increased need. I heard a report on the news this past week that people are going to emergency rooms in large numbers and the hospitals can't take care of people in time to provide any medical care. While we have the technology and know-how to save them, they can't be saved in time. People are dying in crowded waiting rooms and hallways.
ReplyDeleteWhy isn't the Church building new hospitals or clinics? Just thought I'd add that to the list of things it seems the Church hierarchy might be overlooking while building these new shrines and cathedrals. In LA the new Cathedral is named Our Lady of the Angels. Seems lots of "Ladies" are monumentalized, but women are .......?
Butterfly, don't you think it's kind of interesting that all the major female figures representing feminine energy in the Church are all dead? Probably speaks to Carl's point about the fact the heirarchy seems to need to keep women subservient out of some kind of fear. It's hard to work up much fear about dead women.
ReplyDeleteDel: didnt mean to imply that Sr Teresa was a money grubber, just that she raised the definition of frugality to a new level.
ReplyDeleteButterfly, you asked:
"Why isn't the Church building new hospitals or clinics"
perhaps because they are too busy trying to save the world from abortion, homosexual marriage, gays, women priests and contraception.