Thomas Merton, an American Catholic monk, has been described as “arguably the most influential American Catholic author of the twentieth century”.

A quotation attributed to him is, “Truth: know it, love it, live by it.”

This saying has always bothered me.

For all his respect as a mystic and an intellectual, Thomas Merton seems to have got it back to front.

* * *

In real life, surely must seek truth by first living by it — then loving it and, eventually, hopefully, coming to know it.

Who says so?

Jesus Christ himself said so, and he said so more than once.

Gospel of Matthew: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Every one therefore who hears these words of mine and does them, he shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock.”

Gospel of John: “If any man does the will of God; he shall know of the doctrine . . . Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keeps the law?”

Yes he meant the Ten Commandments of Moses: Love God, obey your parents, do not kill, do not steal, do not commit adultery, do not covet anybody else’s things. And so on.

* * *

The purpose of human life, if it has a purpose, is to love God, and to enter into union with him.

This has to involve giving God one’s will — obeying him, in other words.

That has to come first.

God’s laws are not fashionable at present. They have never been easy.

But there is no other way.

A court in Poland has ordered a priest, Father Marek Gancarczyk, to pay a fine of $11,000 because the Catholic paper, of which he is editor, described a woman seeking an abortion as “wanting to kill her child”.

He has refused to pay.

The judge, in passing the sentence, treated Fr Gancarczyk to a lecture on theology. “Christianity is a religion of love and this is what the language used by Catholic press should be like,” she said.

* * *

Polish law permits abortion only in cases of rape, serious handicap in the baby, or serious health risk to the mother. In this case, the mother had an eye condition. She was denied an abortion because her doctors decided the pregnancy would not seriously damage her health.

The local archbishop, Father Damian Zimon, said, “No state law can undermine God’s commandment and the order of Jesus Christ . . . . Recall the words of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta: ‘The greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion . . . if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?’ ”

The Catholic Association of Journalists in Poland commented, “We consider this verdict an attempt to gag Catholic media, also directed against freedom of speech in the wider sense . . . .We call on all journalists who hold Christian values not to be afraid to write the truth about abortion, about abortionists and about the supporters of this Holocaust of the 21st century.”

* * *

Two points that Australians might ask themselves:

(1) is our law permitting any woman, any time, to have an abortion, simply by telling her doctor she wants one, good enough?

(2) at least one priest, somewhere, is willing to suffer imprisonment, or whatever the court comes up next time, rather than compromise the Church’s teaching of love and respect for all human life, including the unborn babies.

Father Marek Gancarczyk

ABORIGINAL Dreamtime stories, originally included in the Science Curriculum of Mr Rudd’s proposed National Curriculum, are to be removed.

Year 4 students were to hear “historical examples of different cultures, knowledge about the national environment and living things, for example, Aboriginal peoples’ Dreamtime Stories, that explain significant characteristics of the Earth’s surface and interactions between living things”.

Professor David McGaw, of the Curriculum Assessment Authority, says the Dreamtime stories must go — he hadn’t realised they were included in the science course until seeing media  reports last week:

“I’m a science graduate and a former science teacher. Dreamtime is a religious or spiritual interpretation of the beginnings of life. It shouldn’t be in the science curriculum, and we’re going to take it out. For the same reason, we wouldn’t let Intelligent Design or Creationism be included.”

* * *

Will Professor McGaw, in fairness, be deleting Evolution – another “religious or spiritual interpretation” – as well?

This blog has no beef with people wanting to believe in “evolution” . . . as explained on March 3.

In fact evolution is obvious – provided we stick to what the word “evolution” means in English — i.e. “a gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex form”, or more literally, “an opening out of what was rolled up”.

It’s some of the atheistic, agnostic, anti-God tit-bits, that evo-fans sneak in as part of the supposed meaning of “evolution”, which make the term suspect as part of a science course.

Professor McGaw said schools will be free to teach Dreamtime stories, Intelligent Design etc., in other classes, such as religion. Does not most of what usually passes as “Evolution” merit similar relegating?

* * *

Meanwhile it’s going to be hard to stop people doing what they’ve always done — to look at the night sky and say, “Yes, I believe in a Creator who made all this – and who is a rewarder of good and a punisher of evil.”

As the Bible says, going back 2500 years at least, “The heavens show forth the glory of God, and the skies announce what his hands have made. Day after day they tell the story. Night after night they tell it again.” (Psalm 19)

The 2010 Global Atheist Convention starts in Melbourne next Friday.

Tickets to the three day event have been sold out for months.

It will feature well known public atheists including Professor Richard Dawkins, Phillip Adams and Peter Singer.

* * *

24 Melbourne buses currently display the words, “Atheism – celebrate reason”, and will do so until March 29.

In Britain and Europe, both religions and non-religions have been buying up space on public vehicles for a while. British double-deckers have carried the slogan, “There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life”.

But don’t atheists spend just as much time, probably more, worrying about it all, than believers? Look at their countless books, countless websites — and now countless expensive public hoardings.

* * *

Atheism, no less than religion, is a kind of a faith. It goes beyond what can be scientifically demonstrated.

It gleefully mocks the rest of us for our inability to “prove” God’s existence.

Can they prove God’s non-existence?

Oh, no, they say, the onus of proof lies with believers, not with us.

* * *

Let people who pray, pray for those who have no faith — that they may discover the joy of knowing that God exists, and of knowing God himself.

Let us pray, also, for believers — that they may live faithfully by the Faith they profess.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death.  Amen.

The Australian flag at the entrance to Ballina District Hospital (NSW) has flapped itself to pieces.

One and a half stars of the Southern Cross are gone.

The local branch of the RSL (Returned and Services League) has complained and wants something done about it.

Not a big deal?

It might be, if you had fought in a war to defend the flag and what it stands for.

* * *

A bigger deal, media-wise, was Australian athletes at the Winter Olympics draping a huge “boxing kangaroo” flag across a multi-storey Vancouver building.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) told them to remove it.

They didn’t.

Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, mocked the IOC, saying, “We want to see a lot of the Boxing Kangaroo, particularly now that we’ve had this ridiculous ruling.”

* * *

Is this flag affair just a matter of taste, or is there a serious issue involved?

What does a boxing kangaroo represent?

It signifies that we will do anything — except the obviously right thing — to defy everybody and draw attention to ourselves, threatening a punch-up or similar if not given our own way.

If we must be defiant, why not do something better than the conventional thing, rather than something stupider?

* * *

In Russia, in 2002, the government ordered regions to design their own local flags.

The city of Penza (600km east of Moscow, population 500,000) defied convention by designing a flag carrying an image of Jesus.

Yury Leptev, speaking for Penza’s Social Politics Committee, explained that there is a legend that in the 1500s Ivan the Terrible presented an icon of Christ to the people of Penza.

Leptev said they had held an unofficial referendum about the flag, and support for the chosen image was “strong”.

Some non-Christian leaders criticised it, saying it “blurred the lines separating Church and State”.  (St Petersburg Times)

To which one might reply, “No need for lines separating Church and State –  as long as it’s the right Church.”