What seems to make Christianity unique among religions is its claim that Jesus Christ was God incarnate (“in the flesh”).

Not just a good man, but literally divine.

This annoys atheists, agnostics etc.

It annoys also many others who just want to get on with their lives, un- bothered by religion.

Christ’s divinity is also disturbing for his believers.

It tells them that God wants us to hand our lives over to supernatural forces — to give up conforming with the materialistic, distraction-seeking mentalities that our neighbours and friends expect of us.

* * *

Today is the Second Sunday of Lent.

Today’s gospel reading is exquisitely discomforting to those who don’t want Jesus to be divine or to make demands of them.

It describes a mysterious, awesome and unsettling event:

After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John his brother, and brought them up into a high mountain apart: And he was transfigured before them.

His face did shine as the sun: his garments became white as snow.

And behold there appeared to them Moses and Elias, talking with him.

(They spoke of his decease that he should accomplish in Jerusalem.)

And Peter said to Jesus: ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make three tabernacles, one for thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias.’

As he was yet speaking, behold a bright cloud overshadowed them. And a voice out of the cloud, saying: ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye him.’

The disciples hearing it, fell upon their faces, and were very much afraid.

Jesus came and touched them, saying, ‘Arise, and fear not.’

And they, lifting up their eyes, saw no one but only Jesus.

As they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying: ‘Tell the vision to no man, till the Son of man be risen from the dead.’

* * *

The disciples learned a lot from this event:

 * that Jesus is/was truly God

 * that to please God we must be willing to suffer

 * that to live pleasing to God we must depend on him giving us the strength

 * that Jesus alone speaks with God’s full authority

.

Marriage provides a more stable family environment for growing children than does living with unmarried parents.

Ten times more stable.

This is confirmed by research, based on almost 30,000 family cases, published last Monday.  

The survey found that in 1992, 70 percent of married couples who had children stayed together until their child’s 16th birthday. By 2006, this had increased to 75 percent.

Only 36 percent of couples who were unmarried when their child was born stayed together until their offspring reached 16 in 1992. By 2006, it was down to 7 per cent. (Family Law Week, ‎22 February 2010‎)

 Dr John Hayward, director of the Jubilee Centre, which commissioned the study, commented that the evidence suggests that families headed by traditionally-married, biological parents provide the best environment for both themselves and their children.

 Didn’t everybody know that already? It seems funny that we need “research” to prove it.

***

Meanwhile, a “same-sex marriage” bill was defeated in the Australian Senate on 25 February 2010, by a vote of 45 to 5.

Those voting for it were all Greens Party members — a party ever so keen to provide the best environment for trees, whales, lizards and so forth, actively trying to promote what is , arguably, the worst possible environment for young humans.

How about that?

* * *

It is important to remember is that Marriage is, first and foremost, a Sacrament of God’s Church.

Marriage was invented by God — the God who created us.

Marriage is not just an option or a photo-opportunity.

Marriage is an obligation that God demands of those who would have children. It is a sin, punishable as God sees fit, to do otherwise.

* * *

Catholic Marriage, like all the Catholic Sacraments, is a means by which God offers us grace.

God’s grace is a practical thing.

The sacramental grace conferred by Christian Marriage offers married couples extra power, unavailable by any other means, for dealing with life’s day-to-day problems.

Couples who are not married must struggle on without this grace and power, in a state of spiritual poverty and impotence of willpower.

Somebody I knew for over twenty years died recently.

In our grandparents’ days, death was all around and thought of constantly. Sex was private and seldom mentioned.

Now we saturate ourselves in what passes for sex — all advertisements, entertainments and gossip seeming to drag sex in somehow.

But when forced to talk about death – as at funerals – we mostly find we have nothing intelligent to say.

* * *

Somebody gets up and describes the deceased’s hobbies, favourite music, favourite sporting club — and how “passionate” he/she was.

Cheer up, says somebody else, death is merely a journey. Whatever you do, do NOT get up and ask, “A journey to where?” Nobody will forgive you.

Modern funerals: we tend to call these embarrassing gatherings “not so much a grieving at his loss, but more a celebration of his life . . . .”

But clearly they are designed to celebrate, console and comfort the living – with little thought for any spiritual profit for the dead.

Yet death is a religious subject, whether we like it or not.

We can try having our funerals at the graveside, or at other places that are not churches . . . but we’re wasting our time. Death is religious by its very nature, and there is nothing we can do about it.

* * *

You, dear reader, are going to die:

 * make sure your relatives know that you want your funeral held in a church.

 * and that you want prayers said for your departed soul — both at the funeral and privately by all    present for the rest of their lives.

 * and that you want the priest to wear black vestments, as done for centuries for good reasons, and    abandoned recently for bad reasons.

 * and insist that you be buried, not cremated.

This week is officially “Organ Donation Awareness Week” in Australia.

It was launched last Tuesday by Prime Minister, Mr Kevin Rudd, who said it is“crucial” that  families talk about this touchy issue.

A new program administered by the Federal Organ and Tissue Authority is to offer hospitals up to $11,400 a time for harvesting transplant organs from dying patients.

Mr Rudd lamented the fact that at present only 56 percent of Australian families give consent when approached for permission to remove a dying relative’s organs for transplant purposes.

His government is spending $150 million to try to boost that percentage.

* * *

Why would families refuse to permit having their dying relatives harvested?

 *  do they doubt whether the doctors will wait until their loved one is really dead before starting to take things out?

 *  do they wonder whether “brain-death” is simply a convenient myth?

 *  do they wonder whether a person’s soul has necessarily left the body just because one organ — the brain — doesn’t look like working again?

Good questions.  The exact moment the soul departs cannot be known by scientific means.  Death is only certain when the body starts to decompose – which is why priests are permitted to give the Last Rites up to an hour after patients are certified medically dead.

By which time their organs are useless for transplanting.

Organs good enough to be worth transplanting must come from patients only pretend-dead — not dead-dead.

* * *

The government’s new pro-organ-harvesting website assures us that “most religions, including all major religions, support organ and tissue donation and transplantation as acts of generosity and merit . . . .”

Could that be a fib?

Even on life-support — while heart and lungs function, albeit artificially assisted – does not the body remain one organism, with one being, one soul?

Does that mean that it is removing his/her organs which actually kills the donor-patient?

Is that murder?

I was reading about how Mother Mary MacKillop tried to help children find God in their lives – not only through school-teaching, but also in out-of school activities.

In the 1860s, she started a group for young people in Adelaide which she called “The Guild of the Holy Eucharist”.

Its rules included that the young people must “dress with simplicity, modesty and neatness. They must be known to be obedient at home and at school. They must not be out after dark unless with someone approved by parents or the Sisters. They must hear Mass every day, and suffer any inconvenience rather than miss it.”

* * *

Every day?

Wasn’t that a bit much to ask of young people?

Yet hasn’t God has always demanded of human beings that they give him generously of their time?

The Ten Commandments include the command to keep one day a week “holy”.

In today’s “busy” materialistic, individualistic, self-indulgent world we have plenty of spare time. Ordinary Australians spend up to 20 hours per week looking at television.

We must have time, literally, to kill.

* * *

Most people do, in fact, treat Sunday as in some way a different day.

You could say that everybody worships on Sunday.

*  you play sport on Sunday?  You’re a sport-worshipper.

*  you drink beer on Sunday?  You’re a beer-worshipper.

*  you spend  Sunday with family without devoting time exclusively to God?  You’re a family-worshipper.

Which is not good. 

Jesus said, “He who loves father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me.  He that loves son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me.”

* * *

You attend church on Sunday?  You MAY be a worshipper of God — only God knows your motives.

On Sundays, try put God first.  Go to Mass — at least every Sunday. Make it an unbreakable rule.

To believe that two plus two equals four does not require faith.

It is just something that you notice to be true. It is self-evident.

It is a natural truth and no supernatural input is necessary to see that it is true.

* * *

To know that God exists is another example of the same thing.

The need for a Cause for creation to exist – which exists in its own right and is not itself a part of creation — is also self-evident.

The arguments against God existing are always a little bit more complicated, because they have the disadvantage of being nonsense.

* * *

Yet there are things we need to know about God which are not so obvious.

God wants us to know, not just that he exists, but also that he loves us.

This is something that we do not just notice but must, by an act of free will, choose to believe.

To live as though God is a loving God means, not just a nodding acceptance, but more of a self-giving.

To live as though a loving God has plans for our lives involves taking risks for him.

This is where all true faith is “blind” faith. That is the nature of faith. Not that faith goes against reason. No, it goes beyond reason and gives reason a reason to exist.

As Saint Mary Magdalen de Pazzi wrote:

“Not to believe in you, O my God, requires more ‘faith’ than to believe in you. Your love for me is so great that I no longer need ‘faith’ to believe in it.”

* * *

Human suffering is sometimes quoted as a reason to doubt God. But is not suffering an opportunity, not to abandon belief, but to put it on a deeper level?

Blessed Mary MacKillop wrote to her mother:

“In the trials, annoyances and anxieties we daily experience, may we ever recognise that loving Fatherly Hand that only seeks to draw us closer to himself by giving us opportunities to suffer something for him.”