Consumer Culture Forms us Morally and Spiritually. So does Eucharist.

Last updated on: April 15, 2023 at 5:44 am By Jack Hartjes

Consumer Culture engages powerfully in our moral and spiritual formation. That formation, William T. Cavanaugh says, appropriates some Christian elements but distorts them. This is the fourth in the series on Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire. “How we relate to the world is a spiritual discipline,” Cavanaugh says. (p. 47) If that is the case, then our consumer culture is especially good at disciplining us spiritually. Cavanaugh looks at two ways consumerism carries on this discipline. It instills an attitude... Read more

Lent Season to Begin Sunday (!)

Last updated on: February 28, 2020 at 8:15 am By Jack Hartjes

What? Ash Wednesday was two days ago, and I haven’t sworn for going on three days. What do you mean, Lent will start on Sunday? The answer is a matter of arithmetic. How do you count Lent’s40 days? In this post I will present what I learned from a liturgist, whose name I forgot, back in the 70’s. I have not heard this method of counting anywhere else, so judge for yourself. I think it makes more sense than what... Read more

Detachment or Attachment: Being Consumed Chapter 2, Part 1

Last updated on: February 26, 2020 at 6:26 am By Jack Hartjes

I have an attachment to my material things. If it’s a rock that I found and loved as a child, I probably still have it. Unless I gave it away, which also is a way of honoring the thing. If it’s an item of clothing, I wear it until it falls apart or my mother rips it off my back. I don’t trade in my cars. I run them into the ground and then buy someone else’s trade-in. In this... Read more

Freedom and Unfreedom in the Free Market: Being Consumed, Chapter 1

Last updated on: February 25, 2020 at 1:25 pm By Jack Hartjes

Everyone is free in the free market, but what kind of freedom is that? William T. Cavanaugh analyzes the sense in which we are free in the free market, the sense in which we are slaves to that market, and what a truly free market might look like. This is the second in the series on Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire. Rosa’s story The story of a worker in El Salvador makes me think about connections in a worldwide... Read more

Being Consumed: A look at William T. Cavanaugh’s Book on Economics and Christian Desire

Last updated on: June 29, 2021 at 3:12 pm By Jack Hartjes

Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire is the second book by William T. Cavanaugh to find a place on “Lost in a One-Acre Wood.” Earlier I posted on Torture and Eucharist. The first in that series also contains information about Cavanaugh, the author, plus a list of his major works. In Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire, Cavanaugh delves into economics and desires for their spiritual core. I borrow language from elsewhere[i], to describe Cavanaugh’s accomplishment. He identifies demonic elements in... Read more

James Groppi, Milwaukee Priest, Civil Rights Activist

Last updated on: February 19, 2020 at 10:36 am By Jack Hartjes

This month, February, we remember events and heroes of the civil rights movement. I’m thinking of a less well-known figure who made an impression on me when a seminarian for the Diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin. A hundred miles to the south in Milwaukee, a priest named James Groppi was in the front of a parade of protesters, practicing non-violence. They faced angry white Milwaukeeans throwing bottles, stones, cherry bombs, bricks, and feces. Their goal: a fair-housing ordinance for the... Read more

The Catholic Altar Call: Communion and Liturgical Wishes

Last updated on: May 14, 2024 at 8:03 pm By Jack Hartjes

Altar call: A tradition in some evangelical Christian churches in which those who wish to make a new spiritual commitment to Jesus Christ are invited to come forward publicly. – Wikipedia Billy Graham: You cannot give God a definite maybe. Compared to Catholic Church history, the altar call does not have a long tradition in Christianity. Its origin dates only to the 19th century with Charles Finney, Dwight Moody, and Billy Sunday. It can be manipulative, stress emotion over solid... Read more

Marcella of Rome, the Woman who Taught St. Jerome

Last updated on: February 13, 2023 at 9:14 am By Jack Hartjes

Women couldn’t be teachers, at least not of men, in the early centuries of the Christian world. On top of that, St. Jerome, the genius who made the first translation of the Bible into Latin, was entirely too fastidious about contact with women. But Jerome gave in to the request of Marcella of Rome to teach to the community of women she founded. Thus began a long friendship in which teacher and student often traded places. Dr. Joan Ferrante and... Read more

At the Consecration: To Elevate or to Show? Liturgical Wishes, Part 2

Last updated on: April 15, 2023 at 5:56 am By Jack Hartjes

In recent years I have seen some priests taking a step backwards to my childhood at the Consecration of the Mass. There’s a prolonged pause as the priest raises the host or the chalice as high as he can. I recall such a ritual from the old Latin Mass, but I’ve grown accustomed to a shorter, less exalted and less dramatic Consecration. Is that step back for better or worse or neither? Thinking about backwards and forwards is no way... Read more