The athiests and scientists are sad.

When the head of the Catholic Church and what remains of Christendom in this earthly city has to address the world, you know there is a problem. The fact that Christendom is not the prominent framework for the culture of the world anymore has led to the minds of the people scattered to and fro into different ideologies.

The Catholic Church does not go around shouting out its belief, which it has a right in the sense of a world right, to do so, because it would be shouting the Truth. People picket and shout out rights to things that have no basis in the natural law or even civil law for that matter. The most ill conceived notions and what is classified as "progressive" are the ideologies that provide the framework of our culture.

So, when the Holy Father tries to add a picture into the framework so the people can get a sense of what is true, good and beautiful, he shows the world what the Church is. The Church quietly observes, meditates and lets wisdom guided by the Holy Spirit articulate what the world needs to hear. And when the Holy Spirit speaks through the Church, there is no picketing or shouting. She (the Church) doesn't pick on the lesser entities, she sits back like a mother and lets her children play. But when they are shouting false beliefs, like a mother's love, she steps into proclaim the Father's glory. A good mother always has guidance from the Father. This may sound sexist to the feminists, but "on earth as it is in Heaven."

So, when atheists such as Stephen Hawking come up with the most illogical proclamations concerning our Father or God, or the mother of God, our mother, the Church, steps in to correct her child. Because there is no longer, Jew or Gentile, but one people, a Holy priesthood, the holy people of God within the inheritance of the priestly people are to offer up sacrifices of love and thanksgiving for the abundance of God's providence. They are not to depart from His family and declare and exhort others to depart from the Father, too.

But, this is what the athiest Stephen Hawking has done. He has left the family of God and makes exhortations as if they are infallible. Stephen Hawking recently has said that the universe created itself. Scientists are to declare based on empirical evidence. But, yet, today scientists seem to not be following this precept. On the other hand, the Catholic Church does not even declare a belief without years of communal discussions united with the foundation that the son of God rose from the dead. The Church has a foundation of evidence to rest on when it proclaims a truth. Where is the foundation of evidence from the atheists? They can only speculate, individually, they can never come together to proclaim something as true because they all have their doubts in some way about what they think. They can't even declare it, truly as science, because science is only science when it does not contradict the existence of God. God created nature, so real science will only reveal God, not negate it.

This is what Stephen Hawking wants to do. He negates the laws of physics rather than using the evidence of nature to proclaim his thought. The law of physics say that there everything comes from something and that there is always a first cause. He is trying to change the laws of nature. At the same time, he is declaring beneath it all, that there is a God, because since God is the highest thought that man can conceive, then he is teaching us about God. God created the world and made it changeable and corruptible, because he wanted us to have evidence that to everything there is a cause, a beginning, a season for everything under the sun. We can then see that God is changeless. He is subsequently gloried because we know then that because we change and die, honor is due to what does not change.

For Stephen Hawking to say that the universe created itself is to call the universe a g-d. Where does eternity fit into his thought? It can't because for Stephen Hawking there is a beginning and an end to everything but no cause for any of it.

Man continues to think about God, the highest thing he has ever thought about, nor will ever contemplate, because that which is unchangeable, incorruptible and eternal is a mystery that man knows exists, but he cannot grasp the amazement of the thought. So, his finite, corruptible mind puts limits on the thought that amazes him because it makes him sad that he can't reach for himself what is unchangeable, lasting and eternal.

The Church understands man's sadness is this area and being the mother that she is, she speaks tenderly through the Holy Father about what is True because she knows her children need what is good and beautiful to be happy. In her wisdom she knows shouting the truth will make her people cower under the covers, like a child in fear of the belt. When has the Church ever disciplined that way? In our modern day, she can't discipline that way because her children are no longer part of the family. When all the world was Christendom, she could spank to get their attention, but that was because the state was united to the Church as part of the same family.

There are many families, now; the Church no longer has the authority to spank the wayward child when they run away from the home of the father, because they are part of other families, now. But, like the parable of the prodigal son, the father waits for the children to come back to the family that originally nurtured them. The Holy Father will lovingly ask the world to be one with him as he awaits the evil one letting loose his grip on the children.

The Holy Father speaks to the world when he hears thoughts that are laid out in the media as truth because he wants to be an instrument to bring God's child back into its original family. He lovingly addresses the failed logic behind Mr. Hawking's declarations and speculations.

Since the Eucharist matters, the issue of science without God whom created the means for science to exist, is an important consideration for the Catholic because we want all people to share in the communal aspect of this august Sacrament, which is a sign and the most blessed and efficeous sign available to man of God's existence. Because it is through the Eucharist that man can come to know God and enter into the mystery of eternal life. The scientists don't have to be sad because they cannot grasp that which is beyond their thought to understand, because there is something better than understanding. It is better to rest. Rest in knowing that all things are made for the good of those who love Him. Rest in love. Can't they see that love had to create this world which is shown through the beauty of nature and the goodness of people?

The universe does not know goodness and beauty from an atom. It isn't a god. There had to be something that knew beauty and goodness to launch a world that is full of it. An evolved world without an artistic mind would have been a deformed world. We see that anytime something goes wrong genetically, a deformity takes place. How could the universe adjust its code to only eventually produce a body, whether it be for an insect or an animal that worked to create a creature that could live and be fruitful? Something cannot make itself know what is good when it doesn't have anything to measure what is good by. It could not know as it evolved that it was good to have a nice scent or good to have color, it had none of these itself, so it would not know to evolve with these aspects.

There is a measuring stick to what is good and beautiful. That measuring stick is God. He had a plan to create man in his image of goodness and beauty, so he created the plants and the animals to be pleasing to man. If they were not created for him, there would be no reason for them to be beautiful. If creation created itself spontaneously there would be no framework of order in which everything, as it does now, works together.

As it is, there is a framework of order in the world which illuminates its beauty. Stephen Hawking can continue to say that God did not create the world, but by doing that, he is saying that he doubts the existence of God. Like Saint Augustine said, if there is a doubt, there must be a truth that it is set against; it is just a matter of knowing what that truth is. Stephen Hawking can continue to get it wrong about that that truth is, but since the truth is written on our hearts, there will always be people that will have the grace to believe and know it and declare it. They are in the majority, but like the Shepherd who goes after the one lost sheep, the Holy Father goes after the one sheep, Mr. Hawking, by addressing the world from the see of Peter. What a gift he is to those who desire to live within the framework of Christendom. Those that want to live within the family of God and brothers and sisters in Christ, are very thankful for his voice.

It is with prayer and thanksgiving we come to the table of the Lord as one voice to pray for the lost sheep, that they will one day worship and adore the Blessed Sacrament so they can know, too, what is true, good and beautiful.

Within the loving arms of the Blessed Mother who comforts me in my afflictions by covering me with her mantle, I share these thoughts. It is recently, that I have come to know the immense help that she provides me with. A help that comes through her son, whom I love so much. It is my hope that somehow my work in evangelization will be a way to give back to the son of God who loved me so much that he died for me.

Theresa Marie