The Beatitudes: Taking On the World

The fascinating thing about this passage and the ones I will post over the next few days is that Sheen wrote this in 1958. 1958! I think of that as being an innocent, happy time where these problems had nothing like the emphasis they have in our modern lives. However, we can easily see from what Sheen says that was not case. His words could have been written today.

In the Beatitudes, Our Divine Lord takes those eight flimsy catch-words of the world -- "Security," "Revenge," "Laughter," "Popularity," "Getting Even," "Sex," "Armed Might," and "Comfort" -- and turns them upside down. To those who say, "You cannot be happy unless you are rich," He says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." To those who say, "Don't let him get away with it," He says, "Blessed are the patient." To those who say, "Laugh and the world laughs with you," He says, "Blessed are those who mourn." To those who say: "If nature gave you sex instincts you ought to give them free expression, otherwise you will become frustrated," He says, "Blessed are the clean of heart." To those who say, "Seek to be popular and well known," He says, "Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and speak all manner of evil against you falsely because of Me." To those who say, "In time of peace prepare for war," He says, "Blessed are the peacemakers."

The cheap clichés around which movies are written and novels composed, He scorns. He proposes to burn what they worship; to conquer errant sex instincts instead of allowing them to make slaves of man; to tame economic conquests instead of making happiness consist in an abundance of things external to the soul. All false beatitudes which make happiness depend on self-expression, license, having a good time, or "Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die," He scorns because they bring mental disorders, unhappiness, false hopes, fears, and anxieties.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

My Bellwether for the Culture of Death

bell·weth·er
Pronunciation: 'bel-'we-[th]&r, -"we-
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, leading sheep of a flock, leader, from belle bell + wether; from the practice of belling the leader of a flock
: one that takes the lead or initiative : LEADER; also : an indicator of trends

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

I was talking to my mother on the phone last night and realized just how far I'd come in not thinking like the rest of our society. I can't remember why this came up but she suddenly was laughing and saying, "Why won't the pope just quit? That stubborn old guy ... what is his problem?" I was shocked into silence.

I stammered, "But we love our Papa," thinking to myself, "can I sound any lamer or more sentimental or more Catholic?" Because I knew that wasn't going to get me anywhere with my mom. "He can't even talk." was her reply. I pulled myself together and pointed out that he was showing our society a wonderful example of how old age or sickness didn't mean you had to be shoved into a corner ... and then dropped the big bomb, "like Terri Schiavo down in Florida. Her husband's trying to kill her and no one's stopping him."

Her tone grew cold. "She's been in a coma for twelve years."
"She isn't in a coma, Mom."
"Well, she's in a vegetative state."
"No, she's not. I've seen videos of her responding to her mother and people around her."
"Well," my mother said dismissively, "I don't agree with you."
"But it's a video. You don't agree or disagree with it. It shows you what it shows you."

And then, because we love each other and didn't want to go past the point of no return, we changed the subject.

So, you probably can understand why, when my mother brought up how curious she was to see Million Dollar Baby, I just told her about how all the movie critics liked it too. There wasn't any point in bringing up the whole euthanasia issue ... we were already running on pure luck in that conversation.

My mother is a wonderful person, kind and good to anyone she meets, and would never knowingly harm anyone. She also is an atheist and, consequently, much of the time has no reason to question what modern culture holds to be "good." She truly believes that we are simply very intelligent animals and when we die ... poof ... we disappear. That's it.

I can't be upset with what she thinks. A few years ago I would have agreed with my mother on every point except the atheism. She gets her news from television and The New York Times. She is only saying what a lot of people think, a bellwether in essence for which way the wind is blowing on current issues. However, it makes two things perfectly clear to me.

The first is that we truly are those bits of yeast Jesus spoke of, the light that can change the world. If my mother doesn't hear a different viewpoint from me, where will she hear it? She may not agree but at least someone has mentioned a few facts from the opposite point of view. Without Christians who hold the line against the culture of death, there is no one to say anything or stop anyone.

The second realization was connected to Million Dollar Baby. I have watched with great interest as Barbara Nicolosi at Church of the Masses and Jeffrey Overstreet at Looking Closer Journal have traded viewpoints about this movie. Nicolosi maintains that the overwhelmingly negative presentation of Christians and support for euthanasia make the movie dangerous; that it validates euthanasia as an option of love. Overstreet holds that the movie presents both sides in an issue that we must examine and that to suppress the other point of view is dangerous censorship.

I haven't seen the movie so couldn't really come down on one side or the other until that conversation with my mother. I realized that even if Million Dollar Baby was very fair presenting euthanasia pros and cons, Barbara Nicolosi was right. My mother has no reason to think that there is such a thing as a soul or believe in the sanctity of life itself as a gift from God. She would take that movie as affirmation of her viewpoint. She doesn't care about the cons of the argument because she thinks they are based on stupidity, not compassion or love. It would take a truly passionate and intelligent presentation of the opposite side to make her begin to rethink it. She has not had any reason to go through the process that I have of reexamining all my beliefs against what the Catholic Church teaches; an examination was often painful and forced me to abandon long-held "truths" for a much brighter light that called "black black and white white" as Fulton Sheen says in Life of Christ.

What this says about society as a whole, if my mother is truly the bellwether I believe her to be, is a very scary proposition. If a 70 year old grandmother holds these views and thinks them perfectly reasonable we are much closer to the sort of situation that exists in Holland today than I realized. I do not know what the answer is and, truth be told, there is undoubtedly not merely one answer at all. Again, we are back to Jesus' analogy of the yeast. Each of us holds a bit of the key, even if it is only a daughter forcing herself to talk about the tough stuff with her mother on the phone and both of them tolerating, in love, hearing what the other side thinks. It's a start anyway.

Once people stop believing in God, the problem is not that they will believe in nothing; rather, the problem is that they will believe anything.

C.S. Lewis

Why Twelve Apostles?

The number twelve is symbolic. The Book of the Apocalypse speaks of the twelve foundations of the Church. There were twelve patriarchs in the Old Testament, and also twelve tribes in Israel; there were twelve spies who explored the promised land; there were twelve stones on the breast of the High Priest; when Judas failed, a twelfth Apostle had to be named. The Apostles are most often referred to in the Gospels as "the twelve," that title being attributed to them thirty-two times. In choosing these twelve, it was evident that Our Lord was preparing them for a work after His Ascension; that the Kingdom He came to found was not only invisible but visible; not only Divine but human. But they had so much to learn before they could be the twelve gates of the Kingdom of God. Their first lesson would be the Beatitudes.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

I will be following up this with several excerpts about the Beatitudes also as Sheen presents them in a way that I really never had thought of and y'all may like it also.

The Way I Feel Right Now

Last year I had a really wonderful Holy Week. Rose and I together wound up traveling a parallel spiritual journey that made Easter the most joyous ever. I told all this to a friend who loves Lent. She said that she couldn't believe I was someone who had to be practically forced into looking forward to Lent this year. The funny thing is that I dove into Lent but once the discipline of limiting blogging time set in, it has been a relatively smooth, unemotional ride. I did have an exceptional time during the last week of being allowed to see the "design on the embroidery" in many situations. What a blessing and one that never came without selfless service, which I am not usually involved in very much. (Ahem. We will talk about that some other time.) However, those incidents were not particularly connected to Lent.

In one way I have surprised myself. I've had the opportunity for adoration over the last two weekends, pretty much any time I'd like ... yet I haven't been moved to take advantage of it. And, let me tell you, adoration opportunities are very rare in our parish and I'm one of a relatively small group of people who have access to this opportunity over these weekends. Usually I'm on this like a chicken on a June bug. Still I didn't go. No particular reason; just didn't feel like it. At the same time I've been watching myself, observing this as if from a distance. I think that sometimes we are drawn to Him and other times, well I don't know, it just isn't how He is going to reach us, or at least me at this moment.

So I've been thinking about this some, the missed opportunities and my lack of reaction, just riding along in my head wondering what this Holy Week will be like. I'm planning on making time to watch The Passion of the Christ next weekend (if every other Christian in town hasn't rented it first, in which case I suppose I'll be forced to buy it). I'll go to Mass for Holy Thursday and Good Friday. I skip the vigil services on Holy Saturday. Not only are they packed and lengthy but I like to find the open tomb the way the women did, on Sunday morning. (Also, I keep a special place in my heart for the Vigil Saturday in 2000 when I came home to the Church.)

Waiting up for Hannah to come back on Saturday night I was typing in posts about the beatitudes that went perfectly with Holy Week (y'all will just have to keep coming back to see them, won't you?). Looking at these readings I wasn't amazed, just matter-of-fact in my acceptance that they mirrored Holy Week so perfectly and came up at just the right time to end on Good Friday. The fact that they were the perfect preparation for me didn't escape me either.

Then, Sunday morning, I realized that I'd better have some things to post for Easter itself. Kind of like a forgotten homework assignment I just remembered, this made me tired. Surely every other blog I knew would have something great for Easter. Right? But it doesn't hurt just to see if anything hits me right (which is the only way that anything winds up on this blog). I turned to my "go-to" devotional, In Conversation with God ... and I found where Jesus was waiting to touch my heart. He had the prep work done and was ready to make His point. As I slowly turned the pages for Holy Week, phrases leapt out at me, perfectly speaking to my heart, bringing tears to my eyes as I thought of what Jesus endured ... for me. That was when I knew that I don't have to wonder about what this Holy Week and Easter will be like. They will be perfect for me because God is waiting for me there ... in the right time, Holy Week itself.

Who could ever figure out the Holy Spirit? I am so thankful that I wasn't trying to "force" anything because, naturally, He has this Easter all planned for me. I just haven't gotten there yet. And what did He did to make this point to me? This blog. Kinda funny, huh? But then He works in ironic ways too, doesn't He?

There's a woman who is embroidering. Her son, seated on a low stool, sees her work, but in reverse. He sees the knots of the embroidery, the tangled threads. He says, "Mother, what are you doing? I can't make out what you are doing!" Then mother lowers the embroidery hoop and shows the good part of the work. Each color is in place that the various threads form a harmonious design. So, we see the reverse side of the embroidery because we are seated on the low stool.

Saint Pio

The Twelve: Simon

Simon the Zealot is one of the twelve Apostles about whom we know the least. His Aramaic name meaning "Zealot" suggests that he was a partisan to a sect which would use violence to overthrow the foreign yoke. This name had been given to him before his conversion. He belonged to a band of patriots who were so zealous for the overthrow of Roman rule that they revolted against Caesar. Perhaps the Lord chose him because of his wholehearted enthusiasm for a cause; but a Niagara of purification would be needed before he would understand the Kingdom in terms of a Cross instead of a sword. Imagine Simon the Zealot, an Apostle with Matthew the publican! One was an extreme nationalist, while the other was by profession virtually a traitor to his own people. And yet both were made one by Christ, and later on they would both be martyrs for His Kindgom. The twelfth Apostle was Judas, "the son of perdition," who will be treated later.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Twelve: Jude and James

Two of the Apostles were relatives of Our Lord, namely James and Jude. They are called "brethren" of Our Lord, but in Aramaic and Hebrew this word often means cousins or distant relatives ... These two Apostles, James the Less and Jude, were probably the sons of Cleophas, who was married to Our Lady's sister.

Jude had three names. Having the same name as Judas the traitor, he is always described negatively as "not the Iscariot." The night of the Last Supper, he questioned Our Lord about the Holy Spirit, or how He would be invisible and yet manifest Himself after His Resurrection. There had always been lurking in the minds of many of the Apostles a desire to see some great flashing Messianic glory that would open blind eyes and capture every intelligence.

Judas asked him -- the other Judas, not Iscariot -- Lord, what can have happened, that you mean to disclose yourself to us alone and not to the world? John 14:22

The answer of Our Lord to Jude was that when our responsive love melts into obedience, then God makes His dwelling within us. Late on, Jude, sometimes called Thaddeus, wrote an Epistle beginning with words which reflected the answer he received on Holy Thursday night.

From Jude, servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those whom God has called, who live in the love of God the Father and in the safe keeping of Jesus Christ.
Mercy, peace, and love be yours in fullest measure. Jude 1:1-3

Another Apostle was James the Just, also called James the Less, to distinguish him from the son of Zebedee. We know he had a good mother for she was one of the women who stood at the foot of the Cross. Like his brother Jude he wrote an Epistle which was addressed to the twelve tribes of the dispersion, that is, to the Jewish Christians who were scattered throughout the Roman world. It began:

From James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Greetings to the Twelve Tribes dispersed throughout the world. James 1:1

James, who like all the other Apostles failed to understand the Cross when Our Lord foretold it, afterward came like the others to make the Cross the condition of glory.

My brothers, whenever you have to face trials of many kinds, count yourselves supremely happy ... Happy the man who remains steadfast under trial, for having passed that test he will receive for his prize the gift of life promised to those who love God. James 1:2, 12

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

A Layman's Litany of Humility

A litany is a well-known and much appreciated form of responsive petition, used in public liturgical services, and in private devotions, for common necessities of the Church, or in calamities — to implore God's aid or to appease His just wrath. (From Mary at Ever New.)

From feeling and acting like I have the answer, deliver me, Jesus.
From feeling and acting like my way is best, deliver me, Jesus.
From feeling and acting like I am right, deliver me, Jesus.
From feeling and acting like I should be the leader, deliver me, Jesus.
From feeling and acting like I'm better than someone else, deliver me, Jesus.
From feeling and acting like someone else is wrong, deliver me, Jesus.
From feeling and acting like I know more than others, deliver me, Jesus.
From feeling and acting overly sensitive, deliver me, Jesus.
From feeling and acting defensively, deliver me, Jesus.


From finding it difficult to deny myself for the good of others, deliver me, Jesus.
From finding it difficult to pray for my 'enemies,' deliver me, Jesus.
From finding it difficult to leave my comfort zone, deliver me, Jesus.
From finding it difficult to set aside my personal preferences, deliver me, Jesus.
From finding it difficult to trust others, deliver me, Jesus.
From finding it difficult to submit to others, deliver me, Jesus.
From finding it difficult to defer to others, deliver me, Jesus.
From finding it difficult to allow others to serve me, deliver me, Jesus.
From finding it difficult to rejoice in the success of others, deliver me, Jesus.
From finding it difficult to be totally open and honest with others, deliver me, Jesus.


From the fear of being vulnerable to others, deliver me, Jesus.
From thinking less of those who are different from me, deliver me, Jesus.
From judging others, deliver me, Jesus.
From becoming envious of others, deliver me, Jesus.
From being critical of others, deliver me, Jesus.
From speaking to others in a degrading way, deliver me, Jesus.
From desiring to be the center of attention, deliver me, Jesus.
From the compulsion to make my opinion known, deliver me, Jesus.
From wanting to make others aware of how much I am suffering, deliver me, Jesus.
From wanting to make others aware of how much I've been persecuted, deliver me, Jesus.
From doing things so others will think I am holy, deliver me, Jesus.
From being afraid, ashamed or embarrassed to publicly acknowledge the Lord, deliver me, Jesus.
From neglecting to acknowledge my total dependence on the Lord, deliver me, Jesus.
From regarding myself as more important than anyone else, deliver me, Jesus.


That I would never make myself anything but the lowest priority for anyone, especially in my own household, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of how displeasing even the least of my sins is to God, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of how easily I neglect God, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of how little time I actually take to ask God for his help with the needs in my life, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of how easily I plunge into a project without imploring God's assistance, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of the magnitude of my weakness, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of how stupid I've proven that I can be, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of how selfish I can be, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of how easily I have been proven wrong, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of how easily I've done selfish or sinful things, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of how easily I forget to express gratitude, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of how easily I stop listening and form my own opinion, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of how easily I feel worthy or deserving, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of how easily I pursue my own will without considering what God's will might be, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of how easily I rely on my own knowledge without seeking the wisdom of God, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of how easily I blame others, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of how easily I have hurt others, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of how easily I fail to extend mercy, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of how easily my behavior is dictated by what others will think of me, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of how easily I lose my joy when things don't come to pass as I had hoped, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of how difficult it is for me to ask others for help, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of how difficult it is for me to ask forgiveness, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of how difficult it is for me to accept correction, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of how frequently I first see the faults, rather than the good in others, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of the effort I put into concealing my weaknesses from others, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always be aware of how often I impose my will upon others unnecessarily, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always remember to allow others to go before me, Jesus, grant me the grace.
That I could always remember to imitate you, Jesus, our perfect model of humility, Jesus, grant me the grace.

The Twelve: Thomas

Thomas was the pessimist of the Apostles, and probably his pessimism had something to do with his scepticism. When Our Lord tried to console His Apostles, on the night of the Last Supper by assuring them that He would prepare the way for them in heaven, Thomas responded by saying that he wanted to believe but could not. Later on, when the news was brought to Our Lord that Lazarus was dead:

Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow-disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him. John 11:16

Thomas was called Didymus, which is merely the Greek translation of a Hebrew name and means "twin"; Thomas was a twin in another sense, for in him lived side-by-side the twins of unbelief and faith, each contending for mastery. There was faith, because he believed it was better to die with the Lord than to forsake Him; there was unbelief, for he could not help believing that death would be the end of whatever work the Lord had a mind to accomplish.

Chrysostom says of him that while he would hardly venture to go with Jesus as far as the neighboring town of Bethany, Thomas would travel without Him after Pentecost, to farthest India to implant the Faith; even to this day, the faithful in India still call themselves "St. Thomas Christians."

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Twelve: Matthew

Of Matthew or Levi, the publican, there is a record of his vocation and how he responded to it. The great and imperishable glory of Matthew is his Gospel. Matthew was a publican under the government of Herod, a vassal of Rome. A publican was one who sold out his own people and collected taxes for the invader, retaining for himself a fairly large percentage. Very understandably, because a publican was a kind of Quisling, he was held in contempt by his fellow men; yet he knew at the same time that he had the power and legal authority of the Roman government behind him. The particular place where we first meet Matthew is at the head of the lake, near Capharnaum where he was gathering in the taxes. His calling demanded that he should be a careful recorder of the accounts. His submission to the Savior was immediate. The Gospel relates:

As he passed on from there Jesus saw a man named Matthew at his seat in the custom-house, and said to him, Follow me; and Matthew rose and followed him.

Matthew 9:9

He who had been wealthy would now have nothing to look forward to but poverty and persecution; and yet, he accepted this condition at the first summons. "Come," says the Savior to a despised man, and he follows immediately. His response was all the more remarkable because he had been immersed in a trade which attracted mostly the unscrupulous and the unethical. It was bad enough that the tribute of homage from Israel should be collected by a Roman, but for it to be collected by a Jew was to make him one of the most despised of men. And yet, this Quisling who had forfeited all love of country, and who had completely suffocated the virtue of patriotism in his lust for gain, ended by becoming one of the most patriotic of his own people. The Gospel he wrote might be described as the gospel of patriotism. A hundred times in his Gospel, he goes back into the history of the past, quoting from Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micheas, David, Daniel and all the prophets; after piling them one upon the other in a great cumulative argument, he says to his people in effect: "This is the glory of Israel, this is our hope, we have begotten the Son of the Living God; we have given to the world the Messiah." His country, which had yesterday meant nothing at all to him, became in his Gospel of the highest importance. He was declaring himself a son of Israel, ready to lavish on her all his praise. As men love God, they will also love their country.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Twelve: Bartholomew (Nathanael)

Philip brought Bartholomew, or Nathanael as he was also called, to Our Blessed Lord. As soon as He saw him, Our Divine Savior read his soul and described him as follows:

Here is an Israelite worthy of the name; there is nothing false in him. Nathanael asked him, How do you come to know me? Jesus replied, I saw you under the fig-tree before Philip spoke to you.

John 1:47, 48

Then Nathanael answered Him:

Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are king of Israel. Jesus answered, Is this the ground of your faith, that I told you I saw you under the fig-tree? You shall see greater things than that. Then he added, In truth, in very truth I tell you all, you shall see heaven wide open, and God's angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.

John 1:49-51

When Our Lord told him that He had seen him under a fig tree, Bartholomew was willing immediately to make the affirmation that Christ was the Son of God. His first contact with Our Lord had already lighted the lamp of faith within him, but Our Lord quickly assured him that there would be greater experiences in store; in particular, the great vision which had come to Jacob would be realized in Him.

Our Lord said that Nathanael belonged to the true Israel. Israel was the name given to Jacob. He, however, was very shrewd, and full of guile. Nathanael is characterized as a true Israelite, or one without guile. A sudden transition from the plural to the singular happens when Our Lord says: "You will see heaven opening"; Jacob had seen the heavens opened and angels ascending and descending on the ladder, bringing the things of man to God and the things of God to men. Jesus was now telling Nathanael that he would see even greater things. The implication was that He Himself would henceforth be the Mediator between heaven and earth, God and man; in Him, all the traffic between time and eternity would meet as at a crossroad.

The prophecy of Our Lord to Bartholomew shows that the incarnation of the Son of God would be the basis of communion between man and God. Nathanael had called Him the "Son of God"; Our Lord called Himself the "Son of Man"; "Son of God" because He is eternally Divine; "Son of Man" because He is related humbly to all humanity. This title, used in close relationship with another title that had been given to Our Lord, namely, the "King of Israel," still carried with it a Messianic meaning; but it took it out of the limited context of one people and one race, into the sphere of universal humanity.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Twelve: Philip

The Apostle Philip came from Bethsaida and was a fellow townsman of Andrew and Peter. Philip was the curious enquirer; and his enquiry was crowned by the joy of discovery when he found Christ.

Philip went to find Nathanael and told him, We have met the man spoken of by Moses in the Law, and by the prophets: It is Jesus son of Joseph, from Nazareth. Nazareth! Nathanael exclaimed; can anything good come from Nazareth? Philip said, Come and see.

John 1, 45, 46

Philip declined all controversy with a man who was so prejudiced as to believe that a prophet could not come out of a despised village. Philip is not met again until the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes, and again he was enquiring:

Twenty pounds would not buy enough bread for every one of them to have a little. John 6:7

Philip made a last enquiry on the night of the Last Supper, when he asked Our Lord to show him the Father.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Twelve: James and John

Like Peter and Andrew, James and John were brothers and fishermen. They worked together for their father Zebedee. Their mother Salome was apparently not lacking in ambition; for it was she who, one day, thinking that the Kingdom that Our Blessed Lord had come to establish would be without a Cross, asked that her two sons be picked to sit at the left and right side of Our Lord in His Kingdom. To her credit, however, it must be added that we find her again on Calvary, at the foot of the Cross. Our Blessed Lord gave her sons a nickname -- Boanerges or "sons of thunder." This happened when the Samaritans refused to receive Our Blessed Lord because He had set His Face towards Jerusalem and His death. The two Apostles, discovering this, manifested their intolerance to Our Lord:

Lord, may we call down fire from heaven to burn them up? But he turned and rebuked them, and they went on to another village.

Luke 9:54-56

The two "sons of thunder" did not fail to drink deeply of the chalice of suffering. John was later plunged in boiling oil, which he survived only through a miracle. James was the first of all of the Apostles to suffer martyrdom for Christ. John described himself as "the disciple whom Jesus loved," and to him was accorded the guardianship of the mother of Our Lord after the Crucifixion. John was known to the High Priest probably because of his cultural refinement which justified is name, which in the original Hebrew means "favored of God." His Gospel revealed him truly as an eagle who soared to heaven to understand the mysteries of the word. No one better understood the heart of Christ; no one penetrated more deeply into the significance of His words. He too was the only one of the Apostles to be found at the foot of Christ; he is the one who tells us that "Jesus wept," and he gives the New Testament definition of God as "Love." James his brother, who is called "the Greater" belonged, together with Peter and John, to that "special committee" which witnessed the Transfiguration, the raising of the daughter of Jairus from the dead, and the agony of Gethsemane.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Twelve: Andrew

Andrew, the brother of Peter, is referred to eight times in the New Testament. After being called from his nets and his boats to be a "fisher of men" along with his brother Peter, Andrew is seen next on the occasion of the feeding of the five thousand, telling Our Lord that there was a boy present with five loaves and two fishes. Toward the end of the public ministry, Andrew is met with again when some Gentiles, probably Greeks, came to Philip asking to see Our Lord. Philip then consulted Andrew and they both came to the Lord. At the very first meeting of Andrew and Our Blessed Lord, Jesus asked him:

What are you looking for? John 1:38

Andrew had been a friend of John the Baptist. When he met Our Lord, to whom John the Baptist had pointed, he immediately went and told Peter that he had found the Messiah. Andrew is always spoken of as Simon Peter's brother. He was an "introducer" because he brought his brother Peter to Our Lord; he introduced the lad with the barley loaves and fishes to Our Lord; and finally with Philip, came to introduce the Greeks to Our Lord. When it is a question of dispensing some benefits of the Lord or bringing others to the Lord, Philip and Andrew are mentioned together. Andrew was rather silent, being overshadowed by his brother Peter, but apparently he was never jealous. There was room for envy when Peter, James, and John were selected on three occasions for intimacy with the Divine Master, but he accepted his humble place; sufficient it was to him to have found the Christ.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Twelve: Peter

The night before the choice He spent praying on the mountainside that they who were in the heart of the Father would also be in His own. When morning broke, He came down to where His disciples were gathered and, man by man, called those whom He had chosen. Of Peter the most is known. Peter is mentioned 195 times; the rest of the Apostles only 130 times. The one mentioned next in frequency to Peter is John, to whom there are 29 references. Peter's original name was Simon, but it was changed by our Blessed Lord to Cephas. When he was brought to Our Blessed Lord:

He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, You are Simon son of John. You shall be called Cephas (that is, Peter, the Rock). John 1:42

The word Cephas meant "rock"; we do not get the full flavor of it in English, because Peter, the proper name, is not the same as our word "rock." The words were identical in the Aramaic which Our Blessed Lord spoke, just as they are in French, where the proper name Pierre is the same as pierre, or rock. In Scripture, whenever God changed the name of a man, it was to raise him to a higher dignity and role in the community to which he belonged. Our Lord might have been saying to Peter, "you are impulsive and fickle and unreliable, but one day all this will be changed; you will be called by a name that no one would dare give you now -- Rock Man." Whenever he is called "Simon" in the Gospels, it is a reminder of the Apostle's uninspired and unregenerate humanity; for example, when he was sleeping in the garden, Our Blessed Lord addressed him:

Asleep, Simon? Mark 14:37

Peter had by nature great qualities of leadership. For example, after the Resurrection when he said, "I go a fishing," the other Apostles followed suit. His moral courage was manifested when he left his business and his home for the Master; that same courage, expressed impetuously, made him smite off the ear of Malchus when the leaders came to arrest Our Lord. He was boastful too, for he swore that though others would betray the Master, he would not. He had a deep sense of sin, and he begged the Lord to depart from him because of his unworthiness. His very faults endear him. He was deeply attached to his Divine Master. When other disciples left, he maintained there was no one else to whom they could go. He had courage, for he left his wife and his business to follow Our Lord. To the credit of his mother-in-law, it must be said that Peter showed no regret when Our Lord cured her of a serious illness. He was impulsive to an extreme degree, guided more by feeling than by reason. He wanted to walk on the waters, and given the power, became frightened and screamed in fear -- he a man of the sea. He was an emphatic man, swinging swords, cursing, protesting against the Savior washing his feet; though named head of the Church, he had none of the ambition of James and John. But through the power of his Divine Master this impetuous man, as fluid as water, was turned into the rock on which Christ built His Church. The Divine Savior constantly linked Himself verbally with His Heavenly Father; but the only human being He ever united with Hmself and spoke of Himself and that one as "we," was Peter. From that day on, Peter and his successors have always used "we" to indicate the unity between the invisible Head of the church and its visible head ...

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Choosing of the Twelve

It is evident that from the beginning, Our Blessed Lord intended to prolong His teaching, and His reign and His very life "unto the consummation of the world;" but in order to do this He had to call to Himself a body of men to whom He would communicate certain powers that He had brought with Him to earth. This body would not be a social body such as a club, united only for the sake of pleasure and convenience; nor would it be a political body, held together by common material interests; it would be truly spiritual, the cement of which would be charity and love and the possession of His Spirit. If the society or Mystical Body Our lord wanted to found was to have continuity, it would need a head and members. If it was a vineyard, as He declared in one of His parables, it would need laborers; if it was a net, it would need fishermen; if it was a field, it would need sowers and reapers; if it was a herd, or a flock, it would need shepherds.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

I found Sheen had such wonderful insight into the characters of Jesus' disciples, that I will be posting his commentary about each person here in the next few days.

Healed of the Bite of Evil

This Son of Man must be lifted up as the serpent was lifted up by Moses in the wilderness, so that everyone who has faith in him may in him possess eternal life. John 3:14-15

The Book of Numbers relates that when the people murmured rebelliously against God, they were punished with a plague of fiery serpents, so that many lost their lives. When they repented, Moses was told by God to make a brazen serpent and set it up for a sign, and all those bitten by the serpents who looked upon that sign would be healed. Our Blessed Lord was not declaring that He was to be lifted up, as the serpent had been lifted up. As the brass serpent had the appearance of a serpent and yet lacked its venom, so too, when He would be lifted up upon the bars of the Cross, He would have the appearance of a sinner and yet be without sin. As all who looked upon the brass serpent had been healed of the bit of the serpent, so all who looked upon Him with love and faith would be healed of the bit of the serpent of evil.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

Georgette Heyer

If ever I was going to be embarrassed by reading a "type" of book, it would be the Regency romances written by Georgette Heyer. They are sold in the romance section and usually feature couples in period clothing on the cover.

However, nothing could be farther from the usual "romance novel" stereotype than these books. The closest analogy I can think of is Jane Austen; specifically Pride and Prejudice. Heyer's books are well researched enough to make you think that she was a contemporary and full of the sort of intelligence and humor that make you laugh out loud. Thinking over her books it is amazing how she consistently covered a wide range of characters and plots that included romance, fashion, upper classes, cross-dressing, arranged marriages, murder, intrigue, cant language, sarcasm, and humor. She also wrote a few mysteries but I never really enjoyed them the way I did the others.

Some of her romances are currently being republished, many can be found in second-hand bookstores, and most libraries have a wide selection as Heyer was amazingly prolific. A few of my favorites are The Grand Sophy, Venetia, Sylvester, or The Wicked Uncle, and The Foundling. If you haven't tried a Georgette Heyer book, pick one up, hide the cover, and prepare for a delightful and clever read.

UPDATE: I can't believe I forgot to mention that the grand finale of these books is usually when the heroine and hero finally ... wait for it ... KISS. Not quite the usual stuff we get given in romance novels these days. Not only intelligence, but respect of the characters.

Proud Parent Alert!

At BL they hand out class rankings partway through the third semester. In a class of 300, Hannah is holding steady for the third year running around number 75. Woohoo! Top 25% seems great to us! These are a lot of very smart kids, many of whom will get scholarships to top schools, if past performance is any indication.

So imagine my total shock and astonishment when Rose announced that she is number 9 out of her class of 288. Number 9? NUMBER 9!!! WOOHOO! This is with taking all honors classes too. It seems she hangs with a bunch of overachievers as one friend is number 5 and another is number 15 ... and so on, and so forth.

This is when I'd love to go around and point out to all those parents who push their kids, still check their homework (yes, in high school!), enroll them in extra study classes ... we have done none of that. If your kid has the potential and wants to use it, they will do it themselves. Both our girls have achieved their good ranks based on their own desire to excel. So lighten up on your kids already! (Though that's something I don't have to tell most regulars around here.)

The Discipline of God

It is part of the discipline of God to make His loved ones perfect through trial and suffering. Only by carrying the Cross can one reach the Resurrection. It was precisely this part of Our Lord's Mission that the devil attacked. The temptations were meant to divert Our Lord from His task of salvation through sacrifice. Instead of the Cross as a means of winning the souls of men, Satan suggested three short cuts to popularity: an economic one, another based on marvels, and a third, which was political. Very few people believe in the devil these days, which suits the devil very well. He is always helping to circulate the news of his own death. The essence of God is existence, and He defines himself as: "I am Who am." The essence of the devil is the lie, and he defines himself as: "I am who am not." Satan has very little trouble with those who do not believe in him; they are already on his side.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Divine Disturber

Simeon was practically calling Him the "Divine Disturber," Who would provoke human hearts either to be good or evil. Once confronted with Him, they must subscribe to light or darkness. Before everyone else they can be "broadminded"; but His Presence reveals their hearts to be either fertile ground or hard rock. He cannot come to hearts without clarifying them and dividing them; once in His Presence, a heart discovers both its own thoughts about goodness and its own thoughts about God.

This could never be so if He were just a humanitarian teacher. Simeon knew this well, and He told Our Lord's mother that Her Son must suffer because his life would be so much opposed to the complacent maxims by which most men govern their lives. He would act on one soul in one way, and on another in another way, as the sun shines on wax and softens it, and shines on mud and hardens it. There is no difference in the sun, only in the objects on which it shines. As the Light of the World, He would be a joy to the good and the lovers of light; but He would be like a probing searchlight to those who were evil and preferred to live in darkness. The seed is the same, but the soil is different, and each soil will be judged by the way it reacts to the seed. The will of Christ to save is limited by the free reaction of each soul either to accept or reject. That was what Simeon meant by saying:

The secret thoughts of many will be laid bare. Luke 2:35

... Simeon also said that the Babe would disclose the true inner dispositions of men. He would test the thoughts of all who were to encounter Him. Pilate would temporize and then weaken; Herod would mock; Judas would lean to a kind of greedy social security; Nicodemus would sneak in darkness to find the Light; tax collectors would become honest; prostitutes, pure; rich young men would reject His poverty; prodigals would return home; Peter would repent; an Apostle would hang himself. From that day to this, He continues to be a sign to be contradicted. It was fitting, therefore, that He should die on a piece of wood in which one bar contradicted the other. The vertical bar of God's will is negated by the horizontal bar of the contradicting human will. As the Circumcision pointed to the shedding of blood, so the Purification foretold His Crucifixion.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

Quick Reviews

BARBERSHOP 2
Not quite as good as the first but not bad at all. This time around a big developer is taking all the individuality out of Calvin's neighborhood by buying all the little businesses and putting in franchises, specifically a "Nappy Cutz" (loved that name ... the perfect franchise idea) right across the street from the barbershop. I found Queen Latifah's beauty shop next door rather distracting and could have done without that part. I did like showing Eddie's back story set in the 60's when he first came to work for Calvin's father. Glimpses of black history were the contrast that gave meaning to the modern-day struggles. If you liked the first movie this one is definitely worth renting.

DANNY DECKCHAIR
This is a charming Australian comedy about Danny, a cement worker, who lives for his annual vacation ... two weeks of camping. When his girlfriend cancels the vacation, Danny experiments by tying helium balloons onto his deckchair and then floats away into the sky. We then see Danny's new life in the small town where he lands and his girlfriend's total enjoyment of the media circus that springs up over the notoriety of the escapade. It is a low-key and charming movie, perfect for the end of a hard week.

ONMYOJI
Hannah rented this and we had no idea what sort of a movie it was. Believe me when I tell you that after watching half this movie, we still weren't quite sure. In fact, I was stunned on looking at Amazon this morning to see that this was Japan's top grossing movie in 2001. Shoddy special effects and pretty bad acting were two main reasons. To be fair, we suspected that there was a fair amount of cultural information we were lacking in order to "get" what was going on. Unless you are fairly in tune with Japanese culture and movies, I'd stay away ... far, far away ... from this movie.

This Good Catholic Boy ...

Benji Madden, Good Charlotte

... wrote this song ...

"Wondering"

If you want me to wait
I would wait for you
If you tell me to stay
I would stay right through
If you don't wanna say
Anything at all
I'm happy wondering

Since I was a young man
I never was a fun man
I never had a plan and no security
Then ever since I met you
I never could forget you
I only wanna get you right here next to me

[chorus]
Cause everybody (a-whoa-oh-oh)
Needs someone that they can trust and
You're somebody (a-whoa-oh-oh)
That I found just in time
If you want me to wait
I would wait for you
If you tell me to stay
I would stay right through
If you don't wanna say
Anything at all
I'm happy wondering


Now my life is changing
It's always rearranging
It's always getting stranger than I thought it ever could
Ever since I found you
I wanna be around you
I want to get down to the point that I need you

[chorus]

Don't tell me
The bad news
Don't tell me anything at all
Just tell me
That you need me
And stay right here with me

[chorus]

... about his dog. Awwww. Read the chorus again ... I think those are his dog's words there. Double awwwwwww.

Why do I say he's a "good Catholic boy?" Well, I'm not positive but here's his twin brother with his tatoos of the Virgin Mary on one arm and the sacred heart of Jesus on the other. So, just guessing here...

Joel Madden, Good Charlotte

Thanks to my "beat reporter", Rose, for this one, presented as supporting evidence when revising her "Mom mix" playlist ... just keeping me current, ya know! (And if you like these pictures you ought to get an eyeful of the posters on her wall!)

Just One More Angel Story

Many saints and holy people enjoyed friendship with their Guardian Angel, whose intercession they frequently besought. Blessed Josemaria Escriva [now Saint Escriva] had a special devotion to the Guardian Angels ... Blessed Josemaria dealt with his own Guardian Angel and customarily greeted the angel of the person to whom he was speaking. He called him "a great accomplice" in the apostolate, and asked him for material favours too. During one particular period he called his constant companion my watchkeeper, because he had entrusted him with getting his watch going when it stopped, since he didn't have enough money to have it repaired. He set aside Tuesday as a day on which to put more effort into communicating with his Guardian Angel.

Once during a time of intense anticlerical persecution in Madrid a would-be aggressor stood menacingly in Josemaria's path with the obvious intention of doing him harm. Someone suddenly stood between them and drove off the assailant. It all happened in an instant. The protector came up after the incident and whispered to him: "mangy donkey, Mangy donkey," the expression Blessed Josemaria used to refer to himself in the intimacy of his soul. Only his confessor knew about this. Peace and joy filled his heart as he recognized the intervention of his Angel.

In Conversation With God : Feast Days July - December

My "met my Guardian Angel" story is by no means as definitive as St. Escriva's. However, I do not know who else it could have been. This happened about 2 years ago. I was pulling up to a red light at a big intersection on my regular way to work. I was in the middle lane of the five lanes on that side of the street, the second car back. As I was slowing down, I noticed a homeless man on the median leaning nonchalantly with his back against a streetlight post. This is a place where a lot of homeless people begged. I was used to handing out granola bars practically every time through there. What made me notice this man though was that as I glanced at him, he was making specific eye contact with me, with an expression on his face of ... it is hard to describe ... quizzical, humorous, and, above all, familiar. It was as if he already knew me and was giving me this look to get my attention. As I stopped, he stopped looking at me and then looked unconcernedly straight ahead down the road behind me, not at any other cars or people. He was ignoring all of them. I really don't remember much about how he looked, except he was not old, his beard and hair were the exact same shade of golden brown as his clothes.

I sat there for a minute. I was out of granola bars. I was ignoring him too as I don't give money. Then I couldn't stand it. I kept thinking of St. John Vianney's injunction to give to the poor and, then, there had been that look. So I grabbed my purse and started opening it as I put the window down. He was already almost at my car ... now how he did that when I had just decided to give ... anyway, I gave him a few dollars. I didn't even look at his face. He said, "Thanks" and I said, "You're welcome."

Then he headed toward the rear of my car. I thought, "Oh, he's going to that gas station on the corner to buy food. He really was hungry." I looked in my rear view mirror. There were no cars behind me, although there were cars around me on all sides and a car in front of me. The man was gone. Well, he must be in the gas station parking lot. No. Or at an angle where I couldn't see him behind my car. No. He was gone. Vanished, you might say.

So I don't know who it was. But I will never forget that look. And I don't know why, if that was an angelic presence, he would have wanted those few dollars. Although that experience solidified my feelings about giving to the poor and it happened just a couple of days before a big debate I was part of in a women's group (which is briefly chronicled here).

So now I am done with angel stories, perhaps mercifully. I have heard a lot about others' stories so I'm passing the torch ... who will catch it?

Lectio Divina

This scoop is from my best friend Joan who went on a retreat this week that focused on Lectio Divina.

Step 1: "Statio"
Find your "sacred space" to read where it is quiet and at a regular time.

Step 2: "Lectio"
Invite the Holy Spirit in and read only "4 fingers worth" of Scripture very slowly.

Step 3: "Meditatio"
repeat a word or phrase which speaks to you (from the above Scripture) over and over, very gently and slowly. Let the word / phrase enter into you. Do this until you tire from it.

Step 4: "Oratio"
Begin a dialogue with God

A. Prayer of Repentance

B. Prayer of Intercession for others

C. Prayers of Thanksgiving

D. Prayers of Praise to God

E. Prayers of Self Surrender

Step 5: "Contemplatio"
This is God's Step when He takes over and you don't realize what is happening to you and lose track of the time. This is the final "letting go" which removes the last veil of the self.

More Angel Talk

After saying yesterday that I didn't want to read any cutesy "I met my angel" books, I now am going to tell a little story ... no, not about how I met my angel. That comes later. Ha! This is about my awareness of my angel.

I always have this sense that my angel is standing next to me with his hand on my right shoulder. I only notice this when I think about my guardian angel but don't know if it's "all in my head" or not. Although there was one time when my angel was gone. It was during last year's Holy Thursday evening Mass. It's complicated and I won't go into the story here but I knew Hannah was distraught, by herself, and that was not a good thing at that point. I was very upset at this and told my guardian angel to go look after her. I didn't think about that again (I was at Mass after all) until a few minutes later when I suddenly thought about that "order" and realized that I felt all alone. No "hand on the shoulder" presence around at all. This was very strange ... and maybe all in my head? I kept mentally "testing" ... is he back? No. Is he here? No. About 20 minutes later, I was not alone any more. So was I grateful? Heck no! I mentally ordered him back to watch over Hannah ... and got this feeling of "she didn't need me anymore." Naturally, when I checked with Hannah later that was about the time that Tom showed up and she was fine.

So enough about me, here is what few people much smarter than I say about guardian angels. These quotes are all from In Conversation with God: Lent and Eastertide.

... all the guardian angels will gather together at the universal judgment in order to bear witness themselves to the ministry that they exercised through God's command for the salvation of each man.

St. John Chrysostom, Catena Aurea

Just as fathers, when their sons have to travel among bad and dangerous roads, make sure they are accompanied by people who can guard them and defend them from danger, so in the same way does our heavenly Father, as we set out along this path that leads to our heavenly home. He gives each one of us an angel. He does this so that, strengthened by his power and help, we may be freed from the snares cunningly set by our enemies, and may repel the terrible assaults that they make on us. He wants us to walk straight along the path with such guides, so that no obstacle placed in our way by the enemy should turn us aside from the way that leads to heaven.

Catechism of the Council of Trent

The saints intercede for men. The guardian angels not only pray for men, but they carry out duties towards them. If intercession takes place through the blessed in Heaven, through the guardian angels there is both intercession and direct intervention; they are at the same time advocates for men before God and ministers of God before men.

G. Huber, My Angel Will Go Before You

Have confidence in your guardian angel. Treat him as a lifelong friend -- that is what he is -- and he will render you a thousand services in the ordinary affairs of each day.

Saint Escriva, The Way

We must learn to speak to the angels. Turn to them now; tell your guardian angel that these spiritual waters of Lent will not flow off your soul but will go deep, because your are sorry. Ask them to take up to the Lord your good will, which, by the grace of God, has grown out of your wretchedness like a lily grown on a dunghill.

Saint Escriva, Christ is passing by

Let's Talk Angels

I usually have some "mind's eye" angel thinking going on. During Mass I think about the fact that there are double the visible inhabitants, because we each have our guardian angel with us. I read somewhere that angels are always worshiping when the Host is consecrated ... I always have that mind's-eye vision of them prostrating themselves at that point. St. Josemaria Escriva always mentally greeted the guardian angel of the person and sometimes I do the same. It's a big deal to some to know their guardian angel's name. Although I now have enough of a sense of my angel not to care, I believe that his name popped into my head when my sponsor was telling me about her attempts to find out her angel's name. More important to me is to be sure to ask my guardian angel for guidance during the day ... according to St. Escriva, the more you "talk" to your angel, the more sensitive you are to any guidance.

I was fascinated by the entire concept of angels when I converted but wanted the real scoop ... not one of those cutesy "I met my angel" books that were popular at that time (2000). Wouldn't you know, Peter Kreeft (is there anything that guy can't write about?) has a wonderful book, Angels and Demons: What Do We Really Know About Them? Here is the quickest possible Angels 101 course from the first page of the book ...

O.K., so I'm browsing through this book and wondering: why should I buy it? What can you tell me about angels in one page?

1. They really exist. Not just in our minds, or our myths, or our symbols, or our culture. They are as real as your dog, or your sister, or electricity.


2. They're present, right here, right now, right next to you, reading these words with you.


3. They're not cute, cuddly, comfortable, chummy, or "cool." They are fearsome and formidable. They are huge. They are warriors.


4. They are the real "extra-terrestrials," the real "Supermen," the ultimate aliens. Their powers are far beyond those of all fictional creatures.


5. They are more brilliant minds than Einstein.


6. They can literally move the heavens and the earth if God permits them.


7. There are also evil angels, fallen angels, demons, or devils. These too are not myths. Demon possessions, and exorcisms, are real.


8. Angels are aware of you, even though your can't usually see or hear them. But you can communicate with them. You can talk to them without even speaking.


9. You really do have your very own "guardian angel." Everybody does.


10. Angels often come disguised. "Do not neglect hospitality, for some have entertained angels unawares" -- that's a warning from life's oldest and best instruction manual.


11. We are on a protected part of a great battlefield between angels and devils, extending to eternity.


12. Angels are sentinels standing at the crossroads where life meets death. They work especially at moments of crisis, at the brink of disaster -- for bodies, for souls, and for nations.

Stooping to Heaven

Of every other child that is born into the world, friends can say that it resembles his mother. This was the first instance in time that anyone could say that the mother resembled the Child. This is the beautiful paradox of the Child Who made His mother; the mother, too was only a child. It was also the first time in the history of this world that anyone could ever think of heaven as being anywhere else than "somewhere up there"; when the Child was in her arms, Mary now looked down to Heaven ...

... Because He was born in a cave, all who wish to see Him must stoop. To stoop is the mark of humility. The proud refuse to stoop and, therefore, they miss Divinity. Those, however, who bend their egos and enter, find that they are not in a cave at all, but in a new universe where sits a Babe on His mother's lap, with the world poised on His fingers ...

Only two classes of people found the Babe; the shepherds and the Wise Men; the simple and the learned; those who knew that they knew nothing, and those who knew that they did not know everything. He is never seen by the man of one book; never by the man who thinks he knows. Not even God can tell the proud anything! Only the humble can find God.

Life of Christ by Fulton J. Sheen

Spontaneity

I once read that the reason for the saying, "Scaredy cat" is that cats have to think things over before they act. When something startling happens they run to a safe place to think things over. I knew exactly how they felt. Not that I run away ... but I like to have things planned, organized, all figured out ... then something throws everything off and I have to have a moment (or several) to settle myself to this new reality before acting. So, I am definitely not spontaneous.

I am much better about it than I used to be. Having children and then teenagers imbues a certain amount of flexibility just for the sake of survival. However, the kids have been warned from time to time about my "cat-like" qualities. They know how to spring things on me ... or that if I am not reacting well, just to come back in about 5 or 10 minutes and I will be all calmed down.

After reading that, it wouldn't surprise you to know that I am always ahead of the blog (so to speak) on material. I have a bunch of saved posts, meditations, jokes, etc. When I come across them, they get tucked away into a safe corner for the right moment.

Last week, I suddenly started to get the feeling that I should be more spontaneous about all this ... the blogging. Ok. I can do that. Until Saturday morning when I had copied the selected Weekend Meditation out of the file. I went back for the joke and ... "What do you mean AN ENGINEER WILL CHECK ON THIS PROBLEM?" The file was gone ... all the quotes, all the meditations, all the jokes ... and me with 12 minutes left before my Lent timer went off. Aaaaargh!

It crossed my mind ... so am I being forced into spontaneity? Just as I thought that, an email came from Tom's dear Aunt CB. Lo and behold, a hilarious joke about a blonde on an airplane. Ok, message received. I can't abandon planning entirely. Those Bible studies take time. However, more "off the cuff" activity is gonna be at this URL.

After Yesterday's Thoughts on Temptation ...

... I came across this in The Word Among Us.

God wants to transform our lives, but it doesn't happen on its own. It's miraculous, not magical. Transformation comes as we take our small human efforts and mix them with faith in God's mighty power.

A good reminder for me as I am shocking myself with how easy it is to give in bit by bit, sliding into temptation. No wonder Lent calls us back to God; I am surely being shown how much help I need. But I must make my best effort as well as remembering to call on Him for help.

Temptation

I just love the fact that the Church knows so well what we are facing after the first few days of Lent ... temptation to give up our penance, to slide just a little. So the readings were about Adam and Eve giving in to temptation, and then Jesus resisting all the devil's blandishments in the desert. Today's meditation from In Conversation with God has some great insights about that very subject ... so I thought I'd drop them here for you. My special favorite is the first quote from Ronald Knox that makes me think of the devil as a very successful used car salesman ... which would be funny if it were not that I am so often gullible that I fall for his wiles.

The temptations of Our Lord are also the temptations of his servants individually. But the scale of them, naturally, is different; the devil is not going to offer you and me all the kingdoms of the world. He knows his market; offers, like a good salesman, just as much as he thinks his customer will take. I suppose he thinks, with some justice, that most of us could be had for five thousand a year, and a great many of us for much less. Nor does he, to us, propose his conditions so openly; his offer comes to us wrapped up in all sorts of plausible shapes. But, if he sees the chance he is not slow to point out to you and to me how we could get the thing we want if we would be untrue to our better selves, and not infrequently if we would be untrue to our Catholic loyalties.

Ronald Knox, Pastoral Sermons

He allows temptation, and uses it providentially to purify you, to make you holy, to detach you from the things of the earth, to lead you where He is and by the route he wants you to take, so as to make you happy I (in a life which may not be comfortable); so as to give you maturity, understanding and effectiveness in your apostolic work with souls, and ... above all, to make you humble, very humble.

S. Canals, Jesus as Friend

But do not forget, my friend, that you need weapons in this spiritual battle And your weapons have to be these: continuous prayer; sincerity and frankness with your spiritual director; the Holy Eucharist and the Sacrament of Penance; a generous spirit of Christian mortification which will bring you to flee from the occasion of sin and to avoid idleness; humility of heart and a tender and filial devotion to Our Lady, Comforter of the Afflicted and Refuge of Sinners.

S. Canals, Jesus as Friend

Our Next Vacation "Theme"

Montreal last summer turned out, quite unexpectedly, to have a Catholic basilica/cathedral/church theme as we visited at least one per day.

This summer my family will be having our first-ever reunion as my brother is now back in this country. We'll be gathering in Kansas City (Mo.) which is near where we spent most of our formative years. Actually, we grew up outside of Bonner Springs, but, believe me, KC is the much more entertaining choice and where we escaped to whenever possible.

I had forgotten until my sister mentioned it yesterday, that the Truman Presidential Library is near there. That perked up Tom's ears as he read a masterful book about Truman. My sister and I went on to reminisce about the time our grandparents took us to the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, KS. Truth to tell, the Truman Library just didn't have what it took to impress us after seeing the Eisenhower Library which also has all the WWII memorabilia. 'Nuff said. Tom is a huge Eisenhower fan and Abilene isn't that far out of our way on the way home. Plans have been made, itineraries made, routes mapped.

It looks as if this summer will be our "Presidential Library" theme vacation.

Sundays in Lent

This is something that I wondered about as a new Catholic. Do Sundays "count" during Lent? Do you get a day off from what you've "given up" or do you keep on going? Everyone had a different answer. Then Father Hamilton's mother came to him with the same question and Catholic Ragemonkeys wrote this article. Short answer, it's up to you ... but to know why, read the article.

Oh, My Humanity!

It's one thing to have lofty and wonderful thoughts about Lent. Then comes the reality of Ash Wednesday morning with the child who, "Oh, by the way..." is going to spend the night with a friend tonight and then "Did I mention...?" needs money, hasn't planned for being gone, etc. Add on my poor stressed husband with too much work he is valiantly trying to handle, volunteer work where no one is giving him any info to go from, and his mother whose rapidly failing memory is requiring immediate attention from all the sons. Let's stir in a BIG pile of work for me and that need/desire to catch up on everything (that choleric personality surfacing?).

Oh, the snappish-ness of my morning. All of which was withheld from public comment, although somewhat imperfectly. They know me too well and I didn't cover very well ... until I remembered what I had read this morning. (Did I remember to bring it to work so I could quote it? pffft! Of course not! I grabbed the wrong book.) Basically it said that anytime that we are irritated, angry, upset, want to strike out ... then the fault is not in others. The fault is in us because we are not close to Christ in that moment.

That really set me back on my heels. Not close to Christ. Well, that's what going into the desert is all about, isn't it? Oh, thanks so much, God, for plunging me in ASAP, making me actively seek Christ, making me think about it because of my tetchy mood. That would be the prayer that gets instantly answered. (His sense of humor again ... He cracks me up. And then I just have to laugh at myself.)

As We Gather Ourselves Together

Looking around St. Blog's you get the sense that something big is happening. For the last week or two a blogger here and a blogger there have been mentioning Lent, examining themselves for faults to amend or appropriate sacrifices to make, preparing themselves for the desert. It is almost upon us, this time of penance and sacrifice, and the posts are coming from all sides now. Where have I failed? What am I lacking? How can I prepare myself to please God, to meet Him in that spare, spartan ground of the Lenten desert? No one is bemoaning the need. No one is talking about that last splurge of Mardi Gras. We are past that. It is almost insignificant. Our heads are far beyond that ... we are preparing to go together, though separately, to meet God in the place where he met Abraham, Moses, Jesus ... the desert. I feel as if I am watching the scene from The Ten Commandments where the children of Israel are all gathering together with goats, sheep, children, carts to follow Moses out of Egypt. They went to seek their freedom and we go to seek ours. I love that feeling of togetherness, camaraderie, as everyone writes about preparing for Lent. This is a part of the body of Christ I have not been privileged to see before. Though I go separately to struggle with my self discipline, denial, and prayer, I am not alone. We will travel together like a flock of birds wheeling through the sky, twittering to each other ... in the desert.

What I'm Doing for Lent

GIVING UP
Spending so much time blogging and on the computer in general. In the past I've given up computer games altogether and that was tough, but I think that merely limiting my computer time will be more challenging. When I say that I'll be putting on the morning's entries and then spending just an hour both reading others' blogs and working on mine, you can see how much time I've been slipping into the computer. When I tell you that my severest critics, my family, totally accept this as Lenten penance that just emphasizes it. I'll be using a timer and stopping whatever I am doing exactly when it goes off ... now that's going to take discipline.

ADDING ON
I'll be saying the Angelus every day at noon. This is a habit I've always wanted to acquire and Lent is the perfect time to add it.

OUR FAMILY DEVOTION
We'll be saying a decade of the rosary together as a family during Lent. This is another habit that I've been wanting to add and one that Tom is amenable to, so now we're just trying to decide on the best time ... right after dinner or right between our ritual viewing of "The Simpsons" and going to bed. Both have pros and cons but whichever we choose I'm very excited about this one. Our family has not been in the habit of praying together except before dinner and I've been trying to figure out how to get some of that into our lives.

All of these are habits I hope to keep going after Lent ends. They are definitely going to take some leaning on Our Lord to accomplish for a variety of reasons. I'm excited about going into the desert this year!

King Kong (1933) — Holy Mackerel, What a Show!

This is one of my all-time favorite movies and a true classic in its own right. King Kong is a simple story: intrepid filmmaker, Carl Denham, leads an expedition to Skull Island where they discover a 50-foot gorilla who becomes enamored of Ann Darrow (Fay Wray). He is captured and brought back to New York City as the "8th wonder of the world" where he inevitably runs amuck with Ann clutched in one hand and meets his death atop the Empire State Building. The skill of the movie makers is such that we thoroughly enjoyed it some 70 years later. Fay Wray has a scream that could stop a freight train; you could hear it over practically anything that the movie threw at it. The animation was star quality at the time and though it put the girls forcibly in mind of the stop animation they've seen in such modern classics as Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, it soon was forgotten in watching Kong wrestle with a T-rex.

It also was fun watching with the girls because, as fanciful as this movie was, it opened the door on a bit of history. It is set during the Depression so Denham watches a line of women going to a soup kitchen in searching for his starlet. That made us talk about how all-pervading it was that it was a common setting for this movie. We suddenly realized that love interest "Jack" looked a lot like Harrison Ford and this made us wonder if girls would talk about seeing the movie again to watch this cutie. When it came to the scenes with the island natives, both girls were shocked at how they were negatively portrayed and talked about as a matter of course ... no matter what some may think, we've come a long way in racial equality. Rose loved the way that Carl Denham talked. It was clipped and forceful and full of corny phrases (like the title of this post which is what he said when peeking through the tall grass to see the natives' rituals).

Although terribly predictable, it was a lot of fun watching terror stricken sailors meet their demise in totally clueless ways ... tip: when running from a 60-foot-tall monster, do not climb a tree; then you're just at eye level and easy to pick off. Also, it was a howl watching a variety of herbivores sport sharp, pointy teeth and eat one sailor after another.

I had seen this several times but only on Saturday afternoon "Monster Movies" shows. I did not remember Kong squashing natives underfoot or casually tossing New Yorkers back like a handful of popcorn. We assumed that these sequences had been cut for commercial time but then I discovered this in one Amazon reviewer's comments:

Final Notes: This is the "restored" version of the film, but it still does not include the legendary scene when four crewmen who are shaken off the log by Kong fall into a ravine where they are eaten alive by giant spiders. When first previewed the scene stopped the movie cold and Cooper pulled it from the film. The scenes that were cut in the late 1930s and not restored until the 1970s were (a) where Kong pulls Ann's clothes off; (b) the shots of the Apatosaurus (nee Brontosaurus) biting the sailors; (c) Kong eating natives when he breaks through the gate; (d) Kong stepping on a native; (e) Kong biting a New Yorker after escaping from the theater; and (f) Kong grabbing the wrong woman from the hotel and throwing her to her death. It would be nice if they could find the spider sequence or any of the other bits we know were cut by Cooper before the film was released, but it is probably never going to happen.

The print quality is not very good but that didn't matter as we were caught up in the movie. It's a lot of fun and we wound up talking fondly about it the next day as well ... perfect for a family that wants something different.

Why Do I Read So Many Vampire Books?

SUNSHINE by Robin McKinley

Although it is true that I have read Dracula by Bram Stoker about ten times, it is not true that I have a special love for the vampire genre. It just seems that my favorite authors like to occasionally turn their hand to writing vampire tales. What I find interesting is that they all have very logical twists on why vampires act as they do, while spinning wonderful stories at the same time.

Such is the case with Sunshine by Robin McKinley. Sunshine is a young woman who bakes "cinnamon rolls as big as your head" for her family's coffeehouse in a post-Voodoo War world where humans fight for existence with other "races" such as demons, werewolves, vampires, angles, ghouls, incubui, etc. She is kidnapped by a vampire gang and chained in a decrepit ballroom as a snack for magnetic, half-starved Constantine, a powerful vampire whose enemy shackled him there to perish slowly from daylight and deprivation. They manage to escape and form an alliance to fight the enemy while escaping detection by human SOFs (Special Other Forces)... otherwise, of course, it would be a very short book.

This book is loaded with coffeehouse ambiance, food talk, vampire-human attraction, mystery solving, magic, and self discovery. Anyone who has ever read anything by Robin McKinley knows that her books also include a lot of talk, talk, talk. I enjoy it because I like her style but admit that if it doesn't grab you then you'll be bored to death. However, if you like Robin McKinley (Beauty, The Outlaws of Sherwood, and one of my all-time favorite books, The Blue Sword) then you will find this thoroughly enjoyable. [Warning: it does contain a couple of sex or almost-sex scenes ... nothing too graphic but I'm not going to be passing this one along to Hannah or Rose, at least any time soon.]

All Under Heaven

HERO
If you told me I would watch a Chinese kung fu movie and come out raving about how good it was, I would have said that you were raving. I really hated Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Hero is simply in another class. Everything is presented with such simplicity even when it turns out to have underlying levels of complexity. The use of color, music, wind, shimmering silk, water and even ink makes this a work of art. Even the kung fu scenes had an elegance and grace that kept me riveted. It made sense and that probably is the greatest compliment I can give it. By the end we were all riveted, wondering what choice Nameless would make.

If you see the movie be sure to remember this note from Jeffrey Overstreet when watching. I forgot but find that it adds resonance to bring the message beyond just applying to China and to applying to our lives as a whole.

Note: Near the end of the film, a character delivers an important message in two words—"Our land." In the Chinese version, there are actually three words—"All under heaven." Zhang Yimou changed it out of concern that it would not translate properly. Frankly, I prefer "All under heaven."

Cooperating with the Spirit

We all know that God wants to reveal himself to us through Scripture. But just like everything else in the Christian life, Scripture won't just magically make sense to us. It's up to us to cooperate with the Spirit as we read the Bible. And that takes some time, some attention, and some perseverance.

The following guidelines may help you cooperate with the Spirit. Try implementing them over the next few days and see if they make a difference.

• Select a passage from the Bible you want to read...


• Don't read right away but begin with prayer. If you feel like singing or even humming a hymn you heard at Mass, do it.


• When you feel ready, read the Scripture passage you have chosen.


• Slowly read it again, dwelling on the words or phrases that struck you.


• Use your imagination to place yourself in the scene described in this passage.


• Imagine that Jesus is sitting across from you and speaking these words directly to you.


• Be still. During this quiet period, some words or pictures may bubble up in your thoughts. This may be God speaking to you -- especially if the images and thoughts lead you closer to Christ, fill you with hope, or stir your heart to love and forgive.


• Try to write out what you think God is saying to you and close with a prayer of praise and thanksgiving.

God wants to reveal himself to us in Scripture. Only through quiet reflection will we learn to hear his voice.

The Word Among Us

Digging Around at the Vatican

THE BONES OF ST. PETER: A 1st Full Account of the Search for the Apostle's Body by John Walsh
This book was a chance recommendation by an acquaintance when I was at our church's St. Jude library. I'm really grateful as I never would have picked up this page-turner otherwise.

Workmen lowering a floor led to the discovery of tombs beneath the basilica. This began an archaeological search for the fabled bones of the apostle St. Peter which tradition held lay beneath the altar. Pope Pius XII had a natural interest in "modern science" and gave the four Vatican archaeologists permission to search as long as the altar itself wasn't disturbed and they said nothing to anyone about it. Once the grave was discovered the mystery continues with the search for St. Peter's bones. The series of circumstances that occur to hide them and then uncover them are like something fictional. Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction.

The author has a real talent for communicating archaeological information in laymen's terms. It read like a first class detective story and I often found myself staying up way too late at night to see what was discovered next. Also fascinating was the wealth of information about Christian worship in Rome during the early centuries. This book may be difficult to find as the person who recommended it told me it is no longer being published in this country. That may account for the high price of used books I saw at the Amazon listing. Nevertheless, it is well worth seeking out.

Everybody's Doing It

Interesting Dallas Morning News article (free registration required) about Protestants using beads to pray, sometimes the actual rosary and sometimes variations of it adapted to their particular beliefs. I have to say that this quote by a Presbyterian minister made me laugh, "The rosary is not just a Roman Catholic thing," Ms. Moore said. "Praying with beads has been part of our tradition since the beginning of the church. We need to claim what is ours." Ummmm, sorry, but that "church" she mentions was entirely Catholic in the beginning. Ah, well ... at least they're getting the benefit of the meditation brought by praying rosary no matter what prayers they are using.

A couple of good website resources from the article to check out:
Ecumenical Miracle Rosary - Uses traditional rosary but wih different prayers
Rosary Center - All about the Roman Catholic rosary and praying it
Christian Rosary - written about the rosary for all Christians and does a good job of explaining that Catholics do not worship Mary.

Novels of The Company

The Company's real name is Dr. Zeus. They are a 24th-century operation devoted to getting rich off the past. The Company turns orphans and refugees from the past into highly intelligent, physically invincible cyborgs and sends them on missions to save or hide precious paintings, cultural treasures, and genetic information useful to the future world.

In the first book, In the Garden of Iden, 5-year old Mendoza is rescued from the Spanish Inquisition by a company operative. After undergoing training and a series of surgeries to turn her into a cyborg, Mendoza is reunited with her rescuer, Joseph, and sent on a mission to Elizabethan England to rescue rare plants before they become extinct. Once there, she falls in love with Nicholas who has a secret of his own. He is a Protestant in Catholic England.

Sky Coyote is told from Joseph's point of view in 1699 when he is reunited with Mendoza for a mission. They must save an ancient people from encroachment by the coming white men by convincing the entire pre-Columbian village to step into the future. Most interesting in this book is our first view of people from the future who are afraid of real food, nature, the cyborgs, and insist on political correctness at all costs.

Mendoza in Hollywood finds Mendoza with a team in California during the Civil War. Everything is pretty routine except for a strange anomaly nearby when the doppelganger of Mendoza's lost love comes by. He's a British spy and that is not a good thing.

The Graveyard Game is told largely from Lewis' point of view. Mendoza has been missing for some time and he and Joseph are trying to discover what is going on. The plot thickens when they discover other cyborgs are missing and a seeming conspiracy of the future people to shut the immortals down.

Black Projects, White Knights is a collection of short stories about The Company operatives throughout time as they have encounters with famous people and try to recover "lost" treasures. It fills in a few of the blanks in The Company's history while adding to the mystery about Nicholas. The character of Alec Checkerfield is introduced here who I believe is the main character of the newest Company book, The Life of the World to Come.

Somewhat surprisingly, as I am such a fan of this series, I do not find Mendoza a very attractive character. I much prefer Joseph and Lewis and, therefore, the novels told from their viewpoints. However, no matter who is narrating, the intrigue and suspense are riveting as the "immortals" move through time closer to the date beyond which no news comes back. Baker is a master at weaving complex tales that leave you on the edge of your seat. She also has a wonderful sense of humor and talent for making the past come alive believably. I imagine she did quite a bit of research especially for the earlier books. Highly recommended.