Fear and Loathing ... at the Movies

For those who can't believe that I haven't seen Schindler's List or the The Godfather (or a few others), I must explain that two emotions dominate in my specific avoidance of those movies. Hand in hand with this is my desire to actually enjoy a movie ... which many of these make difficult through subject matter.

Of course, those are fear (of being traumatized) and/or loathing (of a particular subject or actor).

Specifically:

• Schindler's List - Fear: I still haven't recovered from Sophie's Choice which can make me break down and weep if I think about it too much. The trailers for Schindler's List left me in about the same shape. Sorry but I'm not going there voluntarily.
• The Godfather - Fear: cold blooded gangster movies, however well done, aren't gonna go down well. Loathing: Marlon Brando. Great actor no doubt but I can't stand him. 'Nuff said.
• Pulp Fiction - Fear: see notes from The Godfather above.
• Shawshank Redemption - Loathing: Tim Robbins. (Although I probably will see this movie eventually despite that. I saw Master and Commander despite my loathing for Russell Crowe and enjoyed it.)

Mission Impossible 3 ... Best of the Bunch?

So says Harry at Ain't It Cool.

He mentions two things I didn't know before ... it is directed by J.J. Abrams and has Philip Seymor Hoffman as the villain (second only to Goldfinger, says Harry). He says this movie is the best ever retooling of True Lies (a favorite of mine except for the overlong fight scenes which dominate the end).

Hmmm, I am going to have to rethink my previous disinterest now...

Back to Basics: Penance

Catholics believe that the Holy Mother Church gives birth in the Sacrament of Baptism, nourishes in the Holy Eucharist, helps Catholics grow in Confirmation, and heals in the Sacrament of Penance.

Medicine and therapy can heal a wounded body, but Catholics believe that only God's grace can heal a wounded soul. That's why Jesus left the Sacrament of Penance to heal our spiritual wounds, which we call sin.

Often, people think of sin only as breaking God's laws. Sure, stealing, lying, and murdering break some of the Ten Commandments and are considered sinful. But Catholics believe that God said, "Thou shalt not," because he knew these sinful actions would wound spiritually.

Catholics think of sin like a bacteria or virus to the soul. When a person lies, cheats, steals, or murders, it's like being infected with millions of deadly germs. The longer the infection is left untreated, the more it spreads and worsens. It wounds and can even kill the life of grace that enables entry into heaven.

Just as tumors are benign or malignant, Catholics believe that sins are venial or mortal. In other words, some sins aren't considered as serious as others and merely inflict a slight wound to the soul, but others are so intrinsically evil that they're considered deadly. They're called mortal sins, because they can kill grace.

The Sacrament of Penance (also known as the Sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession) is for spiritual healing. According to the Gospels, after the Resurrection, Jesus appeared to the apostles, breathed on them, and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained," (John 20:22-23).

Because Jesus gave the apostles the power to forgive sins, he must have wanted them to use it. So the Sacrament of Penance has been the very will of Christ from day one.

Catholicism for Dummies by John Trigilio

This was really brought home to me the last time I went to Confession. The priest was giving me several steps to do ... he kept repeating, "to heal your wounded soul." I realized that I had been thinking in terms of having broken a rule but not of the consequence to me. It was very soothing to think of my "wounded soul" being restored.

3rd Book Dropped This Year

On the Road with Francis of Assisi : A Timeless Journey Through Umbria and Tuscany, and Beyond

I got about a third of the way through this story of a woman and her husband following St. Francis' trail through Italy and realized what was missing. The passion of personal insight. Yes, they are physically following his trail so we get a fairly good biography of the saint. However, the most we see of the couple themselves is little details such as they had a tough time in Bologna just like St. Francis ... neither could get lodging. Wow, don't knock me over with those personal revelations!

Thanks, but I'd like a little more from the author than that. I am thinking of such books as John Paul the Great, Virgin Trails, or The Miracle Detective. If I wanted to read a straight biography of St. Francis I'd have gone to a different source. And that wasn't my main interest here.

I've Heard of Blood Brothers But This is Ridiculous

Of course, that is often the case with the tortured translations featured at Engrish.com.

How Amateurish Am I?

Very. I still haven't stopped laughing over this.

At least I'm in good company. Check out the new additions to Amateur Catholic.

Pope Benedict XVI - One Year Later

What can I say? I was thrilled when he was chosen ... wanting to jump up and down and clap my hands and drive around honking my horn.

A year afterward ... I love him. I am still thrilled that we have such a shepherd.

More eloquent people than I have said it much better, so I will direct you to:

• John Allen for the analysis
• Amy Welborn whose thoughts mirror my own amazingly
  

Casting Out Devils

There are many Christian circles in which even to admit belief that there is a devil makes one an object of curiosity. In such circles Christ's casting out of devils is never mentioned voluntarily at all; if some amused unbeliever raises the matter, the answer is that Jesus himself knew better, but found it saved trouble to use the language of the people of his own day, who, to a man, were confirmed believers in the devil.

But this view can arise only out of a prolonged abstention from Gospel reading. Jesus was not that sort of person. On a matter of no importance he might have used ordinary ways of speech. But he would never have used a way of speech, however ordinary, that was based on a religious error. When his disciples assumed that a man was born blind either because of sins he would one day commit or sins his parents had already committed (Jn 9:2), he told them plainly that neither of them was the cause.

Further, when we come to read some of the accounts of expulsions of demons, we should feel that he would have been carrying the use of popular ideas and popular language rather far, if he did not believe that there were any demons there. For he spoke to them, commanded them, questioned them, granted a request made by them, ordered them to be silent about himself. Further still, when he sent the Twelve out on their first mission without him, he expressly gave them the power to cast out devils (Mt 10:8)...

... there can be similarity between diabolic possession and nervous disease: the Catholic Church makes strenuous efforts to be sure that demons are actually present before she resorts to exorcism: it is possible even for the very skilled to be deceived — to the amusement, perhaps, of such demons as happen to be watching from the sideline. But Jesus could not be mistaken. At times we find him treating deafness, dumbness (Mk 7:32-35), blindness (Mk 8:22-26), with no mention of demons, his commands being addressed only to the afflicted body or the bodily affliction.

I have said that he orders demons out. It is fascinating to compare the speed and almost casualness of his exorcisms with the form prescribed in the Church — which occupies thirty pages of the Rituale Romanum...

He [Jesus] simply ordered the demons out, exactly as he had ordered their leader away after the third temptation. And they had to go. They might plead, they might abuse, but they went. Their inability to resist his word must have convinced them, as no miracle could, that he was something new in the world.

To Know Christ Jesus by Frank Sheed

Back to Basics: Receiving Holy Communion

When believers receive Holy Communion, they're intimately united with their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. However, Communion isn't limited to the communicant (the one receiving Holy Communion) and Jesus Christ. By taking Holy Communion, the Catholic is also expressing union with all Catholics around the world and at all times who believe the same doctrines, obey the same laws, and follow the same leaders. This is why Catholics (and Eastern Orthodox Christians) have a strict law that only people who are in communion with the Church can receive Holy Communion. In other words, only those who are united in the same beliefs — the seven sacraments, the authority of the pope, and the teachings in the Catechism of the Catholic Church — are allowed to receive Holy Communion.

In Protestant tradition, Communion is often seen as a means of building unity among various denominations, and many have open Communion, meaning that any baptized Christian can take Communion in their services. Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians, on the other hand, see communion not as the means but as the final fruit of unity. So only those in communion can receive Holy Communion. It has nothing to do with who's worthy...

Similarly, Catholics who don't follow the Church's laws on divorce and remarriage, or who obstinately reject Church teaching, such as the inherent evil of abortions shouldn't go to Communion, because they're no longer in communion. It's not a judgment on their moral or spiritual state, because only God can know that. But receiving Holy Communion is a public act, and therefore, it's an ecclesiastical action requiring those who do it to be united with all that the Church teaches and commands and with all the ways that the Church prays.

Catholicism for Dummies by John Trigilio

I'm Curious

How many people were in various RCIA classes that were brought into the Church last Saturday?

The reason being that my group in 2000 had about 95 people in it. Around 75 catechumens were confirmed at our parish this year from what I understand.

I thought these were fairly normal numbers. However, I am not getting that impression now after reading people's account of the Easter Vigil. It seems that the average number was much smaller although it could be that these were less populated areas than ours.

Of course, one person entering the Church is reason for great rejoicing. I am definitely not trying to play any sort of comparison game ... I'm just surprised ... and curious ...

The Price of Deregulation: Rolling Blackouts

So now we see the price of deregulating the electric industry. They have to operate closer to the edge than ever. Maintenance overhauls were scheduled at several plants planning on the usual cooler weather that didn't have everyone's air conditioner working overtime. So they were out of the grid when the weather in Dallas hit an unseasonable 101 (I knew it seemed like summer today!) and the electric company had to institute rolling blackouts through the town. Not too long, maybe 15 or 20 minutes at a time. But that's the price we pay ...

Big Buncha Deep Thinkin' on the CCC

Gee whiz, everybody over at Catholic Catechism Dialogue Blog must have been chomping at the bit waiting for Easter to come so they could start posting.

Me? I took yesterday off (gaining compliments from the entire family as I didn't flip on the computer until evening).

As always, I did have a couple of thoughts ... these about the Catechism in general ... so although I'm late to the starting post I have joined the rest of the pack.

What Happened Here?

Ok, no fair Googling ...

What happened in Fairmont, West Virginia, on July 5, 1908?

Aren't y'all glad that we all got these trivia style daily calendars for Christmas?





UPDATE
The answer in "invisi-script"...

A special church service memorialized the fathers among some 350 West Virginia coal miners who had died in an accident the previous December; many consider the observance to have been the first formal celebration of Father's Day. The holiday was not officially established until 1972, when President Richard Nixon signed it into law. (It is observed on the third Sunday in June, however, not in July.)

Back to Basics: The Holy Eucharist

Of all seven sacraments, the Holy Eucharist is the most central and important to Catholicism, because of the staunch belief that the consecrated bread and wine are actually, really, truly, and substantially the body and blood, soul and divinity of Christ. For Catholics, the presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist is not just symbolic, allegorical, metaphorical, or merely spiritual. It's real. That's why it's also called the Real Presence —because Christ really is present.

Catholicism for Dummies by John Trigilio

Easter Sunday: All Is Joy

Maurice Denis. Holy Women Near the Tomb/Saintes Femmes au tombeau. 1894

RAISED FROM THE DEAD

This is the great truth which fills our faith with meaning. Jesus, who died on the cross, has risen. He has triumphed over death; he has overcome sorrow, anguish and the power of darkness ... In him we find everything. Outside of him our life is empty (J. Escriva, Christ is passing by).

In Conversation With God: Lent and Eastertide

HE IS RISEN! ALLELUIA!

After the somber tone and reflection of Holy Thursday and Good Friday I can hardly wait to get to Mass this morning to hear the joy and triumph of our Easter celebration. May you all have the same delight and joy in your Easter celebrations both in church and at home.

Source: Chant Art

Holy Week - Holy Saturday

THE SEPULCHRE OF JESUS' BODY

The Body of Christ lay in the tomb. The world was in darkness. Mary was the only light still burning on earth. The Mother of Our Lord -- my Mother -- and the women who have followed the Master from Galilee, after taking careful note of everything, also take their leave. Night falls.

Now it is all over. The work of our Redemption has been accomplished. We are now children of God, because Jesus has died for us and his death has ransomed us. "Empti enim estis pretio magno (1 Cor 6:20), you and I have been bought at a great price.

We must bring into our own life, to make them our own, the life and death of Christ. We must die through mortification and penance, so that Christ may live in us through love. And then follow in the footsteps of Christ, with a zeal to co-redeem all mankind. We must give our life for others. That is the only way to live the life of Jesus Christ, and to become one and the same with him (J. Escriva, The Way of the Cross, Fourteenth Station).

In Conversation with God: Lent and Eastertide

Nicolas Poussin. The Lamentation over Christ. 1655-1657.

Mass of the Last Supper

Last night was so solemn, so symbolically rich, so very ... Catholic. And it struck right at my heart.

We had even more priests and seminarians than last year. Reading back over that account, I was struck by just how differently I was impressed with things this year. Just as I needed to be.

For one thing, we were sitting in a different spot altogether, where the scent of the incense was blown over us the entire time by the ventilation. Normally I really don't like the way incense smells. However, this year, for the first (and possibly only?) time it smelled so good to me. I couldn't get enough of it. I had asked God for a word from this Mass. I got also the physical gift of holy scent.

We were sitting right in front of where the Holy Eucharist would be placed for adoration. Normally that is St. Joseph's spot. It is a good thing that he is so humble as whenever something special takes place off of the altar, he is moved away and that alcove is used. However, the votive candles were still burning. Occasionally my eyes would rest on them and I'd reflect on the many prayers that our community was lifting to God. I would send up one for their intentions.

Our priest gave his usual thoughtful, striking homily in ringing tones that also struck at my heart. He spoke of Jesus' power mentioned in the Gospel reading ... and reflected on how much power that we have and how we misuse it. He spoke of Judas, reminding us that while Jesus did the most lowly, shameful task (so shameful that no servant could be asked to do it) ... Jesus knew full well that Judas planned to betray him and still washed his feet. He mentioned later when Jesus, the host of the feast, gave the morsel dipped in the dish (a sign of full honor and respect) to Judas. Giving Judas that last chance, not to save Jesus himself, but for Judas to save himself. How Jesus loved him still. How Jesus gave Judas every chance to turn aside. And how he loves us.

I was struck, as always, by the fact that attending Holy Thursday and Good Friday services makes Easter so much more meaningful because we are walking with Jesus. He is taking us with him on that hard, long road at the end. We feel it, we see it, we understand it just a little more.

Naturally, being me, this meant tears and sniffling several times. Also, naturally, being me, there was not a tissue to be found. Ah, unprepared and inelegant as always!

One interesting thing happened that was a very personal touch. Both species were distributed which is not the norm since we kneel at the altar rail for Communion. We still were kneeling but this meant that it took a bit more time. After a while I was, frankly, a bit bored so thought that I'd profitably use my time praying for general but personal intentions ... our business, our marriage, our daughters' abilities to discern their vocations in life.

Which made me muse about a "thought flash" I'd had several years ago that perhaps Rose would discern the religious life ... an in-the-world, working or teaching nun which would be her style. Of course, who knows how these things will turn out and quite often thoughts are just that and not a message from on high (as we all well know).

As these thoughts idly crossed my mind, what to my wondering eyes should appear but five Missionaries of Charity, saris and all, walking up to the altar rail and kneeling right in front of us. They have a house in Oak Cliff but our church is not near there at all and we never see them. That is the very order which Rose had said once before that would be the one she'd join if she ever became a nun. She leaned over and whispered that again. I told her what I'd been thinking. She looked at me solemnly. I put my arm around her, squeezed her, and said, "No pressure though!" And we both laughed.

So does it mean anything? Only time will tell but it definitely was an interesting addition to Holy Thursday.

Holy Week - Good Friday

Joseph Criscuoli. The Crucifixion. (used with permission)

JESUS DIES ON THE CROSS

The Lord is firmly nailed to the cross. He has waited for this for many years, and this day He is to fulfill his desire to redeem all men ... What until now has been an instrument of infamy and dishonor, has been converted into the tree of life and the stairway of glory. A deep joy fills him as he extends his arms on the cross, for all those sinners who will approach him will now know that he will welcome them with open arms...

He saw -- and this filled him with joy -- how the cross was to be loved and to be adores, because he was going to die on it. He saw the witnessing saints who for love and in defence of the truth were to suffer a similar martyrdom. He saw the love ofhis friends; he saw their tears at the foot of the cross. He saw the triumph and the victories Christians would achieve under the standard of the cross. He saw the great miracles which, with the sign of the cross, would be performed throughout the world. He saw so very many men who, with their lives, were going to be saints, because they would know how to die like him, overcoming sin (L. de la Palma, the Passion of the Lord) ...

It was not necessary for him to undergo so much torment. He could have avoided those trials, those humiliations, that ill-usage, that iniquitous judgement, and the shame of the gallows, and the nails and thelance ... But he wanted to suffer all this for you and for me. And we, are we not going to respond?

Very likely there will be times when, alone in front of a crucifix, you find tears coming to your eyes. Don't try to hold them back ... But try to ensure that those tears give rise to a resolution. (J. Escriva, The Way of the Cross, Eleventh Station).

In Conversation with God: Lent and Eastertide

Holy Week - Holy Thursday

Source: Chant Art

THE LORD'S LAST SUPPER

Singular events took place in that period, which the evangelists have recorded for us; take, for instance, the rivalry between the apostles, who began to discuss who was the greatest; think of Jesus' surprising example of humility and of service when he carried out the menial task of the lowest of the servants -- he began to wash their feet; consider, too, how Jesus went out of his way to show his disciples his love and affection. My little ones, he actually calls them. Christ himself wished to give that gathering such a fullness of significance, so rich in memories, scene of such moving words and sentiments, such new actions and precepts, that we will never come to an end of meditating on them and exploring them. It was, you might say, a testimonial dinner: it was an affectionate and yet a somber occasion, a time mysteriously revealing divine promises and far-reaching visions. On top of that was the sad presentiment of death, with unprecedented omens of treason, of abandonment, of immolation; the conversation dies away, while Jesus' words flow continuously in his gentle and winning voice, though there is an unwonted tension in his grave allusion to profound revelations, the matter of which hovers between life and death (Paul VI, Homily, Holy Thursday).

What Christ did for his own may be summarized in a few words from St. John: he loved them to the end (John 13:1). Today is a particularly appropriate day for mediating on the love Jesus has for each one of us, and how we respond to it; in regular dealings with him, in love for the Church, in acts of atonement and reparation, in charity towards others, in preparation and in thanksgiving for Holy Communion, in our desire to co-redeem with him, in our hunger and thirst for justice ...

In Conversation With God: Lent and Eastertide

Hannah's Patron Saint

Today's her day ... St. Gemma Galgani. Happy Feast Day, St. Gemma!

Holy Week - Wednesday

Maurice Denis. The Road to Calvary/Montace au calvaire ou Le Calvaire. 1889.

THE WAY TO CALVARY

Forming part of the procession, their presence making his impending death yet more shameful, are two convicted criminals, described as two thieves. A recently-arrived spectator to the scene would see three men, each laden with a cross, walking towards death. But only one is the Saviour of the world. Only one of the crosses is the redeeming Cross.

Today, too, the cross can be carried in different ways. There is the cross carried furiously or sullenly, in a rage; man writhes and squirms, filled with hate, or at least, with a deep and burning resentment. It is a cross without meaning and without any explanation, useless; such a cross may even separate one from God. It is the cross of those in this world who seek comfort and material well-being, who will put up with neither suffering nor setbacks, for they have no wish to understand the supernatural meaning of pain. It is a cross which does not redeem. It is the cross carried by one of the thieves.

On the road to Calvary is a second cross, carried this time with resignation, perhaps even with some dignity, with an acceptance of the situation simply because there is no alternative to it. This is the one carried by the other thief. Little by little he realizes that close by him is the sovereign figure of Christ, who will radically change the final moments of his life on earth, and for eternity; he will be the one converted into the good thief.

There is a third way of carrying the cross. Jesus embraces the saving wood and teaches us how we ought to carry our own cross: with love, co-redeeming all souls with him, making reparation at the same time for our own sins. Our Lord has conferred on human suffering a deep meaning. Being able, as he was, to redeem us in a multitude of ways, he chose to do so through suffering, for greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13).

In Conversation with God: Lent and Eastertide

Source: Chant Art

I Really, Really, Really Liked This Book

My review of Faith, Family and Fishing: a 21-Day Devotional by Tony Gerdes.

I Confess ... to Knowing Too Many Monty Python Routines

Our entire family went to confession last night and headed straight for where our favorite confessor was always stationed. There was no line so I popped in first.

When I came out, Rose said, "We could hear both of you laughing in there."

Father O. had said, "Ok, here's what I want you to do. This is a two step process. The first step is for you to put this issue on the back burner in your mind. Just let it sit there and don't worry about it. Then, the second step is ... wait, there are three steps to this process."

I said, "Amongst the many steps in this process ..."

And we both just broke up guffawing.

(Actually, I realized later on ... it is a four-step process ... which made the whole thing even funnier when I was telling the story.)

Peasant: I didn't expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition.

Cardinal Ximinez: Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise.... I'll come in again.

Holy Week - Tuesday

Nikolay Gay. "Quod Est Veritas?" Christ and Pilate. 1890.
(CowPi Journal has a very good reflection about light and dark inspired by this painting.)

The Passion of Our Lord
BEFORE PILATE: JESUS CHRIST, THE KING

Thinking that in this way he might placate the hatred of the Jews, Pilate, took Jesus and scourged him (John 19:1). This is the scene we contemplate in the second sorrowful mystery of the Rosary, Bound to the pillar. Covered with wounds.

The blows of the lash sound on his torn flesh, upon his undefiled flesh, which suffers for your sinful flesh. More blows. More fury. Still more ... It is the last extreme of human cruelty.

Finally, exhausted, they untie Jesus. And the body of Christ yields to pain and falls, limp, broken and half-dead.

You and I cannot speak. Words are not needed. Look at him, look at him ... slowly.

After this ... can you ever fear penance? (J. Escriva, Holy Rosary, Second Sorrowful Mystery)

When this has happened, the soldiers plaited a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and arrayed him in a purple robe; they came up to him, saying, "Hail King of the Jews!" and struck him with their hands (John 19:4-5). Today as we contemplate Jesus proclaiming his kingship before Pilate, we should also meditate upon that scene contained in the third sorrowful mystery of the Rosary.

The crown of thorns, driven in by blows, makes him a mock king ... And with their blows they wound his head. And they strike him ... and spit on him ...

You and I ... haven't we crowned him anew with thorns and struck him and spat on him?

Never again, Jesus, never again ... (J. Escriva, Holy Rosary, Third Sorrowful Mystery)

In Conversation with God: Lent and Eastertide

Caravaggio. The Flagellation of Christ. 1607.

Holy Week - Monday

Duccio di Buoninsegna. Maestà (back, central panel): Jesus Accused by the Pharisees. 1308-11.

The Passion of Our Lord
PETER'S DENIALS

Jesus having been much ill-used, is led into one of the courtyards. He then turned and looked at Peter (Luke 22:61). Their looks meet. Peter would like to bow his head, but he cannot tear his eyes from Him, Whom he has just denied. He knows the Saviour's looks well; that look that had determined his vocation, he had not been able to resist either its authority or its charm; and that tender look of the Master's on the day He had affirmed, looking at His disciples, "Here are my brethren, my sisters, my mother!" And that look that had made him tremble when he, Simon, had wanted to banish the Cross from Jesus' path! And the affectionately pitying look with which he had invited the too-rich young man to follow him! And His look, clouded with tears, before Lazarus' tomb ... He knows them well, the Saviour's looks.

And yet never, never had he seen on the Saviour's face the expression he sees there at this moment, the eyes marked with sadness but without any severity. A look of reproach without a doubt, but which becomes suppliant at the same time and seems to repeat to him, "Simon, I have prayed for thee!"

This look only rests on him for an instant; Jesus is violently dragged away by the soldiers, but Peter sees Him all the time (G. Chevrot, Simon Peter). He sees that compassionate look of Jesus fixed upon the deep wound of his guilt. He now understands the enormity of his sin, and the fulfillment of Our Lord's prophecy about his betrayal ...

Contrition gives special strength to the soul; it restores hope, makes the Christian forget himself and draw close to God once more with a deeper act of love. Contrition proves the quality of interior life and always attracts God's mercy; ... this is the man to whom I will look, he that is humble and contrite in spirit ... (Isaiah 66:2)

Christ found no difficulty in building his Church upon a man who was able to fall and who did fall. God also counts on weak instruments, provided they repent, to carry out his big project: the salvation of mankind.

In Conversation with God: Lent and Eastertide

I will never forget when I first read the Gospel where Jesus turns and looks at Peter. I don't know why I never noticed that part before but it is one of the most meaningful to me. What a terrible moment of sudden knowledge that must have been. I know that feeling in the pit of your stomach when you are "found out" and the remorse and shame that flooded Peter on that instant. How many times have I given Jesus reason to look at me like that?

Beginning Easter Sunday

Catholic catechism dialogue blog, a new group blog, is being launched with the hope of inspiring people to become consistent, daily readers of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You can read all about it here.

I really am honored to be included in the writers of the blog. This will be especially good for me as reading the entire Catechism is something that I've always meant to do. Of course, I never have though I have a great copy of the Catechism sitting on my bookshelves as a reference.

I am so looking forward to printing out that schedule Owen mentions and getting into a daily routine of the CCC to supplement the Bible. Also, there is a crack team of diverse writers assembled. I can't wait to see what insights they have to share. This is definitely gonna keep me on my toes!

It Really Happened

Mk 11:1-10

When Jesus and his disciples drew near to Jerusalem
to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives,
he sent two of his disciples and said to them,
“Go into the village opposite you,
and immediately on entering it,
you will find a colt tethered on which no one has ever sat.
Untie it and bring it here.
If anyone should say to you,
‘Why are you doing this?’ reply,
‘The Master has need of it
and will send it back here at once.’”
So they went off
and found a colt tethered at a gate outside on the street,
and they untied it.
Some of the bystanders said to them,
“What are you doing, untying the colt?”
They answered them just as Jesus had told them to,
and they permitted them to do it.
So they brought the colt to Jesus
and put their cloaks over it.
And he sat on it.
Many people spread their cloaks on the road,
and others spread leafy branches
that they had cut from the fields.
Those preceding him as well as those following kept crying out:
“Hosanna!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come!
Hosanna in the highest!”

This was the opening Gospel, read when we were all facing the cross in the center of the church.

Our pastor made a brief commentary after it was read before processing behind the cross throughout the rest of the church. He said, "Why is this in the Gospel?" and read this part again.

If anyone should say to you,
‘Why are you doing this?’ reply,
‘The Master has need of it
and will send it back here at once.’”
So they went off
and found a colt tethered at a gate outside on the street,
and they untied it.
Some of the bystanders said to them,
“What are you doing, untying the colt?”
They answered them just as Jesus had told them to,
and they permitted them to do it.

He said that no scholars have puzzled over the hidden meanings of those simple words. Why were they even included? Because they are the little details that are remembered and told by someone who was there. An eyewitness.

He said, "This really happened. It is not some ancient mythology with which we fool ourselves. It is not made up. It really happened. Jesus really died for our sins to bring us salvation. He is real. It really happened."

That was the first time I cried at today's Mass. The second was when I had to read aloud, "Crucify him!"

Because it really happened.

My Crush on Cardinal Arinze Continues

Y'all may remember my full-fledged crush.

I see no sign of it abating. In fact, it might be getting worse.

The Mass is the supreme act of adoration, praise and thanksgiving which humanity can offer to God. We owe everything to God: life, family, talents, work, country. Moreover God has sent us his only-begotten Son for our salvation. At Mass we offer God this supreme acknowledgment of his transcendent majesty and thanksgiving for his magnificent goodness towards us. Moreover, at Mass we associate ourselves with all creation in acknowledging the greatness of God. God is not our equal. He is not our colleague. He is our Creator. Without him we would not exist at all. He is the only necessary being. It is normal that we acknowledge this fact. Those who refuse to adore God must not decorate themselves with the apparently nice title of liberal intellectuals.

If we are to call a spade a spade, we shall inform such people that they are unreasonable, ignorant and blind to most obvious facts. A child who refuses to recognise his parents is not a liberal. He is a brat. Would it be wrong to call him stupid, and unaware of common sense, and even of his own best interest? And God is to us much more than parents are to their children. On the other hand, God is not a rival to us human beings. He is not a threat. He is not a killjoy.

God is our loving Father. He is Providence. He takes care of every detail regarding our life. When we adore him, praise him and thank him, we not only do not demean ourselves. Rather we begin to realise our greatness. Our acknowledgment of God's transcendent reality elevates us. The shepherds in Bethlehem and the Magi were all the better because they adore the Child Jesus. St Anselm, St Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas, St Teresa of Avila, St Therese of the Holy Child Jesus, St Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) and Albert Einstein were all the greater because they offered the sacrifice of t eir intelligence to God the Creator. Christians must not allow themselves to be misled by the errors of a secularistic mentality which lives as if God did not exist. Man is not the centre of reality. God is. By adoring God through the Holy Eucharist, we pay this due tribute to God's transcendence.

Read the full text of his speech here. Thanks to Fr. Stephanos for the scoop and link.

You HAVE to See This

Watch this all the way through.

And make sure you have the sound on.

Thanks to SC&A for the heads up. How does Siggy always know what I'll like?

Eaking-Spay Ussian-Ray

Disputations mentions Pig Latin which reminds me of this funny story about my brother.

Once upon a time, he and some other Americans were learning Russian on the U.S. Army's dime (he later went into Military Intelligence, but that's another story). The other students at the language school were all German. The instructors were Russian.

The instructors would not allow the Americans to speak anything except Russian. However, they would allow the Germans to also speak German.

Naturally, this unfair discrimination angered the Americans. With native ingenuity, they came upon the answer. They spoke Russian ... in Pig Latin.

This confused and enraged the instructors. They could tell it was some sort of Russian but couldn't figure it out. They also never could understand how all the Americans instantly knew this new language.

Who knew that the "talent" every American schoolchild picks up with so little trouble would be used to such good effect?

My brother. He's a clever one all right!

APB on John B.

Anyone seen The Catholic Packer Fan lately?

Or have did I just miss something?

Bryan and I are wondering where he is.

A Trend in the Making

Via Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam comes this warning label generator.

I found the street sign generator on my own
(ok, so the link was at the bottom of the other generator...).

I found this poster generator so long ago that I forgot it until Jules reminded me.

The Miraculous Haul

To me this addresses so perfectly that feeling of astonishment and directness we feel when God suddenly addresses us ... in a way that means more to us than anyone else around, because it is a message tailored for us specifically. And, then, suddenly we can see.

He told Peter to row out into the deep and lower the nets again. And now for the first time we hear Peter speak: he must have said a good deal before this, for he was almost too ready a talker; but this is the first utterance of his that the Holy Spirit thought worth recording. "Master," he said, "we have labored all the night, and have taken nothing; but at thy word I will let down the net." All Peter's discipleship was in that answer — "It seems impossible, but if you say so —!"

We know what followed — a haul of fish that burst the net. Peter and Andrew called to James and John, their partners, who were in another boat near by, and both boats were loaded with fish to the gunwales, nearly sinking under the weight. What was the exact nature of the miracle? Either Jesus knew that the fish would be there — if so, it was by no natural knowledge that a carpenter would read signs that the fishermen missed; or he willed them to be there.

Peter's reaction is fascinating: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." After all, this was not the first miracle Peter has seen Jesus work. He had been there when his new Master spoke to Nathanael of an incident that his bodily eyes had not seen — Peter may well have thought that he was reading the other's mind. He had been at the wedding feast in Cana when the water was changed into wine, he had been there all through the week of miracles following Passover in Jerusalem. Only recently his mother-in-law had been cured of fever at a touch of Christ's hand and a word from his lips. But reading minds and healing bodies, even making wine — such things lay outside his experience: even without miracle, these were mysteries to Peter. But fish were different: he knew all about fish. This miracle hit home to him as the others had not.

So we understand the special intensity of his astonishment. But why the fear? Why was his first reaction to a vast haul of fish an overpowering sense of his own sinfulness?He had see the money-changers scourged from the Temple — and probably was delighted to see it, feeling that they were getting what they deserved. Evidently it had not occurred to him that he was a sinner himself. This time, precisely because the miracle hit home to him in all the reality of its miraculousness, he suddenly saw Christ for the first time. Seeing Christ, he at last saw himself.

To Know Christ Jesus by Frank Sheed

Thanks Be to God

Ron Rolling's latest update. God is good and so are y'all for answering the call.

Water Into Wine

This excerpt is talking about when Jesus turned water into wine at the wedding at Cana.

But how could he work a miracle immediately after he had said, "My hour is not yet come"? In those words is the mystery of Cana. What did he mean by his hour? Once he has begun his public teaching, it always means the time when he should die and be glorified by his Father. That meaning would not fit here. Evidently he means that the moment has not yet come to show his power to the eyes of men. Then two surprises: Mary knows that he will show it all the same. One minute his hour had not come, the next it had.

Surely the Holy Spirit was at work. We know that Jesus went into the desert to be tempted by the devil because the Holy Spirit sent him there. His certainty that his hour had not yet come would have meant that the Holy Spirit had not yet told him that he was to show his power publicly. And now, suddenly, his Mother asks for a miracle. As we have seen, the life of the family at Nazareth had not been strewn with miracles ... Nazareth did not believe in him, was indeed the only town that wanted to kill him.

Mary could have asked him to work a miracle thus publicly, only at the command of the Holy Spirit: it was not in her nature to thrust bright ideas of her own on her Son. She asked him as she was bid, and the Holy Spirit moved him to do what she asked. Thus Mary, who by her obedience had brought her Son into life, now by his obedience brought him into public life.

To Know Christ Jesus by Frank Sheed

Tim Burton Terry Gilliam Would Be Proud

MIRRORMASK

We all found ourselves at a strange loss for words after watching this movie. On one hand it is a typical adventure teenage quest story of the sort found in fantasy novels. A girl must find the Mirrormask to restore her world and a parallel one to balance in order to save her mother from dying.

The way the story is illustrated with extremely odd special effects at first brought Tim Burton to mind. We soon saw that Tim Burton just wasn't odd enough (and how often do you hear that said?) and had to revise our opinion to the WeirdMeister ... Terry Gilliam.

We watched with a strange fascination to see what would happen next, not because we were caught up the story which at the base was fairly straight forward. The fascination was in the way the story moved along its predictable lines but made so very, very odd by the effects. It was like the time we watched Time Bandits (except Mirrormask's plot was more normal) ... unable to look away because we were wondering what would happen next in the weirdness.

In the end, neither Tom, Rose, or me could say that we liked or disliked this movie. That in itself probably is the strangest thing about the movie for we are an opinionated crowd. If you like this sort of movie, then this is the sort of movie you will like (to misquote The Car Guys).

HC RATING: Undefinable

Encounter at the Grocery Store

Picking up some things on the way to work yesterday, I overheard the guy checking my groceries talking to another checker about making sure they had Easter Sunday off. Then they were comparing times for their respective churches' sunrise services.

Memories of a chilly, windy, gray, wet outdoor Easter morning at 6 a.m. filled my head as I suddenly thought of attending an Easter service with my best friend from high school who attended the Church of the Nazarene. I asked the checker if his service was outside or inside.

That's all it took. We were off on a whirlwind conversation that covered why Easter is timed when it is, how many people only come to Easter and Christmas services, how hard it is to get up for a sunrise service ("You know you're a soldier when you're doing that," he said). It ended with a surprisingly personal moment of sharing as he reflectively said, "You know, I like to go somewhere by myself on Easter. I think about Jesus and what he did for us. I mean, I know he came to do it but ... still. Think of it. If it wasn't for him, none of us would be here. There'd be no Christians at all. No salvation."

We both were silent for a second. Then he handed me my driver's license and returned to his usual brisk manner. I turned away to see the bag boy grinning at both of us ... a couple of softies talking about Jesus at the grocery store.

That's ok. I'm used to it. Somehow I get caught up in those sorts of conversations fairly regularly. I like it. I like knowing so many people love their Savior and their faith and aren't afraid to talk about it with someone they don't know. Jesus is what connects us, makes us one.

Body of Christ ... it pops up all over the place. Even at the grocery store.

Back to Basics: Three Forms of Baptism

I am so used to Baptism by water that I tend to forget the other two forms.

Baptizing with Water

The most common form of Baptism is by water. The Gospels say that one must be born again of water and the Holy Spirit (John 1:33). The early Christians and their successors have been baptizing with water for almost two millennia but with some slight differences:

• Immersion: Some Christian denominations fully immerse a person in water three times while saying the invocation of the Holy Trinity, also known as the Trinitarian formula, "I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."
• Aspersion: Other Christians sprinkle water on the forehead of the one being baptized and then invoke the Trinitarian formula.
• Infusion: Catholics (mostly Latin) baptize by pouring water over the head of the one being baptized while the Trinitarian formula is pronounced.

All three methods use water and the invocation of the Holy Trinity. Only water can be used — no other substance. But immersion or infusion are preferred.

Baptism of Blood

The notion of being baptized by shedding your own blood for Christ and/or his Church grew up during the Roman persecutions. And the Catholic Church has always revered these unbaptized martyrs — people who die for their faith — maintaining that the divine mercy of God wouldn't penalize them or ignore their sacrifice merely because they died before their Baptism by water.

In addition, Herod killed many infants (Matthew 2:16) in an failed effort to kill the newborn Christ. These infants, known as the Holy Innocents, are martyrs, too, because they shed their blood, so Christ could live. So Baptism by blood is as valid as Baptism by water. The following quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church shows what the Church has to say about Baptism by blood:

The Church has always held the firm conviction that those who suffer death for the sake of the faith without having received Baptism are baptized by their death for and with Christ. This Baptism of blood, like the desire for Baptism, brings about the fruits of Baptism without like being a sacrament (1258).

Baptism by Desire

Part of Catholic theology is the Universal Salvific Will of God, which is just a fancy way of saying that God basically would like for everyone, all men and women, to join him in heaven. Men and women have free will, though, so he offers the gift of grace, but men and women must freely accept and then cooperate with it...

People who lack any knowledge of Christ and his teachings are sometimes called anonymous Christians, and they don't consciously, deliberately, and willingly reject Christ and his Catholic Church, so they aren't responsible for not knowing the whole truth. Therefore, the Church believes in Baptism by desire, which allows salvation for non-Christians who, through no fault of their own, haven't yet accepted Christ explicitly but nonetheless live good, moral lives as if already Christian. Only those who consciously, deliberately, and willingly reject Christ are considered liable.

If people in their heart of hearts are sincerely disposed to God's will but, through no fault of their own, don't know about Jesus Christ — or they've never been shown by word and good example — then the Church presumes that they possess an implicit desire to be baptized. If someone had told them and given good example, they would've freely and willingly embraced Christianity and asked for Baptism by water.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church has this to say about Baptism by desire:

Since Christ died for all ... we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility ... Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God ... can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity. (1260)

Catholicism for Dummies by John Trigilio

Mensa By the Numbers

Jake is one-fourth of Molly's age. Two years ago, he was one-seventh her age.

How old are they now?

You Know, Jesus Did Take It With Him

His body, that is.

I did a double-take when this author attempted to explain details of Roman Catholicism as a key to grasping Bosch's paintings.

The ceremony takes place at an altar that contains precious relics, which are real pieces either of the body of Christ or of a saint, or of something they have touched.

The Essential Hieronymus Bosch

Ok, that's not Christian theology at all. No editor caught this one? Luckily, the author seems to be much better at writing about art than theology.

Duel in the Desert

This excerpt is talking about when Jesus was driving into the desert by the Holy Spirit and was tempted by the Satan

We should follow the duel closely — three thrusts by Satan, three times parried by Christ. What lay behind the three thrusts? I think what principally lay behind them was Christ's sinlessness. From your past sins and mine, the devil knows where the weaknesses are, the cracks and fissures in our natures half-healed or still gaping wide open. With us, he has plenty to go on: with Christ he had nothing at all. He could only improvise. We cannot read his mind ... but we can look at what he did.

He made three propositions. All of them were sketched in advance — rather sketchily sketched perhaps — by the behavior of the children of Israel in the desert. Christ answered with three wholly appropriate texts, all from Deuteronomy, all dealing with the time when Israel was beginning its new life... Or he may simply have taken three current views of the Messiah and tried them out in turn — that he would bring the earth wholly into the service of men's needs; that the very heavens would serve his splendor; that all the kingdoms of the world would be subject to him and to the Jewish nation whose glory he would be.

The first two temptations open with the words: "If you are the son of God." I think it was of the first urgency for Satan to find out what "son of God" meant. It had been used in the Old Testament as a name for the Messiah (Ps 2:7). But did he know what it meant?

"Son of God" had variously been used in the Old Testament — of the chosen people, for instance (Ex 4:22), and, in the plural, of the Jewish judges (Ps 81[82]:6). Satan knew his Old Testament, but the Book of Job he must have scrutinized with special closeness, for so much of it was about a certain Satan and the high carnival he had at Job's expense. In that book (1:6, 2:1, 38:7) "sons of God" meant the unfallen angels...

To Know Christ Jesus by Frank Sheed

Pin All Your Romantic Hopes on Google

User A: "Finally I've found my Soulmate!
Thanks, Google Romance!"

User B: "I never thought I'd be writing
an online dating testimonial.
Until I met User A..."

Google has a new beta program for online dating with contextual advertising ... make sure you take the tour.

And while we're at it ... of course ... April Fool's!

Google is the master of the day I love to hate. (For the past three years of their practical jokes check here.) I always get caught by practical jokes. Just not clever enough.

As a born afficianado of others' work (just think about all those quotes, people), I do love the way that computer nerds have taken over April Fool's Day as a way to show their chops. So any cleverness will be linked to below as I come across it.

• Everything's Coming Up Karl: Manolo's Shoe Blog has been hijacked.


• "Regular Guy" Beomes "Millionaire Guy"


• Sebastian Tours Assisi: Best travel tip -- "Of course the zombies are always a problem, but you get a free 12 gauge when you stay at our hotel, so everyone was fine. "


• All Sci Fi, All the Time: Dom Bettinelli is tired of arguing and changing genres. Can't wait to mix it up with him over whether Mr. Spock ate potato chips with his hands or a fork.
  


• Ribaldry and Risibility: Wallowing in the Earthiness of Something or Other! Jay is uncramping his style to focus on Miss Lima.

Around the House

Just a few random things ...

• Last weekend we watched a couple of favorite movies that few have heard of but many should watch ... Infernal Affairs (scroll down for my review) and Payback.


• Perhaps to compensate for the trouble with each word having definite tones, there is no verb conjugation. Catch that? No verb conjugation! For example, to make a statement past tense, add "le" to the end of the sentence. (Or that's how simple it is as of lesson 17 at ChinesePod.) Whew!


• Ballad of Mulan (courtesy of Rose who is taking East Asian studies ... yes as a sophomore in high school ... it really is a college prep school isn't it?) the first poem found in calligraphy. For fans of the Disney movie (and I am one) read it and see how it corresponds. Click on "English translation."


• Monk parakeets are a relatively common sight around here as a colony of them lives near White Rock Lake. A great story yesterday about these "bunny rabbits of the sky" (who doesn't love a parakeet in their back yard, after all?) and how the local electric utility "is earning notice for a planned construction of a 40-foot platform near White Rock Lake designed exclusively for the monks' sanctuary."

The Holy Mass and Personal Self-Surrender

In every true sacrifice there are four essential elements: and all of them are present in the sacrifice of the Cross: priest, victim, internal offering and external manifestation of the sacrifice. The external manifestation must be an expression of one's interior attitude. Jesus dies on the Cross, externally manifesting (through his words and his deeds) his loving internal surrender. Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit! (Luke 23:46) I have finished the task you committed to me, I have fulfilled your Will. He is, both then and now, at once Priest and Victim. Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempered as we are, yet without sinning. (Heb 4:14-15)

This internal offering of Jesus gives full meaning to all the external elements of his voluntary sacrifice — the insults, the stripping of his garments, the crucifixion.

The Sacrifice of the Cross is a single sacrifice. Priest and Victim are one and the same divine person: the Son of God made man. Jesus was not offered up to the Father by Pilate or by Caiphas, or by the crowds surging at his feet. It was He who surrendered himself. At every moment of his life on earth Jesus lived a perfect identification with his Father's will but it is on Calvary that the Son's self-surrender reaches its supreme expression.

We who want to imitate Jesus, who want only that our life should be a reflection of his, must ask ourselves today in our prayer: do we know how to unite ourselves to Jesus' offering to the Father and accept God's will at every moment? Do we unite ourselves to him in our joys and our sorrows and in all the activities that make up each one of our days? Do we unite ourselves to him at the more difficult times, such as moments of failure, pain or illness, at at the easy times, when we feel our souls filled with joy?

My Mother and Lady, teach me how to pronounce a "yes" which, like yours, will identify with the cry Jesus made before his Father: non mea voluntas ... (Luke 22:42) — not my will but God's be done. (J. Escriva, The Way of the Cross, Fourth Station)

Lent and Eastertide (In Conversation with God, Vol. 2)

One Year Ago Today, Terri Schaivo Died

I have seen various tributes all over but will direct you to the first one I saw today (and still my favorite thus far), at Jay's place.

My thoughts about Terri, euthanasia, and the culture of death from around that time can be found here.

Proceed Patiently With Confidence in God

Well, as of this posting, 41 people have donated (and someone asked me via my personal e-mail for my postal address to send a check). The net amount takes care of rent for March and April as well as the court costs mentioned in the summons, plus a very good start to May (or perhaps some luxuries like food and utilities)...

(UPDATE: The donor roll has increased to 59, as of a few minutes before the new day begins. The job interview that was scheduled for the past afternoon is postponed until noon tomorrow.)

Much thanks to all who have gotten the word out and to those who followed prayers with deeds in supporting Ron in his time of need.

I encourage you to read his "accounting," especially the comments which he has featured in the post.

Please keep praying for Ron's successful interview, for the Catholic guy who commented, and all those who are seeking employment, that God help their efforts and show them great good out of these trying times.

Jesus: Thirty, and Not Married

There is one thing that must have struck the townspeople as singular about him [Jesus]: he was thirty and he was not married. Remember the rarity of virginity among the Jews — not one woman in the Old Testament, among men only the prophet Jeremiah, and he had accepted celibacy for no spiritual reason. There were eccentrics, Essenes and perhaps the sect at Qumran, withdrawn in communities of their own and remaining celibate (again for no profoundly spiritual reason — Josephus says it was because wives "give the handle to domestic quarrels"). Anyhow the carpenter was no eccentric, and he plied his trade in his own town. In Palestine men usually married round twenty. The fathers of marriageable daughters must have weighed him up and found him eligible. Those opinionated cousins of his must have asked him what he thought he was up to, still celibate when he should have been married these ten years. Mary knew why, but it was not her secret to tell.

But this was the only peculiarity (and it was not in his favor). For the rest, the town took him for granted. Even when all Palestine was ringing with his miracles and the power of his utterance, Nazareth would have none of him — they had known him all his life, been to school with him, some of them, had him do their big and small carpentry jobs — plows, doorframes, wooden boxes.

Their reaction to his fame was a "What, him?" — amused smiles perhaps to begin with, such rage when he at last came to speak in their synagogue that they tried to kill him. Imagine your own plumber suddenly turning preacher and miracle-worker after many blameless years of mending leaks in your water pipes. You would not the be the first to believe, I think. Neither was Nazareth. They simply could not take all the high talk about him seriously. They knew him too well. He might fool others, but not Nazareth, never Nazareth. Not one of his apostles, apart from his own cousins, came from his own town...

Let us look steadily at him. He was a carpenter in a town, which even in insignificant Galilee, was despised as insignificant. He was not playing at being a carpenter, as Marie Antoinette and her ladies played at being shepherdesses at Versailles. He was a carpenter; the household depended on what he made; if trade was bad his Mother had to go without. The locals hired him to make and mend in wood. He would name a price and it would be a just price. They would haggle as is the way of the East, beating him down, asking doubtless if he thought they were made of money. In a better mood (having got the price down, perhaps) they might offer him a drink.

And he was omnipotent God, the second Person of the blessed Trinity, by whom all things were made, including the wood of his carpentry, and the drink, and the customer who was arguing with him about the price: including his own human body and human soul — that human soul which had to sustain the wonder of his divine self and not be blinded by it.

To Know Christ Jesus by Frank Sheed

Prayers Needed

For Ron Rolling. My heart goes out to him. Let our prayers storm heaven.

Backing Up Prayers With Deeds

For anyone who feels called to help Ron out in addition to prayers, he has been talked into accepting donations. There is now a PayPal button in his sidebar for any blogging buddies or readers who are interested.

Prayers Requested

Theocoid tells us of a tragic accident that left only the father alive. Prayers are requested for him and for the souls of his family.

Growing in Virtue

St. John Chrysostom urges us to struggle in our interior life like little children at school. First, says the saint, they learn the shape of the letters. Then they begin to distinguish the strokes; and thus, step by step, they learn to read. If we divide up the virtues into different parts, we can learn first, for example, not to speak badly of people. Then, passing to another letter, we can learn not to envy anybody: we can learn never under any circumstances to be a slave to the body: we can learn not to give way to gluttony. Passing on from there to the spiritual letters, we shall study continence, mortification of the senses, chastity, justice, and scorn for vainglory. We should try to be modest and of contrite heart. Let us link virtues together and write them on our souls. We have to do all this in our own home, with our friends, with our wives, with our children.

What is important is that we should make a definite and loving decision to strive after virtue in our everyday affairs. The more we practice performing these good acts, the easier we will find them to do next time. In this way we will identify ourselves more and more with Christ.

Lent and Eastertide (In Conversation with God, Vol. 2)

It's About Time!

I've been waiting and waiting for these folks to get an RSS feed ... and now I have my hands on it. Yes, I'm connected.

Now y'all can be too. Here ya go: http://www.eppc.org/rss/publications.xml

What ... Nothing Was Available in Advertising?

You Should Get a PhD in Liberal Arts (like political science, literature, or philosophy)

You're a great thinker and a true philosopher. You'd make a talented professor or writer.

What Advanced Degree Should You Get?

Via Doctor Laura

You Know You're a Catholic Nerd When ...

The biggest fight you've had with your boyfriend is about which one of you was praying the Apostles' creed wrong.

The Catholic Nerd Blog

Guilty as charged ... if you consider some of the arguments that happen in the comments boxes here.

Venial Sin

It is so easy to slip into the way of thinking that venial sin isn't that bad. True, it is not mortal sin, but it still is quite destructive and will erode our union with God in that "drip of water on rock" way.

Our Lord has called us to holiness for us to love with deeds. And on the approach we adopt towards deliberate venial sin will depend the progress we make in our interior life. For when we do not struggle to avoid venial sins or when there is not enough contrition for them, they damage the soul grievously. These venial sins make the soul insensitive to the inspirations and motions of the Holy Spirit. They weaken the life of grace and make the virtues more difficult to practice, and incline one towards mortal sin.

Many pious souls, says a present-day author [B. Baur, In Silence with God], are in an unfaithful state almost continuously as regards "little things;" they are impatient, hardly charitable in their thoughts, judgments and words, false in their conversations and attitudes, slow and lax in their piety; they don't control themselves and are excessively frivolous in their language, or treat the good name of their neighbor lightly. They know their own defects and infidelities, and perhaps even accuse themselves in confession; but they do not seriously repent of them, nor do they make use of the means to avoid them in the future. They do not realize that each one of these "imperfections" is like a leaden weight that drags them down. They do not realize that they are beginning to think in a purely human way and to work only for human reasons, or that they habitually resist the inspirations of grace and misuse them. The soul thus loses the splendor of its true beauty, and God is increasingly distanced from it. Little by little the soul loses contact with God: in him it does not see a loving and lovable Father to whom it should give itself with filial affection; something has been allowed to place itself between the two. This is the beginning of the road to lukewarmness.

Lent and Eastertide (In Conversation with God, Vol. 2)

Just as I Feared ... 50% Weird

(and it rhymes ... cool!)

You Are 50% Weird

Normal enough to know that you're weird... But too damn weird to do anything about it!

How Weird Are You?

Via "Not Nearly As Weird" Karen Hall.

I Won!

And I didn't even know there was a contest. I will finally get to find out if a pair of hand-knitted socks is like a hug for your feet.

Perhaps this will inspire me to get going on trying to knit a pair myself. I have the instructions but just have been too scattered to get it together to collect needles and yarn to get started.

Back to Basics: Vaccination Against Original Sin

This is probably the simplest explanation I've ever seen of how baptism fights original sin.

Catholicism sees original sin differently from actual sin, which is what a rational person does when she consciously, deliberately, and willingly disobeys God. Original sin is the natural inclination to sin.

For example, nobody is born with polio, measles, or chicken pox, but folds aren't born with any immunity to these diseases, either. A baby needs to be vaccinated, so the human body can produce its own antibodies and fight these diseases when it's exposed to them. Likewise, you can think of original sin as being born without any immunity or ability to internally fight sin. On the spiritual level, human beings, born without any resistance to sin, need a spiritual vaccination.

Baptism is to original sin what the polio vaccination is to the poliovirus. Baptism restores what should have been -- a spiritual resistance or immunity to sin and temptation. The first sin of the first parents, Adam and Eve, wounded human nature, and every one inherited that wounded nature from them. Baptism washes it away.

... And just as vaccinations are but a first step for a healthy physical life, Baptism is but a first step for a healthy spiritual life. Cultivating a good, healthy spiritual life means avoiding what's bad for your soul, such as sin and evil, and doing what's good for your soul -- prayer and works of mercy motivated by divine grace.

In addition to getting rid of original sin, Baptism also imparts or infuses sanctifying grace, a special free gift from God. Sanctifying grace makes the new Christian a child of God and applies the merits of Jesus Christ, his suffering and death for sins, to the new Christian personally, because the person being baptized is mentioned by name ...

Catholicism for Dummies by John Trigilio

66% Genuine!

Bass (66% dark & bitter, 33% working class, 66% genuine)

It's a testament to Bass Ale, and therefore to YOU, that when I went to look for ads for Bass, all I found was this. An ad from 1937. Bass is legit, and if your scores are true, so are you. I tip my glass to that. Personality-wise, you have refined tastes (after all, Bass is kind of expensive), but you know how to savor what you get. Your personality isn't exactly bubbly, but you're well-liked by your close circle of friends. Your sense of humor is rather dark, but that's just another way to say sophisticated, right? Cheers.

Link: The If You Were A Beer Test.

Via that half pint o' Guiness, The Anchoress.

Mensa for the Numbers People

Find the six-digit number in which the first digit is one more than the second, the third and fourth digits are the sum of the first and second, the fifth digit is two less than the fourth, the sixth digit is two less than the fifth, and the sum of the fifth and sixth digits equals the second. The sum of all the digits is 33.

I don't know about y'all but my brain melted just typing this monster.

UPDATE: we have a winner (I am amazed by her mental powers ... "math brained" doesn't begin to describe it) so don't go into the comments box if you're still figuring it out.

You'll Be a Man, My Son

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!
Rudyard Kipling

In a society all too eager to point out any masculine gender differences as something bad, to be blamed on men, just who will teach our boys to be men?

That is the question posed by Mary Jacobs in her Dallas Morning News editorial. Ms. Jacobs who loves the qualities that makes her son different from her daughter is reading The Minds of Boys by Michael Gurian. It sounds like a book that I would read also if I had a son to raise.

Women have always attempted to rein in boys' reckless impulses, Mr. Gurian says, but feminism made maleness inherently defective. Think of two fictional icons of American boyhood, Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. The Widow Douglas may have attempted to civilize them with starched collars and good table manners, but Mr. Gurian says, "If Huck and Tom were alive today, they'd probably be diagnosed with a conduct disorder and put on Ritalin."

The answer to that question is that real men are quietly teaching their sons in spite of society's message. In a post that dovetails nicely with this editorial, Joel at On the Other Foot had his sons in mind when he wrote this wonderful piece about what a man is and what a man does. Here's a bit but do go read the entire thing. It is not to be missed.

As a man, you are stronger physically than women. You are also bigger than they are and hence intimidating to them, if only on a subconscious level. Never loom over them, never yell at them, never treat them as though they were men. (On the other side of the coin, don't condescend to them either. They're small, not dumb.) Bear in mind that you have all the equipment and strength necessary at any moment to overpower and violate any woman. It's therefore vital that you conduct yourself in a way that makes obvious that you not only wouldn't do something like that, but you'd step in front of a bullet or a grizzly bear to keep her safe. This isn't something you say out loud, but an attitude that stays in the back of your mind.

Lucky sons to have such a wise father. And, Joel's wife, Christina, at Confessions of a Hot Carmel Sundae, shows what a difference it makes to be married to such a man.

My lessons in the qualities that make a man came from Tom's mother who never forgot that her husband and her five sons were men, different from women, and rightfully so. Her small asides here and there about these men in her life were touchstones for me, who really had soaked up all the propaganda that was handed out by society when I went to college. My often surprised rejoinders to her insightful comments would lead to a five or ten minute conversation about what men were like and how to support them in being themselves. I am lucky to have had that input from a wise woman who loved her men and helped me to appreciate the innate manliness in my husband.

Many are not so lucky. We can only hope that the pendulum is beginning to swing back to the middle and that once again manliness will be appreciated in our society.

UPDATE
This also can be found at Spero News.

Back to Basics: Original Sin and Our Original Parents

I love it when science corroborates Scripture.

More than make connections and relationships, Baptism also washes away original sin, the sin of the original parents of the whole human race: Adam and Eve. The Book of Genesis (1:26-27) says that God created man in his own image and likeness, male and female. The first man was called Adam, and the first women, the wife of Adam, was called Eve. They were the prototype man and woman, and their sin affected all men and women after them. And the Bible says that their sin was disobedience.

Even secular science today uses the name Eve to refer to the first human woman -- the first homo sapien. We want to mention that avowed atheist scientists from Oxford University in England have identified seven ancestral matriarchal groups from which all Europeans appear to have descended. Every European, according to the study, can trace his evolutionary history back to the seven ancestral mother groups, also referred to as the Seven Daughters of Eve. This corroborates the discovery of biochemists Allan Wilson and Vincent Sarich of the University of California at Berkley who've shown that every man and woman on earth, past, present, and future, can be traced genetically to one human woman.

Catholicism for Dummies by John Trigilio