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3. You have a nasty ailment, and decide to wait and apply a printout of the motu proprio instead of trying your aunt’s Lourdes water.This, of course, spurred The Curt Jester on to similar brilliance with his own Top Ten List.2. Rocco calls to warn you that the Vatican’s webmistress has sent over the Swiss Ninja Death Guard to pull out your modem.
8. You have already budgeted in the fact that you are going to be saving a lot of money on gas by not having to drive to that one parish over an hour away that has the Indult Mass.7. You have an “I “heart” Motu Proprio” bumper sticker on your car.
The waiting is the hardest partI am impatient by nature. This is not helped any by the fact that our national psyche is one of wasting no time in doing something about what we want. Whether it is solving a problem, getting something we want, or trying to make an unpleasant situation better, we are conditioned to fix, to solve, to heal ... to control. And we want to do all these things now.
Every day you see one more card
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part
The Waiting by Tom Petty
Last night I realized that the waiting may be beginning again. After our scripture study I was quite surprised and flattered when a fellow attendee who I respect immensely approached me and tentatively said that she wanted to "plant a seed." Actually she wanted to plant a couple of seeds in sharing ways she had served the parish that had furthered her relationship with God. One suggestion is just not for me. The other suggestion though ... the other is one that a friend recently had been telling me about in the same way. However, where my friend's words hadn't particularly moved me, this acquaintance's words did break through in such a way that I was envisioning it all the way home.From Action to Passion
Henri Nouwen
I was invited to visit a friend who was very sick. He was a man about fifty-three years old who had lived a very active, useful, faithful, creative life. Actually, he was a social activist who had cared deeply for people. When he was fifty he found out he had cancer, and the cancer became more and more severe.
When I came to him, he said to me, "Henri, here I am lying in this bed, and I don't even know how to think about being sick. My whole way of thinking about myself is in terms of action, in terms of doing things for people. My life is valuable because I've been able to do many things for many people. And suddenly, here I am, passive, and I can't do anything anymore."
And he said to me, "Help me to think about this situation in a new way. Help me to think about my not being able to do anything anymore so I won't be driven to despair. Help me to understand what it means that now all sorts of people are doing things to me over which I have no control."
As we talked I realized that he and many others were constantly thinking, "How much can I still do?" Somehow this man had learned to think about himself as a man who was worth only what he was doing. And so when he got sick, his hope seemed to rest on the idea that he might get better and return to what he had been doing. If the spirit of this man was dependent on how much he would still be able to do, what did I have to say to him? ...
The central word in the story of Jesus' arrest is one I never thought much about. It is "to be handed over." That is what happened in Gethsemane. Jesus was handed over. Some translations say that Jesus was "betrayed," but the Greek says he was "handed over." Judas handed Jesus over (see Mark 14:10). But the remarkable thing is that the same word is used not only for Judas but also for God. God did not spare Jesus, but handed him over to benefit us all (see Romans 8:32).
So this word, "to be handed over," plays a central role in the life of Jesus. Indeed, this drama of being handed over divides the life of Jesus radically in two. The first part of Jesus' life is filled with activity. Jesus takes all sorts of initiatives. He speaks; he preaches; he heals; he travels. But immediately after Jesus is handed over, he becomes the one to whom things are being done. He's being arrested; he's being led to the high priest' he's being taken before Pilate; he's being crowned with thorns; he's being nailed on a cross. things are being done to him over which he has no control. That is the meaning of passion -- being the recipient of other people's initiatives.
It is important for us to realize that when Jesus says, "It is accomplished," he does not simply mean, "I have done all the things I wanted to so." He also means, "I have allowed things to be done to me that needed to be done to me in order for me to fulfill my vocation." Jesus does not fulfill his vocation in action only but also in passion. He doesn't just fulfill his vocation by doing the things the Father sent him to do, but also by letting things be done to him that the Father allows to be done to him, by receiving other people's initiatives.
Passion is a kind of waiting -- waiting for what other people are going to do. Jesus went to Jerusalem to announce the good news to the people of that city. And Jesus knew that he was going to put a choice before them: Will you be my disciple, or will yoube my executioner? There is no middle ground here. Jesus went to Jerusalem to put people in a situation where they had to say "Yes " or "No." That is the great drama of Jesus' passion: he had to wait upon how people were going to respond. How would they come? To betray him or to follow him? In a way, his agony is not simply the agony of approaching death. It is also the agony of having to wait.
All action ends in passion because the response to our action is our of our hands. That is the mystery of work, the mystery of love, the mystery of friendship, the mystery of community -- they always involve waiting. And that is the mystery of Jesus' love. God reveals himself in Jesus as the one who waits for our response. Precisely in that waiting the intensity of God's love is revealed to us. If God forced us to love, we would not really be lovers.
All these insights into Jesus' passion were very important in the discussions with my friend. He realized that after much hard work he had to wait. He came to see that his vocation as a human being would be fulfilled not just in his actions but also in his passion. And together we began to understand that precisely in this waiting the glory of God and our new life both become visible.
Precisely when Jesus is being handed over into his passion, he manifests his glory. "Whom do you seek? ... I am he" are words that echo all the way back to Moses and the burning bush: "I am the one. I am who I am" (see Exodus 3:1-6). In Gethsemane, the glory of God manifested itself again, and they fell flat on the ground. Then Jesus was handed over. But already in the handing over we see the glory of God who hands himself over to us. God's glory revealed in Jesus embraces passion as well as resurrection.
"The Son of Man," Jesus says, "must be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him" (John 3:14-15). He is lifted up as a passive victim, so the cross is a sign of desolation. And he is lifted up in glory, so the cross becomes at the same time a sign of hope. Suddenly we realize that the glory of God, the divinity of God, bursts through in Jesus' passion precisely when he is most victimized. So new life becomes visible not only in the resurrection on the third day, but already in the passion, in the being handed over. Why? Because it is in the passion that the fullness of God's love shines through. It is supremely a waiting love, a love that does not seek control.
When we allow ourselves to feel fully how we are being acted upon, we can come in touch with a new life that we were not even aware was there. This was the question my sick friend and I talked about constantly. Could he taste the new life in the midst of his passion? Could he see that in his being acted upon by the hospital staff he was already being prepared for a deeper love? It was a love that had been underneath all the action, but he had not tasted it fully. So together we began to see that in the midst of our suffering and passion, in the midst of our waiting, we can already experience the resurrection.
Imagine how important that message is for people in our world. If it is true that God in Jesus Christ is waiting for our response to divine love, then we can discover a whole new perspective on how to wait in life. We can learn to be obedient people who do not always try to go back to the action but who recognize the fulfillment of our deepest humanity in passion, in waiting. If we can do this, I am convinced that we will come in touch with the glory of God and our own new life. Then our service to others will include our helping them see the glory breaking through, not only where they are active but also where they are being acted upon.
Reading the Bible should be a form of prayer. The Bible should be read in God's presence and as the unfolding of His mind. It is not just a book, but God's love letter to you. It is God's revelation, God's mind, operating through your mind and your reading, so your reading is your response to His mind and will. Reading it is aligning your mind and will with God's; therefore it is a fulfillment of the prayer "Thy will be done," which is the most basic and essential key to achieving our whole purpose on earth: holiness and happiness. I challenge every reader to give a good excuse (to God, not to me, or even just to yourself) for not putting aside fifteen minutes a day to use this fundamental aid to fulfilling the meaning of your life.I think this is why I always have identified with St. Augustine a lot (we will put aside any other reasons ... ahem). St. Augustine was converted to Catholicism by reading the Bible. Although I was not converted through reading, in fact had no idea at the time that there were books about that sort of thing, I always had my "best results" in prayer when I was reading the Bible. In fact, that is the reason I also always identified with St. Teresa of Avila, who said that she could not pray without a book.
Both prayer and Bible reading are ways of listening to God. They should blend: our prayer should be biblical and our Bible reading prayerful.
In Catholic theology, the Bible is sacramental: it is a sign that is an occasion for grace. The Bible fits the two classic definitions of a sacrament: (1) a visible sign instituted by Christ to give grace and (2) a sign that effects what it signifies. However, unlike the seven sacraments, it does not work ex opere operato; it does not give grace by itself, but is dependent on our use of it. ...
Though it is not a sacrament, it has power. Its power comes from two wills, God's and ours. It is the Spirit's sword (Eph 6:17) that cuts our very being apart (Heb 4:12), though we must give it an opening by exposing our minds and hearts and wills to its cutting edge. When we do that, God's Kingdom comes to earth. For it first comes to that tiny but crucially important bit of earth that is your mind and will. Then it transforms your life, which your mind and will control. Then, through your life, your world.You Can Understand the Bible
A Practical And Illuminating Guide To Each Book In The Bible
by Peter Kreeft
On today's feast the Church celebrates the mystery of the Incarnation and, at the same time, the vocation of Our Lady. It was her faithful response to the angel's message, her fiat, that began the work of redemption...
The setting of this feast day, March 25th, corresponds to Christmas. In addition, there is ancient tradition that the creation of the world and the commencement and conclusion of the Redemption all happened to coincide at the vernal equinox.
The Incarnation should have a pronounced and dramatic on our life. This event is the central moment of human history. Without Christ, life has no meaning. Christ the Redeemer "fully reveals man to himself" (Encyclical, Redemptor Hominis). It is only through Christ that we will come to comprehend our inner self and everything that matters most to us: the hidden value of pain and of work well done, the authentic peace and joy which surpass natural feelings and life's uncertainties, the delightful prospect of our supernatural reward in our eternal homeland...
The human testimony of the Son of God teaches us that all earthly realities ought to be loved and offered up to Heaven. Christ has transformed the human condition into a pathway to God. Consequently, the Christian's struggle for perfection takes on a profoundly positive character. This struggle has nothing to do with snuffing out one's humanity so that the divine might shine out instead. Sanctity does not necessitate total separation from worldly affairs. For it is not human nature that opposes God's will, but sin and the effects of original sin which have so badly damaged our souls. Our struggle to become like Christ brings with it a life-long battle against whatsoever degrades our humanity -- egoism, envy, sensuality, a critical spirit ...
In the same way as the humanity of Christ is not effaced by his dignity, so it is that through the Incarnation the human condition preserves its integrity and finds its final end.
What's not to like? Go check it out these musings of a wine country Catholic and welcome her to St. Blog's Parish!Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There's always laughter and good red wine.
At least I've always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino
I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table,
after four I'm under my host.
Dorothy Parker
"By that point," remembers Taylor, "our prayer was more, initially, or first reaction was to pray to God to help us make it through it. To comfort us. Shortly after that our mind changed and we said God we know you have the power to change this, and we're putting this in Your hands.Read it all. Via Alicia.
Regular sonograms for the next six months still showed no amniotic fluid. An inducement was scheduled six weeks before the due date. One last sonogram indicated something had changed. The Whites headed straight to their specialist in Dallas...
Personal practices of piety cannot be isolated from the rest of our daily concerns. Rather they should be moments when our constant turning to God is made more intense and more profound; the whole tone of our daily activity is then raised. It is clear that to seek sanctity in the middle of this world does not simply consist in simply doing or in multiplying devotions or pious practices. It lies in an effective union with the Lord with such actions promote and to which they are ordained. And when there is an effective union with the lord, this affects the whole of one's activity. These practices will lead you, almost without your realizing it, to contemplative prayer. Your soul will pour forth more acts of love, aspirations, acts of thanksgiving, acts of atonement, spiritual communions and this will happen while you go about your ordinary duties, when you answer the telephone, get on a bus, open or close a door, pass in front of a church, when you begin a new task, during it and when you have finished it ... (J. Escriva, Friends of God)I have been finding this to be very true as I have been more vigilant about forcing myself to take time for prayer before beginning the day. It all comes together in a flow back and forth with God's presence wound through everything ...
Thus we will try to live, with Christ and in Christ, at each and every moment of our existence at work, in the family, among friends. This is unity of life. It is then that personal piety is directed to action, giving it both encouragement and content, converting every task into another act of love for God. And in their turn, work and the tasks of each day make it easier to relate to God; they are the field where all the virtues are exercised. If we try to work well and to give our actions the transcendental dimension of the love of God, our deeds will be of use for the salvation of men and we will make the world more human. for it is not possible for man to be respected -- and even less to be loved -- if God is neglected or opposed, for man is only man when he is the true image of God. ...
... But the real lesson in Peter's life is one of repentance. his fall is a lesson in sin that requires no teacher, but his repentance is a great lesson in salvation. And it is this great lesson that contains the only true spiritual meaning to those who have personally made Peter's discovery -- that they have betrayed our God.
What then can we learn from Peter's turning around? First, it was not Peter who turned. It was the Lord who turned and looked at Pater. When the cock crew, that might have kept Peter from falling further. But he was just in the very act of sin. And when a person is in the thick of his sin his last thought is to throw down his arms and repent. So Peter never thought of turning, but the Lord turned. And when Peter would rather have looked anywhere else than at the Lord, the Lord looked at Peter. This scarce-noticed fact is the only sermon needed to anyone who sins -- that the Lord turns first.
For this reason it is important to distinguish between two kinds of sorrow for sin. The one has to do with feeling sorry over some wrong or sin we have committed. This feeling seems to provide a sort of guarantee that we are not disposed to do the same wrong again, and that our better self is still alive enough to enter its protest against the sin our lower self has done. And we count this feeling of reproach which treads so closely upon the act, as a sort of compensation or atonement for the wrong.
In this kind of sorrow, however, there is no real repentance, no true sorrow for sin. It is merely wounded self-love. It is a sorrow over weakness,over the fact that when we were put to the test we found to our chagrin we had failed. But this chagrin is what we are apt to mistake for repentance. This is nothing but wounded price -- sorrow that we did not do better, that we were not so good as we and others thought. It is just as if Peter turned and looked upon Peter. ...
All this is to say that there is a vast difference between divine and human sorrow. Human sorrow is us turning and looking upon ourselves. True, there is nothing wrong in turning and looking at oneself -- only there is a danger. We can miss the most authentic experience of life in the imitation. For genuine repentance consists of feeling deeply our human helplessness, of knowing how God comes to us when we are completely broken.
In the end, it is God looking into the sinner's face that matters. ...
Now you don't just have to take my word for it (or even Mama T's word), you can see what The Anchoress has to say. And then get thee to a library or bookstore and pick up a Georgette Heyer book!This is no bodice-ripper, but it is wonderfully romantic in a madcap sort of way. In fact, Heyer wrote it in 1934, and it’s a Georgian, not Regency period, if that matters (I believe it does, to some) but reading this thing was like watching one of my favorite screwball comedies of that era. The heroine is a humorous scamp, the hero - Gad, I fell in love with him! He only shows up in about a third of the book, but he is so well drawn, so clever and funny and wry, that he steals every chapter he’s in. The rest of the book is dominated by secondary characters who kept me in stitches, particularly the overindulging brother, Pel and his drinking/gambling buddy, Pom.
I picked it up yesterday and couldn’t put it down - read it right through the night...
I said, “no, it’s not sexy at all - but it IS romantic, but just tantalizingly so. What it is, is freaking hilarious.”
At the end of the second day, in a Protestant store, I came across a book written by a Protestant pastor on the Holy Spirit, and how the Holy Spirit had worked in his life. As I read it, I got this eerie feeling. I recognized what he was saying, because I had already experienced it. What he was describing was the same thing that I had been experiencing all those years, beginning with my experience of the moon, which had led me on this journey to the very point where I was right then, reading that book.The short version of why Aimee became Catholic is good but for the really indepth stuff follow the links contained in that post, as I did, and read her dual series of "how I first came to encounter Christ" (where the excerpt above is found) and "how my experience of Christ has changed during my journey from Evangelicalism to Catholicism." Very good testimony and it personally touched me ... I wasn't exactly electrified as she describes but it definitely was being used by Jesus to get a specific point across to me.
My mind was in a jumble. He was talking about the Holy Spirit. The HOLY SPIRIT. Of GOD. Of the TRINITY, that thing I had heard about as a child in the Episcopalian church, the BIG Holy Spirit that was one of the three Persons of God, Father, Son, and HOLY SPIRIT.
Wait a minute. You mean, that thing, that “interior guidance system,” that little “spirit” that had been guiding me all those years, was no less than the real HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD, of which Jesus was also a part, that distant figure from my childhood that had meant so little to me before that I had abandoned and rejected it?
I felt like I was being electrified. I looked at my arm, and the hairs were standing straight out.
I bought the book, took it home, and read the whole thing cover-to-cover that night, my mind reeling the whole time: could it be true? Is this the real Holy Spirit that’s been guiding me all this time? Is Jesus the one I’ve been looking for all these years?
At some point after your first three epics were completed, you converted to Christianity, having been a resolute humanist before. How did this come about?
Wright: Now, this is a difficult question to answer, because to talk of these deep matters automatically provokes half the audience, and bores the other half. I will try to be as brief and delicate as I can.
Humanist is too weak a word. I was an atheist, zealous and absolute, one who held that the nonexistence of God was a fact as easily proved as the inequality of five and twice two.
However, my disbelief began to erode as fatherhood and war pressed upon me the realities of the world. I was a Stoic, a disciple of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, Cicero and Seneca, who say the ground of morality is duty; but I was also a liberal of the classical Enlightenment, which says toleration is the ground of morals. Both these strands in my philosophy were naïve: Humans cannot live by the strictness of the Stoics; humans ought not live by the laxness of the liberals, libertarians or libertines. The two strands did not match. Modern philosophy, which is based on self-interest or utilitarianism, is unsuited both for war and for fatherhood. Growing aware of the defects in my system, I sought something with more experience and wisdom.
Where is wisdom found? I read the deep thoughts of the most highly regarded thinkers of the modern age, and found them vain and shallow. The insights of Nietzsche, Freud, Sartre, Marx, Wittgenstein and other luminaries of the modern world contained simple errors in logic a schoolboy can dismiss with a laugh. Each in his own way asserted that man was irrational, and the truth unknowable: But if so, how did they prove this unreason? Using reason, or otherwise? And how exactly did they come to know the truth that truth was unknowable?
In popular culture, the books influencing the morals and values of the current age, such as Stranger in a Strange Land or Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, read like they were written by a Man from Mars, or a mental patient. They know nothing of real life.
The salient characteristic of modern philosophy is a speculative disconnection from reality. Michael the Martian and Karl Marx expect the super-humans to live together without jealousy or scarcity of resources. Money will simply overflow the collection plate, and anyone can take as much or as little as he likes. But what if someone is dishonest or selfish, comrade? Ah, but the theory does not allow for that.
In contrast, the writings of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, G.K. Chesterton, Evelyn Waugh, all read like things written by mature men. The ancients, Aristotle, Plato, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Cicero, Aquinas and even Augustine, solidly prepared the ground from which a sane, mighty and just civilization could be grown.
I reached a point in my life where on all divisive questions of morals and manners, I agreed with no one other than my hated enemies, the Christians. I knew in my cool atheist heart they must be wrong in theory; I could not explain how they were correct in practice.
I began to read history. The modernists are right to fear it. Once a man knows the context and origins of the ideas of modern times, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain faith in them. It becomes impossible to condemn Western civilization for shortcomings that fall short only of ideals unique to Western civilization. It becomes impossible not to notice Western civilization is nothing other than Christendom.
The conclusion pressed on me was that modern thought is a parasite on Christianity, and has no intellectual life outside her. The basic motif of the modern intellectual, one endlessly repeated, is of a man sawing off the branch on which he sits. The moderns delight in assertions that, if taken seriously, would disprove the axiom used to make the assertion.
The profoundly unserious nature of modern thought astonished me, and still does. I stump my secular friends by asking them to explain to me why cannibalism is wrong. Their humanist doctrines are insufficient to give a reason for humane humanity.
History told me that everything I admired about the noble and great-souled pagans still survived in Christianity: Aristotle was still alive in Aquinas, and nowhere else. The cool rationality of Athens had been preserved by Rome. Everything in paganism from which the civilized mind recoils, as slavery, infanticide, polygamy, sodomy, had been defeated by Christianity, and made a recurrence only when and where Christianity retreats.
I reached a point in my studies of history where I was forced to grit my teeth and conclude that the progress and enlightenment of Europe was due to Christianity, not despite it; and that when Europe departed from Christian roots, barbarism and darkness unique to the ideologies of the modern age descended. The crowning achievement of the rejection of Christian norms in modern times was communism: Its crowning achievement was death in such large numbers that only astronomers can grasp them.
I knew the Christians were evil in theory; I could not explain how so much unique good came from them.
Greatly daring, I attempted an experiment in prayer, addressing a Supreme Being I knew with deep certainty did not and could not exist. My prayer was quickly and awfully answered.
A miracle occurred. I suffered a supernatural experience and found all the foundations of my carefully examined and rigidly logical philosophy swept away as if by a tidal wave of blazing and supernal light. A great and powerful spirit visited me.
The whole thing was as simple and astonishing, as easy to explain and as hard to explain, as falling in love.
I am one of those rare creatures whose belief in the supernatural is due to empirical considerations. My mysticism is entirely scientific. Alas, the second step in the experiment, when the miracle occurs, cannot be reproduced before the eyes of skeptics.
Worse yet, the experiment was like toying with radium: I was mutated and changed by the exposure.
Being still a creature of pure logic, logic requires me to conclude either that I am mad as a March Hare or that my memory and perceptions were veridical.
There is insufficient evidence for the first theory, and Occam's razor cuts against it: Assuming everything was actually coincidence or an act of the subconscious mind, would be merely to assume that these things, coincidences and the subconscious, act with more power and foresight than empiricism can confirm. It is what Karl Popper called a non-disprovable assumption. Not science: an article of faith.
I am left with the second explanation, a simpler one, postulating fewer entities: I saw whom I saw and He is that He is. My integrity as a philosopher, not to mention my pride as a man, will not allow me the evasion of a return to my former beliefs, much as I might respect them. The world is far odder than I would have believed. The oddest thing of all is joy.
In the Trinity God loves himself without any shadow of egotism and admires himself without any shadow of narcissism.Something for us to meditate upon.
Trinitarian beauty is a wide area to explore. It is, like the Persons themselves, a beauty of relationship. It consists in beautiful relationships; it is the synthesis between unity and diversity. The least inadequate images of this beauty are from music and dance. In musical harmony, every note derives from its beauty from its relationship to the other notes. When a man and woman dance together, every movement derives its beauty through each partner's coordination with the movement of the other. Beauty is the three divine Persons facing each other from the beginning with a joyful and silent gaze.Contemplating the Trinity: The Path to Abundant Christian Life by Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa
First, we learn the easy lessons. To find God in nature, and beauty and music requires only minimal insight. As we progress through life, we learn to see God in the challenges and heartbreak that we all experience. That requires a more sophisticated set of skills. Finally, we learn to see God through loss and pain and suffering. That requires yet another set of skills- and that also requires the kind of humility learned from lessons of life.The Milkman shows us the life of a good man and loving father whose impact goes far beyond what some would call his humble place in life. Which Siggy shows us is not humble at all.
In our times of pain, suffering and loss, God is not abandoning us. In fact, He is closer to us than ever, because pain and loss are the other side of the Creation coin. In the same way God oversaw Creation, He oversees loss.
We cannot claim to know God until we have experienced real fear, pain, loss and suffering. We cannot claim to be secure in our faith until the strength of that faith is tested and reaffirmed. We cannot claim to know God until we are comfortable in knowing that we are not all knowing.
Mr. Smith dutifully completed his rounds, everyday, delivering milk and eggs, cheese and butter, to those who felt sorry enough for him to pay the extra few cents so he could make a living and raise his daughters. My parents were among the clients who got to know him and appreciate his ever happy disposition.Do yourself a favor and go read both stories in their entirety.
The milkman would regale his clients with his weather predictions, warnings of traffic safety and stories of his growing daughters. He would beam with pride as he recounted every prize and spelling bee won, every report card and every milestone passed. I thought that kind of pride was silly and believed my mother or father only feigned interest in Mr Smith's stories, because they felt sorry for him.
When I became an uncle and then a parent and began to watch the children of my closest friends take their first tentative steps in life, I understood that my parents weren't feigning interest at all in the well being of Mr Smith's daughters...
The tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to him, but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them."
So to them he addressed this parable.
Then he said, "A man had two sons, and the younger son said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of your estate that should come to me.' So the father divided the property between them.
After a few days, the younger son collected all his belongings and set off to a distant country where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation.
When he had freely spent everything, a severe famine struck that country, and he found himself in dire need. So he hired himself out to one of the local citizens who sent him to his farm to tend the swine. And he longed to eat his fill of the pods on which the swine fed, but nobody gave him any.
Coming to his senses he thought, 'How many of my father's hired workers have more than enough food to eat, but here am I, dying from hunger. I shall get up and go to my father and I shall say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers."'
So he got up and went back to his father. While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.
His son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son.'
But his father ordered his servants, 'Quickly bring the finest robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Take the fattened calf and slaughter it. Then let us celebrate with a feast, because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found.' Then the celebration began.
Now the older son had been out in the field and, on his way back, as he neared the house, he heard the sound of music and dancing. He called one of the servants and asked what this might mean. The servant said to him, 'Your brother has returned and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.'
He became angry, and when he refused to enter the house, his father came out and pleaded with him. He said to his father in reply, 'Look, all these years I served you and not once did I disobey your orders; yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends. But when your son returns who swallowed up your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughter the fattened calf.'
He said to him, 'My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours. But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.'"
Or maybe it was not his [Judas'] own safety that motivated him. Maybe he just fell out of love with Jesus. That happens sometimes. One day you think someone is wonderful and the next day he says or does something that makes you think twice. He reminds you of the difference between the two of you and you start hating him for that -- for the difference -- enough to being thinking of some way to hurt him back.Now that is truly a different way to think about Jesus and how he shows the truth. Although I knew that he was killed by people who didn't want to know what Jesus was saying, I really never thought about applying it to my own life. Of course, it isn't in the nature of most of us to want to kill someone for telling the unflinching truth. However, I would venture to say that most of us know people (if not ourselves) who avoid God or various aspects of faith because they just can't handle the real, honest-to-goodness truth. Something to ponder over and apply to my own life, I think.
I remember being at a retreat once where the leader asked us to think of someone who represented Christ in our lives. When it came time to share our answers, one woman stood up and said, "I had to think hard about that one. I kept thinking, 'Who is it who told me the truth about myself so clearly that I wanted to kill him for it?'" According to John, Jesus died because he told the truth to everyone he met. He was the truth, a perfect mirror in which people saw themselves in God's own light.
I woke up then, shuddering, wondering why I had been so complacent in that dream?Go read the whole thing at Adoro te Devote. Confession anyone? I'll be in line next Saturday for sure.
I often pray the rosary on my way to work, and that morning, as I prayed, the images from that dream pulverized me...and so I let the images come, praying all the while, asking God what I was supposed to gain from this?
And He answered.
Oh my dear Wormwood, my poppet, my pigsnie
The patient is dead and down here we agree,
You’ve screwed it all up, you’re finished, you’re done.
And punishment for you has barely begun.
You thought it was bad when he saw the great light
And realized that you were what never felt right.
You thought it was worse when he ascended the stairs
Confirming the fact that he was now theirs.
But, oh, do not come calling on me.
Our family bond’s not what it should be.
You’ve wanted me like I’ve wanted you
But you must know I’m the stronger of the two.
Now you’re place is on the dinner plate.
Your ravenously affectionate uncle, Screwtape
... "One man's faith allows him to eat everything," the apostle Paul said in Romans 14:2, "but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables." The responsibility lies with the diners to attend to their conscience, know their weaknesses and steer clear of damaging choices.Indeed yes. I couldn't have said it better myself. Which is why I posted this excerpt.
Similarly, each of us must be sensitive to our fellow diners. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says, "Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!" (18:7) Sadly, there are some little ones and weaker brothers who fancy themselves to be the strong ones, readily denouncing rather than just cautioning those interested in meat. Imagine a child lecturing an adult about matters requiring maturity and you might understand why some moviegoers roll their eyes when self-righteous Christians confront them on what they choose to watch. Their selections may be complicated and even dangerous, but that does not always mean that the viewers are spiritually ignorant or rebellious.
It's a challenge for me as a film critic to help weaker brothers avoid films that might pose a threat to them. I need to be extremely cautious, taking care to educate readers about what dangers they might encounter. But it would be an equally damaging response if I were to condemn all films that contain potentially offensive elements or to burden my examination and appreciation with catalogues of things that could trouble someone else.
If your friend has a peanut allergy, don't serve him or her a peanut butter sandwich. At the same time, don't protest stores that sell peanut butter. If we decide that the best way to avoid being a stumbling block is to insist on abstinence from anything that could possibly be a temptation, we bind up the body, confining everyone to the limitations of the weaker brothers. The goal should be growth and strength, not mere safety.
Through a Screen Darkly by Jeffrey Overstreet
Christ was very clear about letting the little children come to Him and if we are offering little giggles and smirks when our kids express their spirituality... we are inadvertantly giving them the message that there's something "abnormal" or out of the way about it. OURS is the "right way" to worship: lofty, serious, and composed. But the little ones are closer to Christ than we are!!! And in their minds, they are trying to make sense of the spiritual world in ways that they can understand. This is beautiful and noble!Coffee and Diapers has a good post about a subject I never thought about much. (Scroll down to March 6, The Purity of a Child's Prayer ... there doesn't seem to be any permalink on this blog.)
As well as those mortifications known as "passive" -- mortifications which present themselves to us without our looking for them -- the mortifications that we propose to ourselves (and seek out) are called active mortifications. Amongst these, the mortifications which refer to the control of our internal senses are especially important for our interior progress and for enabling us to achieve purity of heart. These are:
- Mortification of the imagination -- avoiding that interior monologue in which fantasy runs wild, by trying to turn it into a dialogue with God, present in our soul in grace. We try to put a restraining check on that tendency of ours to go over and over some little happening in the course of which we have come off badly. No doubt we have felt slighted, and have made much of an injury to our self-esteem, caused to us quite unintentionally. If we don't apply the brake in time, our conceit and pride will cause us to overbalance until we lose our peace and presence of God.
- Mortification of the memory -- avoiding useless recollections which make us waste time and which could lead us into more serious temptations.
- Mortification of the intelligence -- so as to put it squarely to the business of concentrating on our duty at this moment and, also, on many occasions of surrendering our own judgment so as to live humility and charity with others in a better way. To sum up, we try ot get rid of those internal habits that we know we would not like to see in a man or a woman of God.
The Vatican named Bishop Kevin Joseph Farrell as the new bishop of Dallas Tuesday. The new man replaces Bishop Charles Grahmann, who reached the mandatory retirement age of 75 last July.Bishop Farrell's biography can be found here. I see that the Dallas diocese site is down right now, either because they are rearranging thing or it has had too many hits.
The reason we’ve waited six months, I heard, is that Archbishop Wurhl asked that his auxiliary be given more time to finish up some important projects. I also hear that he’s a real good man.
The source of the mortifications God asks of us is almost always to be found in our daily work. Mortifications right from the start of the day: getting up promptly at the time we have fixed for rising, overcoming laziness from the first moment; punctuality; our work finished down to the last detail; the discomfort of too much heat or cold; a smile even though we are tired or do not feel like smiling; sobriety in eating and drinking; order and care for our personal belongings and for the things we use; giving up our own opinion ... But for this we need above all to follow a particular piece of advice: If you really want to be a penitent soul -- both penitent and cheerful -- you must above all stick to your daily periods of prayer, which should be fervent, generous and not cut short. And you must make sure that these minutes of prayer are not engaged in only when you feel the need, but at fixed times, whenever it is possible.Don't neglect these details. If you subject yourself to this daily worship of God, I can assure you that you will be always happy. (Furrow, St. Escriva).
Dublin-born and a former member of the Legionaries of Christ -- for which he was ordained in 1978 -- both the administrative and demographic situations on-the-ground play to Farrell's strengths, making him the clear front-runner for Dallas since speculation began at Grahmann's 75th birthday last summer.The Dallas Morning News also has heard the rumors and has a story on their website. As to whether it's true or not? We'll have to wait and see.
In 1986, after years of ministry in the Legion's home-base of Mexico, he was named the second director of Washington's Centro Catolico after its founder, Fr. Sean O'Malley was made bishop of St Thomas in the Virgin Islands. Since 2001, he has served as DC's moderator of the curia and chief vicar-general after 12 years as the capital see's top financial overseer. He's the brother of Bishop Brian Farrell LC, the Stato veteran currently serving as secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
A runner and workaholic, Farrell's colleagues in Washington frequently cite their ability to trust him as the first of his standout qualities. Known for his uniquely personal outreach to victim-survivors of clergy sex abuse, he's said to be affable and gentle with a keen sense of humor, but "clear," "tough," and a straight-shooter when the task calls for it...
"So much of what we know about the world comes from oral histories, shared experiences - so I write about science in the first person, as if I'm telling a story," says Rebecca Skloot.Go welcome her to St. Blog's Parish!
Okay, so she's not talking about tradition in Catholicism - but it really got me thinking.
Tradition is a hard concept for non-Catholics to understand. I never realized this until my husband and I started having discussions about it when we first started dating. He would be shocked at things I believed in that he had never heard of before in his Bible church - the Assumption of Mary for one. I was naive enough in my faith at that time (not that I'm much better now, mind you) that I couldn't explain it to him so we'd have to go have a good old apologetics lesson from my deacon dad. It took him a while to get it. Of all the things that he started out questioning, I'd say tradition was the hardest of all for him to come around on. He may still struggle with it for all I know...
But as I listened to this internal dialogue something jumped out at me: it's all about me being in control, about my plans. And as I thought back over the past couple of years, I realized that, in general, I have always expected to grow closer to God on my terms. I want a sign that fits my requirements at the time and place of my choosing; I want my first Adoration experience to be powerful so that I'm easily motivated to go more often; I want this final Lent before I enter the Church to deepen my faith according to the schedule laid out on my calendar, starting with a stirring Ash Wednesday Mass and ending with a movie-quality Easter Vigil experience. And when things don't happen in the manner, time and place of my choosing, I promptly resign myself to frustration and despair.Et Tu, Jen has a really good post about the way that we would all like to control our destinies ... even the parts that we already know we should let God run for us.
I have never, I realized, been able to let go and trust in God.
Drifting on the wind on this snowy evening, I thought I heard "O Sanctissima". Huh? I rounded the corner and there's a whole big crowd of 70-80 people in front of Rarig. Mostly men. 2 of them in surplices and holding a banner: "Men of Christ", with the insignia of St. John Vianney, the college seminary at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul.Ray of Stella Borealis was also there and has this further description.
The cloudy sky obscured any possible view of airborne transportation, but 60 Men in Black were seen in formation, led by four men wearing three-quarter length white over-garments (not down-filled by the way, in the 20 degree temperature), with some lacy garnishes and embroidered edges and a large white tab at the neck on their black collarless undergarments. (And these leaders were not wearing gloves when they held out their identifying signs.) Definitely not what the cool UofMN students is normally seen wearing.I especially liked Cathy's description of one woman's reaction.
These 60 aliens (alien, at least to students of the University of Minnesota leaning out of their dorm, office and library carrel windows and accosting visitors as to what was going on) seemed to be alternately singing and reciting verses with musical chants and poems that seemed to be in some dead language.
n the restroom before the show (you hear the best stuff in the loo!), I overheard a older lady in a dyed red fur jacket (Terry, you would have hated it! It was ugly.) saying: "It's bad enough those folks outside are praying for me!"
