My "little friend Mary"

The friend in this story is someone who I have worked with for about 15 years, since before either of us had children. She is a strong Christian but not Catholic (which is important to this story) and also is a client of ours. She was in our office telling of her extreme computer woes at home and that no one could figure out what was wrong. It was wreaking havoc as their kids had on-line school work and had to go to friends' homes to do it. As she was leaving, she started laughing and told me that she half jokingly had asked her teenage son the night before it if was ok to pray for her computer to be fixed. He'd said, of course, that God cares about everything. But my client kept thinking of someone she knew who had just been diagnosed with cancer and didn't know if it was right to ask for such small things. She "knew" it was all right but I think just wanted to be reassured.

I instantly pointed out the wedding at Cana, that before Jesus went on to cure lepers he had given that wedding all their wine just so they could continue the celebration. I told her, "That's where a Catholic will go to Mary because she's the greatest saint. She's the one that pointed out the wine was gone and cared enough to ask Jesus to fix it. She's got that little extra pull with Jesus so we'll ask her to put in a good word for us." She left without saying anything right after that and I wondered if I'd been out of line but then forgot it.

I just got a call and without even identifying herself my friend said, "You can tell your little friend Mary that she fixed my computer." I didn't even connect what she was talking about until she repeated exactly the same thing (because somehow I'd never think of Mary as "your little friend Mary"). Then I said, "You mean Mary, otherwise known as the mother of Jesus?" She said, "Exactly. My computer was fixed in less than an hour thanks to that tip that Tom gave me. I can see why she's the greatest saint of all." Now, my friend was laughing the whole time but I have to think that the fact that she gave Mary the credit, however jokingly, is a great tribute to Our Blessed Mother.

As I was typing this story it just occurred to me that it has now been about a week and a half since I have started saying the rosary every day again. While in the middle of saying it this morning on the way to work, I had to stop my car in the middle of the street and wait while a huge moving van pulled into an apartment parking lot. While that van was practically parked in front of me, I couldn't avoid seeing that the part of it directly in front of me showcased their name ("Budd") and the red rosebud painted on the side of the truck. At the time I thought it was odd since I was praying the rosary but now that I got this phone call ... well, are those enough "coincidences" for y'all? Which, as anybody who knows me well will tell you, are things I don't believe in ...

Giving God a Blank Check

Christ does not specify what needs we are to pray for. We are to give God the blank check, "our daily bread". It is not wrong to add specific needs, for we are assured that "my God will supply all your needs out of his riches in Christ Jesus", but we must give God room, give God a blank check for him to fill in the amount. he knows what we need, and the very first thing we need is to keep that fact firmly in mind.

Our needs and our wants are not identical. We need some things we may not want (perhaps to fast or to relax or to pray more or perhaps to suffer, to be tested), and we want many things we do not need (the million toys this world offers us to distract us from our real need, which this world can never supply). We need only one thing. "Only one thing is necessary", Christ tells us. That is why God offers us only one thing: himself in Christ. Christ does not just give us joy or life or salvation or resurrection; he is our joy, our life, our salvation, our resurrection.

Peter Kreeft, Fundamentals of the Faith

My Daughter, the ... Environmental Scientist?

Saturday, I found out what Hannah would like to "do when she grows up" ... such a quaint phrase to apply to a teenager but it works. She wants to be an Environmental Scientist. That may sound odd to people who don't know her really well. She's a dreamer, artistic, a good writer ... not a math whiz. None of those things sound like scientific material. However, she is an avid animal lover and after taking Zoology last year (BL is one of the few high schools who offer that, Botany, and Astronomy), even overcame her fear of insects in the interest of learning about them to do her required 50 insect collection for the class. She came out of that and Botany with an interest in being some sort of scientist and now is taking Astronomy. (She has already horrified half the class by raising doubts about the reality of global warming ... in which exchange the teacher impressed me by agreeing that there were a lot of interpretations to data and pointing out how much government funding can be earned by going along with that analysis.)

Frankly, I figured she'd lose the science interest because I couldn't see how it would fit with her personality. However, anyone who heard about that interest this weekend and really knows Hannah was struck by how perfect such a profession would be for her. I also was struck with how nice it would be to have a faithful, practicing Catholic in that field. So, as with Rose's proposed writing career we'll wait and see where all this takes Hannah. But I could see it ... I could definitely see it.

It's interesting to have careers for the girls suddenly become things that seem possible within a few days. It's kind of fun ... like guessing what's in that big box under the back of the tree at Christmas. Maybe we're right, maybe we're wrong but the possiblities are exciting.

On Being a Convert and Believing Church Truths

It's no secret that I'm a convert and a fairly new one at that ... Easter Vigil 2000, thank you very much! When I come across dissenting Catholics of what I call the "militant" sort (whether they are called cafeteria, liberal or whatever), my conversion tends to get thrown in my face. "Oh, that explains it! You converts are always so gung ho! Well, you'll figure it out." ... or variations, thereof. What does it explain? Don't you know? We converts are such simpletons that we actually believe Church teachings ... all of them ... !

Depending on my mood of the moment I either am amused or annoyed by this attitude. It assumes that converts are innocents who were just looking for the "right" match and then ... lo and behold! ... there was the Catholic church beckoning and we jumped happily into her arms. They don't take into account the fact that most converts have come from a much more cynical view of the Church than these partial dissenters will ever have. After all, all we had to go on in the first place is what the world and other Christian denominations say about the Church and that isn't very complimentary. Most converts have had to be coaxed by God, step by unwilling step, into accepting that the Church holds the deposit of faith. We have fought that internal fight against accepting whatever truth we didn't like most when confronted with evidence that the Church is abiding by Scripture ... whether it be abortion, contraception, the male priesthood, priestly celibacy, Mary (a real biggie), or any other reason that pops up. That is why we are educated in what the Church teaches. A lot of the time we've been looking and looking for reasons not to agree. We didn't find them. Instead we found Truth.

Yes, we're passionate, probably embarrassingly so. But once we gave in, we gave in all the way and that's when we jumped into Holy Mother Church's arms. As for not going along with everything the Church believes, it is up to each person to inform their conscience. That's the other thing that a lot of converts have had to do. We had to inform ourselves about why we agree with the Church. Often, we've had to do it while dealing with spirited opposition from family and friends. A surprising amount of dissenters have not looked much further than what they have been told by ill informed teachers, parents, or priests. Yes, those are all people we should be able to trust but we live in the age of information. It doesn't hurt to look up and consider what the Church Fathers have said about such issues and pretty much every one that bothers people today has bothered people at some time in the past.

There is nothing wrong with questioning Church teachings. God gave us brains and expects us to use them. However, I think there is something wrong with the way a lot of people do the questioning. You have to be open to hearing what you don't want to and then to conforming your conscience, once informed, to the Church. I really never had considered my support of abortion or euthanasia in relationship to the Church when converting. It was only when I couldn't in good conscience say, "Lord, hear our prayer" in response to spoken prayers for an end to abortion that I felt I ought to find out why the Church taught such a thing. I started reading (and reading and reading) works by people who I knew to be in accordance with Church teachings. After all, there's no good in looking to dissenters to explain what the Church teaches ... you have to start at the source to see what is really said about something. Once I saw the logic applied, I couldn't deny that what the Church taught agreed with Scripture. Don't get me wrong, I didn't immediately go around flinging up my arms and shouting, "I have seen the light." I had to get comfortable with the idea that I was going to be in direct opposition with much of popular culture ... and that wasn't easy either.

I think we also must consider the examples of those who have changed the Church the most ... the saints. St. Teresa of Avila, St. Catherine of Siena, St. John of the Cross, St. Ignatius ... the list goes on and on. When they brought up their ideas of change, did the Church embrace them with open arms? No. Often the rejection was cruel, in more ways than one. They might have gone through channels to get rulings changed but they didn't go around complaining to everyone they knew, writing books, and clucking when others supported current teachings. They applied to their lives those precepts that God wants most from us ... prayer, humility, and obedience. They trusted to God to use their lives to make a change. They were obedient to the authority over them, the Church, and God used that very obedience to make changes.

Personally, I have found this prayer very effective in helping along the way:

Lord, that I may obtain what you promise, make me love what you command.

Naturally, I also have met many people troubled by Church teachings of one sort or another who are honestly seeking answers. I do not mean to lump everyone together into a category. However, a majority of dissenters seem to be militant (or is it that they just are loud?) and there is a tone of condescension and anger underlying their conversations. They talk about "my Catholic Church," forgetting perhaps that the Church is Christ's Bride. It is His Church ... the Catholic Church ... one, holy and apostolic Church. We all are members of the Body of Christ, but the Body does not belong to individuals but to Christ.

When I was not Catholic and would have laughed at the very idea of becoming one, I looked at those dissenters and wondered why they didn't just find another church. There generally are plenty of Protestant churches that would fill the bill with their teachings. Once I was in the Church I made friends who dissent from various teachings, have tried to leave, and are drawn back time and again. It seems to me that God uses the Eucharist to keep them from straying too far. They tend to be a different sort from the angry, "militant" dissenters I have run into. My friends are questioning and honestly trying to find ways to come to terms with Church teachings. How can I not honor and appreciate that? It is what I went through myself.

Personally, I feel for the dissenters of all sorts. I pray for them, for their peace, for their change of heart so that they may wholeheartedly love the Church, or -- if we have saints in our midst -- that they will be humble and obedient so God may work to His glory through them. I must admit, when I'm toe to toe (or comments box to comments box) over an issue of doctrine I've been mad enough to spit. But even then I'm praying (for both of us!) in the midst of the fray.

On this matter of Church teachings I turned to my friends, new and old, for advice. I will leave the final words with them.

The law of God entrusted to the Church is taught to the faithful as the way of life and truth. The faithful therefore have the right to be instructed in the divine saving precepts that purify judgment and, with grace, heal wounded human reason. They have the duty of observing the constitutions and decrees conveyed by the legitimate authority of the Church. Even if they concern disciplinary matters, these determinations call for docility in charity.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2037

We must abide rather by the Pope's judgment than by the opinion of any of the theologians, however well versed he may be in the divine Scriptures.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Quodlibetum IX,Q.8, Quaest. Quodlibetales

It is sometimes reported that a large number of Catholics today do not adhere to the teaching of the Catholic Church on a number of questions, notably sexual and conjugal morality, divorce and remarriage. Some are reported as not accepting the clear position on abortion. It has to be noted that there is a tendency on the part of some Catholics to be selective in their adherence to the Church's moral teaching. It is sometimes claimed that dissent from the magisterium is totally compatible with being a "good Catholic," and poses no obstacle to the reception of the Sacraments. This is a grave error that challenges the teaching of the Bishops in the United States and elsewhere.
Pope John Paul II, in his talk to the Bishops in Los Angeles in 1987

... that it is absolutely incorrect to refer to Pre-Vatican Council II and Post-Vatican Council II, as if there were changes in the Church's position in matters of faith and morals. The only changes in that respect have sprung from erroneous interpretations of the Council.
Cardinal Ratzinger, The Ratzinger Report

The teaching Church does not invent her doctrines; she is a witness, a custodian, an interpreter, a transmitter. As regards the truths of Christian marriage, she can be called conservative, uncompromising. To those who would urge her to make her faith easier, more in keeping with the tastes of the changing mentality of the times, she answers with the apostles, we cannot. (Acts. 4:20)
Pope Paul VI, in an address in Jan. 1972

In practice, those who dissent from authoritative Church teaching very often give as their reason for doing so, not so much their own personal insights, as the authority of dissenting theologians. This, however, is to misunderstand the role of theologians in the Church, for their authority does not, and cannot outweigh the authority of the Pope in declaring the faith of the Church.
The Irish Bishops, in a statement on Conscience and Morality

I was going to expand on bending our wills and intellect to Catholicism ... I've learned to realize that when the church and I disagree, it's because I've made some sort of mistake in reasoning, not her. She's been right time after time for 2,000 years. I'm frequently wrong. I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that Christ promised that the Holy Spirit would always guide the Church, and didn't make that promise to me.

"So I should blindly follow, eh?" Well ... no. We ought to find out why we disagree. If we're really about truth and seeing the whole picture, we'd be concerned about what part we were missing. What does the Church know that we don't? Once you look into all the reasoning behind the Church's stance and understand, it's pretty obvious that it's the truth. I've also found that the more often you do this, the more your conscience conforms to Catholicism and you begin to see that what you believe is the same as the Church's belief. Which is good. So what I'm getting at is that it's logical to believe whatever the Church teaches on faith and morals because if follows from the conclusion in the paragraph above, but we have to force our wills and intellects to do it.
De Fidei Obedientia

The only honest reason to be a Christian is because you believe in Christ's claim to be God incarnate. The only honest reason to be a Catholic is because you believe the Church's claim to be the divinely authorized Body of this Christ.
Peter Kreeft, Catholic Christianity

Daily Devotion: Prayer

THE DIVINE HOURS series by Phyllis Tickle:
The Divine Hours : Prayers for Summertime
The Divine Hours: Prayers for Wintertime
Divine Hours : Prayers for Springtime

The Divine Hours trilogy is meant to be a manual for "fixed hour prayer"--an age-old discipline of saying prayers at certain times of the day. (Fixed prayer is also known as "liturgy of hours," "keeping the hours," or "saying the offices.") The psalms contained in the beautiful trilogy (summertime, wintertime, and springtime) read like ancient poems and are made even more meaningful and powerful when sung or chanted, according to Phyllis Tickle, who lovingly gathered and organized these rich volumes. The book is organized by dates ... Upon each date, readers can find complete prayers for "The Morning Office" on through the "Vespers Office" (between 5 and 8 p.m.). The clear organization and elegantly designed pages make this an excellent companion for a time-honored form of private worship and devotion. Newcomers to fixed hour prayer as well as longstanding devotees will find this an appealing and impressive guide. (Amazon.com review)

I always was interested in the idea of praying the liturgy of hours but every time I looked into it I was put off by the complaints of needing many volumes of books, lots of ribbons for place keeping, etc. About that time, these books began being published. I have been using them off and on for about two years now. The discipline needed to practice fixed hour prayer is demanding but when I manage to pull it off regularly it is very rewarding. My guess is that it probably takes less than 30 minutes total time during the day. The discipline is in remembering to do the prayers within the time range ... and when you do remember, in stopping whatever else you are doing to take the time for prayer.

I especially like using the psalms to pray with. It gives the responsorial in Mass a whole new level of meaning when I recognize the psalm as one I have been praying. Even when not practicing fixed hour prayers, I find these books invaluable prayer aids. The one complaint I have is that all the devotions are based on the actual calendar, rather than the liturgical calendar. This meant that I had to do some figuring and make a few notes as I went along so I was roughly in synch with the liturgical year. This is not a huge problem really but more of an annoyance than anything.

I see that now there also are two more volumns, one each for Lent/Easter and Advent/Christmas. However, Amazon reviewers warn that these are covered by the main books. If you are toying with the idea of using this prayer method, one of these briefer volumns might be a good introduction.

Keep Your Fork

One of my favorite stories/modern parables. Read it on By Any Other Name.

Putting the "Our" in Our Father

As many times as I have prayed the "Our Father" (aka the Lord's Prayer), this had never occurred to me. No wonder St. Teresa said she almost could never get past the first two words. It is not just personal, which always was my way of thinking when praying this, but also about community. There's something that adds a whole new dimension to meditation over the prayer that God Himself gave to us.

One of the greatest of all mysteries is contained in that first little word, our. It is the mystery of solidarity, the mystery of the Mystical Body. Each individual who prays this prayer is to call God not only "my" Father but "our Father". Each individual is to pray in the name of the whole Church. When you pray the Our Father, all the presence and power of the Mystical Body of Christ is praying with you, helping you. God sees you praying alongside the Pope and Mother Teresa and Jake Grubb (never heard of him? God did!) and Saint Francis and Saint Augustine and Saint Peter and the Blessed Virgin Mary herself. For none are dead or past to God, the eternal contemporary. (See Luke 20:37-38) Solidarity is a fact, not an ideal. Each believer is an organ in his body. Saint Paul says, "If one member [organ] suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it."

Therefore we are each responsible for all, when we work and when we pray. This is not just a pious feeling but an awesome fact. When I pray, I have effects on my grandchildren, on some stranger I have never met, on the most abandoned soil in the world. When I bake an act of charity in the oven of the Church, that is bread to some starving soul across the world. My prayer or work, ascending like mist today, in this place and time, will come down like rain at some other place and time, whither God directs it, where thirsty soil needs it most. Just as my money can really save lives in Ethiopia, my prayer can really save souls in China or Purgatory. Spiritual transportation systems are just as real and just as effective as physical ones, for the spiritual universe is just as real and just as much one, just as much a uni-verse, as the physical universe; and its connecting thread, its spiritual gravity, is just as strong, as subtle, and as pervasive as physical gravity.

Peter Kreeft, Fundamentals of the Faith

Time Travel Made Easy

JOHNNY AND THE BOMB (book 3 of the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy) by Terry Pratchett
In my favorite of the Johnny Maxwell trilogy, Johnny crosses paths with Mrs. Tachyon, a bag lady who also is a time traveller. He and his friends travel back to WWII in their town with the predictable changing of time that must be fixed. However, instead of simply changing time back to its previous path, Johnny wants to prevent a bomb wiping out Paradise Street in the middle of the night. This necessitates a lot of maneuvering by the kids with the usual humorous Pratchett twists and turns along the way. I was surprised at what a page turner it became by the end as I stayed up way past bedtime to get Johnny and his pals home again. Here's a favorite bit of dialogue to tide you over until you can find the book which is out of print.

In the shopping mall, a joke was going wrong.

"Make me .. er," said Bigmac, "make me one with pickle and onion rings and fries."

"Make me one with extra salad and fries, please," said Yo-less.

Wobbler took a long look at the girl in the cardboard hat.

"Make me one with everything," he said. "Because ... I'm going to become a Muslim!"

Bigmac and Yo-less exchanged glances.

"Buddhist," said Yo-less, patiently. "It's Buddhist! Make me one with everything because I'm going to become a Buddhist! It's Buddhists that want to be one with everything. Singing 'om' and all that. You mucked it up! You were practising all the way down here and you still mucked it up!"

"Buddhists wouldn't have the burger," said the girl. "They'd have the Jumbo Beanburger. Or just fries and a salad."

They stared at her.

"Vegetarianism," said the girl. "I may have to wear a paper hat but I haven't got a cardboard brain, thank you." She glared at Wobbler. "You want a bun with everything. You want fries with that?"

This Election Vitriolic? We Ain't Seen Nothin'!

Yes, everyone is fiercely partisan over the upcoming elections. Well, at least we care is the way I see it. No matter what shenanigans the media and political parties come up with, they don't hold a candle to the sorts of things that have happened in our country's history. Thanks to Tom for this illuminating passage about smear campaigns when John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were candidates for president.

One New York paper assured its readers that a Jefferson victory would mean civil war. Hordes of frenchmen and Irishmen, "the refuse of Europe," would flood the country and threaten the life of "all who love order, peace, virtue, and religion." It was said Jefferson had swindled clients as a young lawyer. The old smear of cowardice during his time as governor of Virginia was revived. But most amplified were charges of atheism. Not only was Jefferson a godless man, but one who mocked the Christian faith. In New England word went out that family Bibles would have to be hidden away for safekeeping, were he elected ...

Stories were spread of personal immorality. It was now that a whispering campaign began to the effect that all southern slave masters were known to cohabit with slave women and that the Sage of Monticello was no exception.

Adams was inevitably excoraited as a monarchist, more British than American, and therefore a bad man. He was ridiculed as old, addled, and toothless. Timothy Pickering spread the rumor that to secure his reelection Adams had struck a corrupt bargain with the Republicans. According to another story, this secret arrangement was with Jefferson himself -- Adams was to throw the election Jefferson's way and serve as Jefferson's vice president.

If Jefferson carried on with slave women, Adams, according to one story in circulation, had ordered Charles Cotesworth Pinckney to London to procure four pretty mistresses to divide between them. When the story reached Adams, he was highly amused. "I do declare upon my honor," he wrote William Tudor, "if this is true General Pinckney has kept them all for himself and cheated me out of my two."

Most vicious were the charges that Adams was insane.

(John Adams by David McCullough)

Heaven is My Home

We are still children, however hard we try to cover that up. there are no "grown-ups". When we get old, we only exchange our toys: business for bats, sex for sleds, power for popguns. At death our Father calls: "Come, little one. time to put away your toys and come home."

Home -- that's what heaven is. It won't appear strange and faraway and "supernatural", but utterly natural. Heaven is what we were designed for. All our epics seek it: It is the "home" of Odysseus, of Aeneas, of Frodo, of E.T. Heaven is not escapist. Worldliness is escapist. Heaven is home.

People think heaven is escapist because they fear that thinking about heaven will distract us from living well here and now. It is exactly the opposite, and the lives of the saints and our Lord himself prove it. Those who truly love heaven will do the most for earth. It's easy to see why. Those who love the homeland best work the hardest in the colonies to make them resemble the homeland. "Thy kingdom come ... on earth as it is in heaven."

The pregnant woman who plans a live birth cares for her unborn baby; the woman who plans for an abortion does not. Highways that lead somewhere are well maintained; dead ends are not. So if we see life as a road to heaven, some of heaven's own glory will reflect back onto that road, if only by anticipation: the world is charged with the grandeur of God and every event smells of eternity. But it it all goes down the drain in death, then this life is just swirls of dirty water, and however comfortable we make our wallowing in it, it remains a vanity of vanities.

Peter Kreeft, Fundamentals of the Faith

Homecoming Ain't What It Used to Be

Kids handle homecoming differently than back when I was in high school (yes, waaaaaaaay back then in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth). Maybe it's because I was in high school so long ago. Or maybe it's because I went to a small town school. Or possibly because I was so socially awkward, at least much more so than Hannah is right now. Anyway, I remember it as a time when if you didn't have a date you certainly didn't go to the dance. Hannah and her friends handle it differently ... better. She and her friends, both male and female, travel in a pack most of the time, with numbers varying depending on availablity of various people to participate. It seems to me to be a much superior way to handle social situations at that age anyway, but it really made homecoming fun for them.

About 16 of them planned the evening together (dinner, dance, midnight bowling) and then paired off within the group as "friend dates". Hannah volunteered to go with a guy from Jesuit (all boys' school) and the conversation he had with their mutual friend was hilarious ("But she knows it's not a "date" date, right? I mean, she won't expect "date" stuff, right?). No, no money spent on each other, no dancing required, don't worry. Tom was wondering about the boy and was reassured when Hannah told him, "This is going to be so great. He looks just like Fry from Futurama ... and he LOVES Futurama so he'll get it when I quote it." Yep, nothing but friends there. (I thought it was funny that the boy's resemblance to Fry was confirmed when Hannah had a friend watch Futurama for the first time and the instant Fry came on the screen, Katie gasped, "Wow, that looks just like David!")

The conversation that made Tom and me laugh out loud was between a "couple" who'd made a pact not to spend anything on each other. After all, this was a strictly "friends" thing. Then a few days ago he called.

Him, elaborately casual: Sooooooo, what color is your homecoming dress?

Her, instantly suspicious: Why? Why do you care what color my dress is?

Him, miserably: Well, my parents are making me get you a corsage.

Her, shrieking: What? I don't care about that! I don't want a corsage! You promised!

Him: I KNOW! I tried to tell them...they won't listen!

I'm Awake Now!

There is nothing to get the adrenaline surging like getting in the car and hearing a frenzied shriek from the backseat, "There's a huge cockroach in the car!" Rose was up on the seat scrunching in the opposite direction. Tom and I flung our doors open and hurled outselves out of the car. As I turned around, Rose then said, "Mom, it just went out the door next to you!" I shrieked (nothing is more disgusting than a cockroach and they grow to epic proportions around here) and flung myself back into the car, slamming the door.

Tom whiled away the drive by speculating how the roach got in the car. His theory: it probably didn't crawl in but was "carried" in ... EUWWWWWWWWW! I carry everything into that car aside from kids and backpacks. Meanwhile, Rose was shuddering at the idea of having a cockroach in her backpack. Thanks for those mental images!

We came out of the store and opened the car doors. Out from under the car, a giant cockroach sprang and scuttled to safety elsewhere. Great, so it traveled to the store with us clinging to the undercarriage of the car. One more jolt of adrenaline to the system. Does that work like laughing? Makes you healthier? I hope so. I've used up my supply for a couple of days.

Luke Bible Study - Index

LUKE

• Temptation in the Wilderness, I
• Temptation in the Wilderness, II
• Daily Bible Study Series
• Galilee: The California of Israel?
• Nazareth - Crossroads of the World
• Counting Sins the Pharisee Way
• Common Courtesy
• Diverse Women
• The Sower and the Seed
• Deadly Storm
• Those Pesky Samaritans
• That Crucial Moment
• Setting the Scene
• Ask and You Will Receive
• Nothing New Under the Sun
• Feasts and Banquets, Part I
• Feasts and Banquets, Part II
• The Shepherd's Joy
• The Lost Coin
• The Prodigal Son
• A Familiar View of Divorce
• The Entry of the King
• The Sadducees' Question, Part I
• The Sadducees' Question, Part II
• Jesus' Anger
• Leaving Nothing to Chance
• Jesus' Trial Before the Sanhedrin
• The Jews' Blackmail of Pilate
• The Traitor's Kiss
• The Road to Calvary
• There They Crucified Him
• 23:39-43 - The Promise of Paradise
• 23:44-49 - The Long Day Closes

Imaging God Through Fatherhood

How privileged and exalted a thing it is to be a father -- it images God himself. If children do not have a good image of their earthly father to start from, it will be much harder for them to come to know God as a loving heavenly Father. Saint Augustine had a very bad relationship with his father, and he could not bring himself to address God as Father for a long time. Every father is a priest, like it or not, a good one or a bad one, mediating an image of God to his children.

Freud objects to the notion of God as Father on the grounds that it seems to him to be an obvious case of wishful thinking. This sort of God is exactly what we need and want. As Voltaire said, "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. Isn't it a suspiciously perfect fit between our need for a Father's love, protection, and power, and the idea of God as just such a Father?

It is indeed -- just as suspicious as the fit between a glove and a hand, or a key and a lock. There is obviously design here. But it is just as reasonable to say God fulfills our needs because he designed us to need him as it is to say that we designed him. More reasonable, in fact, for fathers "design" children before children can invent or design any imaginary fathers.

Peter Kreeft, Fundamentals of the Faith

Days of the Dead

JOHNNY AND THE DEAD by Terry Pratchett (book 2 of the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy)
Twelve year old Johnny Maxwell is cutting through the cemetery one day with a friend when he knocks on the door of a tomb and the inhabitant answers the door. Johnny is the only one with the unique ability to wake up the dead and soon they are bothering him to stop the proposed development of their cemetery for a large corporation's offices. Once they discover they can leave the cemetery, go to the movies, and travel over telephone wires to chat on late night radio talk shows everyone else starts feeling that something isn't quite right around town too. As always, Pratchett's twists and turns of plot and conversation are hilarious while telling an enjoyable tale about living life to the fullest even after you're dead.

"Mrs. Nugent says all that sort of thing [Halloween] is tampering with the occult," said Wobbler. Mrs. Nugent was the Johnson's next door neighbour, and known to be unreasonable on subjects like Madonna played at full volume at 3 a.m.

"Probably it is," said Johnny.

"She says witches are abroad on Halloween," said Wobbler.

"What?" Johnny's forehead wrinkled. "Like ... Marjorca and places?"

"Suppose so," said Wobbler.

"Makes ... sense, I suppose. They probably get special out-of-season bargains, being old ladies," said Johnny. "My aunt can go anywhere on the buses for almost nothing and she's not even a witch."

"Don't see why Mrs. Nugent is worried, then," said Wobbler. "It ort to be a lot safer round here, with all the witches on holiday."

The Trinity

This is one of the descriptions of the Trinity that almost lets me wrap my brain around that whole mystery ... almost. Also, one of the best descriptions ever of the family's inner essence.

Our thoughts and our loves, the two distinctively human acts that no animal can perform, issue forth from us but do not become distinct persons unless aided by the flesh. In God, they are so real that they are the two additional Persons in God: God's word, or self-expression, is so real that he is the second person in God, and the love between Father and Son is so real that he is the third Person. Human creativity, both mental and biological, is the image of the Trinity. That is one reason why the family is holy; it bears the intimate stamp of the very inner nature of God, the life of Trinitarian love, the two becoming three in becoming one. (Peter Kreeft, Fundamentals of the Faith)

Space Aliens Unite

ONLY YOU CAN SAVE MANKIND (Johnny Maxwell Trilogy, book 1) by Terry Pratchett
The Johnny Maxwell books are not Terry Pratchett's usual Discworld books. They are set in a very ordinary run down town in England, centering around Johnny Maxwell and his three friends. Johnny, whose parents are going through Trying Times, is playing his favorite video game when the aliens suddenly surrender to him instead of fighting back. He and his friends suspect a computer virus but things get even stranger when Johnny finds himself in incredibly lifelike dreams piloting a starfighter, leading the alien fleet home where they will be safe from mankind, and communicating with a girl who also is dreaming of the alien fleet. Pratchett adds those extra touches that regular readers love such as when they go by the ruined hulks of Space Invader ships tumbling in space that the aliens use to show each other what happens when you take a stand. His special genius, to my way of thinking, comes in how he treats the conversations and thinking of the kids, along with those little unexpected twists.

It was a very small ScreeWee. Most of its scales were grey. Its crest was nearly worn away. Its tail just dragged behind it. When it opened its mouth, there were three teeth left and they were huddling together at the back.

It blinked owlishly at them over the top of the trolley it had been pushing. Apart from everything else, Kirsty had been aiming the gun well above its head.

There was one of those awkward silences.

"Around this time," said the Captain behind them, "the crew on the bridge have a snack brought to them."

Johnny leaned forward, nodded at the little old alien, and lifted the lid of the tray that was on the trolley. There were a few bowls of something green and bubbling. He gently lowered the lid again.

"I think you were going to shoot the tea lady," he said.

"How was I to know?" Kirsty demanded, "It could have been anything! This is an alien spaceship! You're not supposed to get tea ladies!"

The Captain said something in ScreeWee to the old alien, who shuffled around slowly and went off back down the corridor. One wheel of the trolley kept squeaking.

Kirsty was furious.

"This isn't going right!" she hissed.

"Come on," said Johnny, "Let's go to the bridge and get it over with."

"I didn't know it was a tea lady!" That's your dreaming!"

"Yes, all right."

"She had no right to be there!"

"I suppose even aliens get a bit thirsty in the afternoons."

"That's not what I meant! They're supposed to be alien! That means slavering and claws! It doesn't mean sending out for ... for a coffee and a jam doughnut!"

God the Father: Male Chauvinism?

One of the reasons I enjoy La Shawn Barber's writing so much is that she does not want one aspect of someone's self, such as race, to become the defining factor for everything about them. I relate to that because I feel the same way about women's rights. As with many causes that were needed some time ago (such as many of the workers' unions), women's rights or feminism has served its original purpose and now has taken on a life of its own that I find just plain annoying if not actually destructive. Face it, most of the world will never be equal to others in one way or another. Thanks to the efforts of people long ago we now have laws allowing us to gain through our own efforts. It would be nice if people could just let it drop for the most part and move on. One of the areas I find most irritating is the way we tinker with language ... chairperson instead of chairman, waitperson instead of waiter or waitress. Of course, this politically correct language gets carried on to religion which may be why I liked this commentary about God the Father.

The world invariably interprets God the Father as an anthropomorphic projection of human qualities into God, as wishful thinking, as finitizing the infinite. Some think it is a good projection, others a bad one. Feminists tend to resent the fact that the Bible calls God Father and not Mother (though many of them resent motherhood too) and the fact that he has a Son, not a Daughter. Shouldn't we put an end to this male chauvinism?

First of all, it isn't male chauvinism. The Bible is clear that the image of God is "male and female" (Gen 1:27). The greatest merely human being who ever lived was a woman an the greatest merely human act of choice ever committed was her Yes to God, which brought down God himself and our redemption into her body.

But, most simply, we can't stop the "sexist" language (which is not chauvinistic) because we didn't start it. We call God Father rather than Mother or neuter Parent because we believe that God himself has told us how to speak of him. The fundamental issue in the dispute with the feminists about Scripture's language is not male chauvinism, which no one defends, but the authority of Scripture, which the Church defends. Is Scripture God's words about us or our words about God? The world is full of human words about God, full of reasonable human preferences. They are all inadequate. God cut through them all and told us things we would never have come up with if left to ourselves. That is the fundamental issue: Have we been left to ourselves or has our divine Lover proposed to interfere with our aloneness?

Peter Kreeft, Fundamentals of the Faith

In a Theater Near Me

I already was somewhat interested in Friday Night Lights. It has gotten pretty decent reviews and I like Billy Bob Thornton. Usually I don't care for the sort of movie he is in so this would be unusual. However, we ran into a friend after Mass who mentioned that my friend Angie, who some of you may have seen as the wife shown in flashbacks in Robocop, is in this movie and has a speaking part at the beginning of the movie. As Angie told me later:

I saw "Friday Night Lights" for the first time last night...and it was really GOOD! I think you'll really like it...the acting is wonderful, as well as the sense of place the director brings to the film. Just know that it's shot in a fast, gritty, "real", jump-cut documentary-type of style (how don't know HOW Peter Berg edited this thing... Lord!) ...but it really lends itself to telling the story effectively....

My part is so small that if you blink your eyes you'll miss me!...but I'm in the dining room scene with Billy Bob (as Coach Gaines) and I think you'll see the back of my silver-haired head first, and I say,"Coach, are you ready for Midland-Lee?"...or was it "Are you ready for Midland-Lee, Coach?" Haha! Anyway, the scene is during the first hour (maybe first half-hour) of the film...it took a whole day to shoot (on the 3rd day of filming), and the director let all of us improv so much that I wasn't sure if the scene would be used at all...because we totally got away from the script.

I remember that around the time The Passion of the Christ came out she told me that she had been in Austin on a shoot. We had quite a conversation about Billy Bob Thornton as she described watching him charm young women as knowing what it must have been like watching the serpent charm Eve in the Garden of Eden. Very interesting. I knew what she was talking about as it is some of that same sort of charm that makes me enjoy watching him in movies.

Anyway, now I have a reason to make me actually find time in our schedule to go watch that movie in the theater. Thanks to Angie's impromptu review I'm much more interested in seeing it ... probably next weekend.

A River Runs Through It

There is a certain point when your kids are old enough to get their own breakfasts and lunches and you lose control of the kitchen inventory. No one tells you they are taking the last of anything ... and this goes for husbands as well as kids. If the item is something you never use yourself then it is sheer luck or habit to resupply in time.

There always is a crucial supply that you simply must have or the household grinds to a halt. So what is the crucial item in our household? Milk? Nope. I can't miss seeing when those huge gallons are diminishing. Cereal? Nope. It must be my guardian angel who suddenly makes me think to fling open the pantry door and see the empty shelf before we are absolutely out. In our case that essential, must-have, can't-live-without-it item is ... chocolate syrup.

Yep, chocolate syrup. A river of it flows through our house each week. Hannah has a huge glass of chocolate milk every night. Tom and Rose (usually) have vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup every night. This wasn't such a problem when I bought the big bottles. I curse the day I overheard a Central Market employee telling a customer that they only stock the cans of Hershey's chocolate syrup because it is the better old formula. I had to try it and see for myself. Drat! It is better. Thicker, different flavor, better. And now everyone in the house can tell the difference. If only I could remember to buy a bunch of those cans every time I go to the store but that habit isn't ingrained yet. Which explains why I found myself at Tom Thumb after Hannah's guitar lesson last night, stocking up.

So what's that essential, can't-keep-enough-of-it-in-the-house item at your place?