Who Needs Prayer Wheels ...

... when you've got these? Now that's classic Engrish.

Engrish.com

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Finding Freedom in the Bonds of Love

The walls of the house signify the boundary enclosing the particular place where these few people are engaged in enacting the rite of love, that is, of exchanged life. They experience it under many forms: the love of the parents for each other is one form; the love of the mother for her son, say, is another, and for her daughter another; and the father for his daughter and for his son; and the older brother for the younger sister, or the older sister for the younger brother. There are a dozen variations on the theme, but the same theme; namely, that we find real life where mutual responsibility and commitment turn out to be forms of joy. It is love that liberates the participants for this. Love sets them free from the calculating and jockeying and tallying up of scores that we find in mere politics, where we have to protect people with half-measure such as equality and rights and self-determination. Love opens onto a vastly more splendid order of things; and the forms of love at work in an ordinary family are like introductions to this splendor.

This family bond is there in the fabric of ordinary human life, giving us all this chance to participate in the Real Thing. All forms of love furnish this chance in one way or another, of course --love for one's country, or for one's community, or one's master or friend. Wherever love operates, there we find some exhibition of the principle. But the obvious place where we find the natural occasion for the whole race to enact the rite is the household -- in other words,in the biological family.

No one supposes that these four or five or six people are a select breed, tailored to get along with each other perfectly, or picked because they are better than anyone else. Rather, it is as though the great lesson in love that we must all learn sooner or later has been made obvious, easy, and natural by being carried along in the arms of sheer biology...

Splendor in the Ordinary: Your Home as a Holy Place by Thomas Howard

This just seems to continue the message from yesterday about God putting us right smack in the middle of the place we need to be to learn what we need to know. Once again, we've just got to recognize it to help us get the most advantage from the lesson.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Adoration Prayers ... Another Chance!

I will be in adoration ... yes again! lucky, lucky me! ... for an hour early Saturday morning. If anyone would like me to take a special intention to Jesus for them just send me an email (julie @ glyphnet . com) with "Adoration" in the subject line. I'll already have all those from my Prayer Journal and also those that I took with me for last week.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Quick Book Reviews

THE SHOEMAKER'S GOSPEL: A NOVEL
A shoemaker who lived in Capernaeum while Jesus was there writes his musings in his journal. Among his entries are included thoughts about personal encounters with Jesus and his disciples. The author clearly has incorporated some of the insights and thoughts he has had during his long practice of Ignatian contemplation, which involves putting yourself in the scene when reading the Gospels. Much of it is quite effective in terms of helping the reader imagine where Jesus might have stayed, the sorts of jokes the disciples would tell, how one might speak personally to Jesus in passing, and so forth. The author, of necessity, invents much of Jesus' dialogue during the aforementioned examples and, for the most part, it works.

I had a much more difficult time when the author invented additional parables for Jesus to use as thought provoking examples for his disciples. Not surprisingly, the added parables were much shallower than Jesus' own and jolted me out of the story as I mentally contrasted it to the real parables. They read like parables I would have made up myself and that is no recommendation, believe me. There was a similar lack of depth and originality in most of the shoemaker's insights. I think this book could be useful for those who would like some help in putting themselves "in the scene" with Jesus but it didn't really grab me with any new insights or thoughts that I haven't seen elsewhere.

THE THIRTEENTH TALE: A NOVEL

... I have always been a reader; I have read at every stage of my life, and there has never been a time when reading was not my greatest joy. And yet I cannot pretend that the reading I have done in my adult years matches in its impact on my soul the reading I did as a child. I still believe in stories. I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book. Yet it is not the same. Books are, for me, it must be said, the most important thing; what I cannot forget is that there was a time when they were at once more banal and more essential than that. When I was a child, books were everything. And so there is in me, always, a nostalgic yearning for the lost pleasure of books.

This author understands me. And I understand why she wrote this unusual book which is a love letter for those who have read and reread Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Rebecca, and similar classics. It is a double tale wound around the story of a young woman, Margaret, who has been tapped to write the biography of Vida Winter, a very famous and reclusive writer who has never told anyone a single truth about her life story. As the author's tale unfolds, Margaret begins investigating the truth from her side. I couldn't put this book down. Highly recommended even though I feel the author pulled an "Agatha Christie" toward the end when Vida Winter's true identity is finally revealed. But I love Agatha Christie books as well so it all works out. Not perfect but a thoroughly enjoyable read.

You don't have to take my word for it. Steven Riddle has a much more thorough review here.

SWIMMING WITH SCAPULARS
This book was lent to me by a much younger friend with the recommendation that she and her husband both really loved the book. I could tell as there were numerous bits of paper marking favorite passages and underlined mentions of authors for further investigation later. I also could understand their enthusiasm. This is a lively and well written book from Matthew Lickona, a young husband and father, who examines his life and roles thus far through a Catholic viewpoint. Lickona is thoroughly orthodox yet also that most welcome of people who live in the world but not of it ... which is to say he's real. I thoroughly enjoyed this book although I am well past the age where many of the insights are new. However, even with that said, I still gleaned several thought provoking ideas and plan on suggesting this book to my Catholic women's book club which has a range of women from young singles to grandmothers. I think they will all enjoy it. Highly recommended though much more for people in their twenties or thirties.

For a daily look at Matthew, check out his blog.

IN THE STACKS...
I just had the pleasure of getting some books to try from the library and finding that they all look so good I'm having a hard time deciding which to dive into first.

• Isn't It Romantic?: An Entertainment by Ron Hansen ... a French couple tries to find the real America and winds up stranded in a tiny town in Nebraska. Light and fluffy looking ... my favorite kind of quick read.
  


• The Salaryman's Wife by Sujata Massey ... a mystery being solved by the Japanese-American heroine living in Japan. Mystery and exotic locale.
  


• The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova ... a modern vampire tale (does everyone remember that Dracula is one of my favorite books?) that follows three timelines, one in the 1930s, one in the 1950s, and one in 1972.
  


Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

2 Corinthians Study: Affliction, Suffering, and Comfort

2 Corinthians 1:1-7
I really like it when we can get the nuances of the original language from Scripture. Often, as we can see below, it conveys so much more than the mere English translation gets across. The definitions below all much more active expressions of how we experience and deal with suffering than what comes to my mind when simply reading the verses with no knowledge of the original Greek.

(i) Paul writes as a man who knows trouble to those who are in trouble. The word that he uses for afflictions is In ordinary Greek this word always describes actual physical pressure on a man. R.C. Trench writes, "When, according to the ancient law of England, those who willfully refused to plead had heavy weights placed on their breasts and were so pressed and crushed to death, this was literally thlipsis." ...

(ii) The answer to this suffering lies in endurance. The Greek word for this endurance is hupomone. The keynote of hupomone is not grim, bleak acceptance of trouble but triumph. It describes the spirit which can not only accept suffering but triumph over it ...

(iii) But we are not left to face this trial and to provide this endurance alone. There comes to us the comfort of God. Between verses 3 and 7 the noun comfort or the verb to comfort occurs no fewer than nine times. Comfort in the New Testament always means far more than soothing sympathy. Always it is true to its root meaning, for its root is the Latin fortis and fortis means brave. Christian comfort is the comfort which brings courage and enables a man to cope with all that life can do to him ...

The Letters to the Corinthians, Revised Edition by William Barclay*

*Barclay is not a Catholic source. Read here for more info about him.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Bleg: Toronto Resources Needed to Offer to Mother and Unborn Baby

I received this request ... anyone know where to go for resources to help this 23-year-old woman and her unborn baby?

She wants to let the baby live, but is under a lot of pressure to have an abortion and does not have a lot of resources on her own. She really needs help from someone or a group in her area (Toronto).

I've been searching online for the Toronto equivalent of the White Rose*, but haven't been able to find anything yet. I'm sure there is something like that. I was wondering if someone on here with better connections within Catholic Charities or the Toronto area might know of a good place I could refer her to.

If anyone wants to email me rather than answer in the comments box, my email is julie[at]glyphnet[dot]com. Thanks!

* White Rose Women's Center is a Catholic crisis pregnancy center providing pro-life education, counseling and aid.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Wasting Time? You Say That Like It's a Bad Thing.

I got this from Hannah. As she warned me, there is one surprising and shocking moment toward the beginning but it goes on to be downright hilarious. Therefore, I'm passing that warning on and, because I like to live on the edge, I'm posting it here for all to enjoy.

Gym class

Update: Evidently some find the whole thing to be shocking ... so I will elaborate on the warning ... mock shooting included.

Waving From the Cloud of Witnesses: Dorothy Day

The Christian life is certainly a paradox. The teaching of St. John of the Cross (which was for beginners, he said) is of the necessity for detachment from creatures; of the need of traveling light through the dark night.

Most of us have not the courage to set out on this path wholeheartedly, so God arranges it for us...

We try to escape, of course, either habitually or occasionally. But we never can. The point I want to make is that a woman can achieve the highest spirituality and union with God through her house and children, through doing her work, which leaves her no time for thought of self, for consolation, for prayer, for reading, for what she might consider development. She is being led along the path of growth inevitably. But she needs to be told these things, instructed in these things, for her hope and endurance, so that she may use whatever prayer she can to cry out in the darkness of the night.

Here is her mortification of the senses:

Her eyes are affronted by disorders, confusion, the sight of human ailments and human functions. Her nose also; her ears tormented with discordant cries, her appetite failing often; her sense of touch in agony from fatigue and weakness.

Her interior senses are also mortified. She is also with her little ones, her interest adapted to theirs; she has not even the companionship of books. She has no longer the gay companions of her youth (their nerves can't stand it). So she has solitude, and a silence form the sounds she'd like to hear -- conversation, music, discussion.

Of course there are consolations and joys. Babies and small children are pure beauty, love, joy -- the truest in this world. But the thorns are there -- of night watches, of illnesses, of infant perversities and contrariness. There are glimpses of heaven and hell.

On Pilgrimage by Dorothy Day

I like that point about God arranging for us what we need in our everyday life. We must be open to it so that we can take full advantage of what we are being offered though. Otherwise it is just inconvenience, pain, and suffering without any of the redemptive possibilities being used.

I am greatly indebted to the friend who, upon hearing that I was not fond of Dorothy Day, sent me this book as well as Praying in the Presence of Our Lord: With Dorothy Day by David Scott, which largely consists of quotes by Day. I also would like to add that Scott's introduction about Day's life is the only one I have ever read that was not a turn off.

I had begun to suspect it was not so much that I did not like Dorothy Day as that I had never read anything that she had written, but only things that others wrote about her. Reading these books proved that suspicion to be correct. Dorothy in person is nothing like the persona presented by others, who I had begun to mentally label "Social Justice Dorothy." Reading her is like looking at a Catholic Madeleine l'Engle whose books about her life and faith I find interesting and inspiring but incomplete.

Both books are highly recommended.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Feeling Blue? Try This.

Guaranteed to put a smile on your face and tears in your eyes (but good tears).

The Devil and Me

Precisely.

I know I have to be careful with the devil. I don't want to shunt off my personal failings onto him -- my evil is my own. Satan won't be around at the judgment to share the blame. But I don't want to discount his power and influence, either. To ignore him is to let him move unseen, which is exactly where he thrives. I don't want to be cocky with him. I sympathize with the old tradition of not saying his name, for fear of giving him an inroad. But neither do I want to cower before him. I believe I have power over him; the thing is not to suppose that the power is my own.

Swimming with Scapulars by Matthew Lickona

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

World's Fastest, and Possibly Most Interesting, History Lesson

Who has controlled the Middle East over the course of history?

See it before your eyes in 90 seconds.

Via TSO.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few ...

... that quote never has seemed more meaningful than now, has it? And, frankly, neither has this commentary on it from In Conversation with God.

Early Christianity grew up in a world which seems very much like our own. It boasted abundant material means but suffered from great spiritual poverty. The early Church had the necessary vigor to protect itself from paganizing influences. It was also vibrant enough to transform a worldly civilization from within. The world today seems no more difficult to evangelize. At first sight it may appear to be closed to Christ. Yet if we are firmly united to the Lord as the first Christians were, we can be sure that the transformation will take place once again. How well are we succeeding in our efforts to transform the people around us, the members of our family, our friends, our colleagues at work?

The world is in need of many things. But there is no doubt that it is in great need of apostles who are holy, cheerful, loyal to the Church and eager to make Christ known. The Lord is calling for us to work in his fields: Pray, therefore, the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Prayer is the most effective means of winning new apostles (Josemaria Escriva). Our apostolic zeal has to be manifested, first of all, in a continuous prayer of petition for new apostles. Prayer always comes first.

That cry of the Son of God, lamenting that the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few, is always relevant. How it tears at our heartstrings. That cry came from Christ's mouth for you to hear too. How have you responded to it up to now? Do you pray at least daily for that intention of his? (Josemaria Escriva).

In Conversation With God Vol 5

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Cool Weather and Monarch Butterflies

Photo source

What beautiful weather we are having right now. I actually was comfortable in a long sleeved shirt when standing outside chatting with a friend after Adoration. The cool weather is accompanied by those deep blue skies that just seem to come with Autumn.

Even better, as we stood we saw one huge, glorious Monarch butterfly after another floating through the air around us. Driving home, sometimes I would see as many as ten in the skies over the road ahead. It must be that annual migration to Mexico coming through ... it is really wonderful to have all those butterflies drifting in and out of your sight everywhere you go.

Join This Valiant Pro-Life Stand

Ms. magazine is running the names of 5,000 women who are boasting they had abortions. Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, which publishes Ms.says, "We have to get away from what the politicians are saying and get women's lives back in the picture." They are sending the signatures to Congress, the White House and state legislators.

Amy Pawlak thinks that we should focus on the lives of the unborn, who are the real victims of abortion, no matter what Ms. Magazine says.

Help me create a petition that will put the one in Ms. to shame. Email this post to every man and woman you know. Email your names and cities/states to me. I'll compile them and send a petition to Congress - a petition with the names of people who think women (and their unborn children) deserve better than an abortion.

I want to get more than the 5,000 signatures Ms. is boasting it has...

... if you are a woman who considered having an abortion but chose not to, I'd like to hear from you and your story.

Please do go to her blog to read the entire post.. I will be emailing this to many of my friends and encourage y'all to do the same.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. (John 15:13)

Marian Fisher, 13, is said to have stepped forward and asked her killer to "shoot me first," in an apparent effort to buy time for her schoolmates.

Rita Rhoads, a Mennonite midwife who delivered two of the victims, told ABC News she learned of the girl's plea from her family. What's more, her younger sister, Barbie, who survived the shooting, allegedly asked the gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, to "shoot me second," Rhoads said.

Source

I read this in the morning paper and my eyes filled with tears. What more Christian love could we ever see than those young girls offering themselves in an attempt to save their classmates?

When I heard of the shooting in the Amish schoolhouse I was horrified just like everyone else. What could be worse than for our modern, scarred society to spill over into a society that is the epitome of innocence? How many times did I hear someone say that those children would have no idea what to do? (What a sorry and revealing fact about our society that our children have been drilled against such a possibility.)

I was not as upset for the Amish in the aftermath of the tragedy as I have been for the families from other school shootings. Mostly, I think, because I felt that if anyone was equipped to come through horror and loss it would be the Amish who center their lives around God. Yes, it would be terrible to endure but they have God and their community. That is a lot more than I ever felt assured was possessed by survivors of other such events.

I read about the heroism of those two girls. I thought about the Amish and what an example of living the Christian faith of true forgiveness they are showing our country. I wondered if anyone would see it that way who needed to change their way of life. Most probably would just note it as a noble thing and then forget it.

He spoke to them another parable. "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened."

Matthew 13:33

I paged through the rest of the newspaper.

Never have I felt more ensconced in a decadent society; never more akin to the Christians in first century Rome.

Here was the review of Martin Scorsese's newest movie, which our family felt sure would have all the gore, violence, and sex that was not included in the original Hong Kong movie he had copied.

There was the special magazine called something inane like "Be Who You Are" with a photo of Rose O'Donnell and her partner, arms around one another, their wedding rings prominently displayed. Inside was one article after another, featuring as many celebrities as possible, that glorified living the gay lifestyle.

Reports abounded of trials for all sorts of horrible crimes, many committed against the most vulnerable in our society. It went on and on.

All this was against a backdrop of those two girls offering up their lives for their friends. Never had it been so glaringly obvious that it is important for Christians to remain the leaven, the yeast, that Christ called for. We are called to be the witnesses through our actions and our words that there is a way of freedom that many have forgotten; that some truths are absolute.

I can say that I never knew what joy was like until I gave up pursuing happiness, or cared to live until I chose to die. For these two discoveries I am beholden to Jesus.

Malcolm Muggeridge

I daresay that all Christians recognize the absolute truth in Muggeridge's words. The mystery is that just as they contain absolute truth, that truth is translated in different ways to different people ... God deals with each of our unique souls in the way that we understand best.

We can't tell from moment to moment in what way we will be called to witness to that truth. If it is simply through living a Christian life as best we can by not snarling at the person who cuts into line ahead of us on a bad day, speaking up to a close friend about a touchy subject that may change forever how they view us, or stepping up to offer ourselves as a sacrifice.

That is the way that we make sure those who need the message aren't allowed to forget the example they are being given by the grieving but forgiving Amish. We repeat it over and over and over ... through our actions, our words, and our lives. Until they are encountering Christ's truth and love everywhere they turn.

It is not easy. Especially since sometimes the people that need to be reminded so desperately of Christ are the ones we see in the mirror. But we are called to be saints. Both for our own sakes and that of the people around us.

Those two girls were superbly equipped to live Christ's truth in every way. I pray that my own children are as well equipped for the trials they encounter in their lives. I pray that I am.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Oranges and Practical Christianity

"...Some of the old ones still refuse to see that my method is better than theirs. The only thing that will convince them is when I get three oranges to their one, and sell them for twice the price because they are full of juice. But we'll show them in the end."

"You puzzle me," said Meredith frankly.

"Why?"

"What have oranges got to do with the human soul?"

"Everything," said the bishop flatly. "You can't cut a man in two and polish up his soul while you throw his body in the trash heap. If the Almighty had designed him that way, he would have made him a biped who carried his soul in a bag round his neck. If reason and revelation mean anything they mean that a man works out his salvation in the body by the use of material things. A neglected tree, a second-rate fruit are defects in the divine scheme of things. Unnecessary misery is an even greater defect because it is an impediment to salvation. When you don't know where your next meal is coming from, how can you think or care about the state of your soul? Hunger has no morals, my friend."

The Devil's Advocate by Morris L. West

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

What is Adoration?

Now that's a good question and one that I didn't think to explain when mentioning that I'd take prayer requests this weekend when I go to Adoration.

Eucharistic adoration is a practice in the Roman Catholic and some Anglican Churches, in which the Blessed Sacrament is exposed to and adored by the faithful. When this exposure and adoration is constant (that is, twenty-four hours a day), it is called perpetual adoration. In a parish, this is usually done by volunteer parishioners; in a monastery or convent, it is done by the resident monks or nuns...

The host is displayed in a monstrance, typically placed on an altar. The Blessed Sacrament may not actually be exposed, but left in a ciborium, which is likewise placed on an altar. This exposition usually occurs in the context of a service of Benediction or similar service of devotions to the Blessed Sacrament. In services of perpetual adoration, parishioners volunteer to attend for a certain period of time, typically an hour, around the clock. Because of the difficulty of maintaining twenty-four hour attendance, many parishes no longer provide perpetual adoration. In many parishes, the Blessed Sacrament is reserved in an enclosed tabernacle so that the faithful may pray in its presence without the need for volunteers to be in constant attendance (as must be the case when the Blessed Sacrament is exposed).

Wikipedia

This is all based around the Catholic belief that the Eucharist is the body and blood, soul and divinity of Christ. So when you sit with the Eucharist, you are sitting with Jesus Himself. (Much more information can be found here.)

I remember being intensely curious about this practice about three years ago. I ordered and read No Wonder They Call It the Real Presence: Lives Changed by Christ In Eucharistic Adoration which just fueled my curiosity. (I highly recommend that book, by the way. You can read an excerpted chapter here.)

About three weeks after I finished reading the book I had an opportunity for Adoration and the result was ... nothing. Oh, it was peaceful and nice but that was all.

Upon subsequent occasions I have had much more of a connection, words popping into the back of my mind, answers to questions about a course of action to take, the sort of thing that leave my husband shaking his head. He is not exactly disbelieving but just ... shakes his head. He's used to my crazy ways. I don't need adoration for that. It happens quite frequently in front of the tabernacle during Mass.

You can simply sit peacefully with Jesus the entire time, read a devotional book, write in a journal, that sort of thing. It depends on the person. No matter what, the experience is one of peace. That is pretty much a universal result. And if you mention that to my husband he won't move his head at all ... except to nod in agreement!

All Those Initials

A reader asks:

Could you explain all the initials some of the Catholic groups use. I know SJ is for Jesuits, and OSB is for the order of St Francis but what is OP and are there others??

I, myself, have wondered that same thing from time to time. It is like a secret code.

Gradually I picked up on the fact that SJ does not stand for Social Justice as one might think from many Jesuits' writing but is for Society of Jesus (aka Jesuits).

On Wikipedia I found OSB means Order of Saint Benedict.

However, I was unable to find a source that has a list of all those various initials that orders string behind their names. Granted I did not put tons of time into it but did look around Catholic Encyclopedia, Wikipedia and Google.

Anyone know of a good spot to find those? Or perhaps we should compile a list here and I'll stow it away for future reference?

UPDATE
Ask and you shall receive ... what knowledgable commenters we have here!

• Fish Eaters' Abbreviations of Religious Orders and Priestly Fraternities
• Catholic Door Ministry's Religious/Orders Abbreviations
• Catholic Hierarchy - Religious Orders
  

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Living in the Present Moment

... We can waste our time by doing whatever we want instead of what God wants. For example, we might spend time at our place of work when we are needed at home. Conversely, we might choose to read the newspaper when we should be working. The life of each man and woman exists in the present moment. these are the only moments which we can truly sanctify. The past and the future only exist in our imagination. The memory of our past can inspire us to acts of contrition or thanksgiving, yet even these prayers take place in the reality of the present.

We should not become overwrought by future events because they may not come to pass. In any event, we will have the grace of God when we need it. The secret to building the city of God within us is this: we have to build on a brick by brick basis in the reality of the present moment. (Ch. Lubich, Meditations) This is the only time which God gives us to sanctify. Hodie, nunc. We must live the present moment with love, with full concentration. What a wonderful offering this will be to the Lord! Let us not miss this opportunity.

In Conversation With God Vol 5

This was a big hurdle for me to overcome. I have a vivid imagination and could bring myself to tears quite easily by imaging a future where Tom and the girls were gone, etc. So silly of me but there you go. By keeping the above precepts in mind my life has been much simpler ... and it gets easier with time and practice, y'all.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

I Don't Know About Y'All But We're Ready for Lost

A little something for everyone in that photo, eh? Also, Kate is supposed to be finally choosing between Jack and Sawyer. Word is that she chooses Sawyer since a mystery woman is going to take up all of Jack's time. Let me think, Jack or Sawyer? No contest, even if Sawyer is a frog squasher ... I'd take that bad boy any time over boring Jack.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity