Praying and Fasting for the President to Experience Conversion of Heart

Note: I've updated my First Tuesday fast to expand the scope beyond whoever is president to include our country's leaders. We need heroes, we need effective leaders, we need people who are self sacrificing and willing to put the needs of the people beyond their own political agendas (like re-election).

 Below is the original post.

Today on Morning Glory, guest Father Josh Johnson pointed out that we've never had a President who has become Venerable or Blessed ... or in other words, a saint. Duh, I thought. Then he startled me by enthusiastically recommending that we fast and pray for whoever becomes president to experience a conversion of heart and to get on track for sainthood. 

Wow. The fact that I was so startled by such an idea, initially thought it crazy, says something about how pragmatically I view our governmental system and politicians. I loved Father's passion and belief that God can do anything. And, let's face it, that would indeed be a real change for either Joe Biden or Donald Trump. It would make them into the people we wish they would be. What a witness that would be.

So I'm going to do it. I'm still considering how to do this. I already fast on every first Friday for the Church and our priests. So this needs to be a separate fast. Right now I am thinking about a small fast — breakfast or lunch or maybe only bread all day (which is a heckuva lot harder than you'd think) — on the first Tuesday of each month (election day in November!). 

It's wild. It's reckless. It's completely crazy. So that makes it a perfect thing for God to use showing his glory and power. And this is a way to do that.

Join me!

Source

Thank God in every instance

One of the great spiritual "secrets" that the saints teach is that we should thank God in every instance for every event in our lives. Even what has the appearance of undoing us can be turned to powerful graces when we offer it to God with thanksgiving for what he is doing in that very event. The worst event of history, the crucifixion of the Son of God, is now our Eucharistic feast! Let the Eucharist be the perfection of paying your own debt of gratitude.

Paul Jerome Keller, A Year with the Eucharist

Today, the day after the election, I think maybe a lot of folks are feeling we're facing a bad event of history. As hotly contested as this election has been it seems inevitable that about half of us are going to be upset with the results. We're waiting to see who will be elected president with a mixture of hope and trepidation. Hope that our candidate will be elected, trepidation that he won't.

If your candidate doesn't win, remember it is by no means the worst event. And also remember that the same God in whom we trust can and does bring good from things we don't like. We see this over and over in the Old Testament. Just one example is Joseph from Genesis, whose brothers sold him to a passing caravan? He underwent what must have seemed very much the "worst." Yet at the end, he told his brothers that God had allowed it in order that he might be placed to save his family in time of great need.

Wherever he put you, serve him there. I myself am very thankful not to be a politician but to simply be a wife, a mother, a daughter, a writer, a Catholic ... and to serve where I am.

 Be not afraid and remember to rejoice in our Lord — with gratitude for everything.

Gospel of Matthew — Peter's Staggering Honesty and Heroic Courage

 Matthew 26: 57-58, 69-75

Here we have Peter's famous betrayal of Christ three times before the cock crows. It wrings the heart. I've often felt sympathetic with Peter because I've found myself in similar positions, albeit not usually so publicly. I've also admired his honesty in telling the story. After all, no one else knew this — except Jesus, of course.

However, the points made here about Peter's courage and love hadn't occurred to me before.

Peter's Denial, Duccio di Buoninsegna

No one can read this passage without being struck with the staggering honesty of the New Testament. If ever there was an incident which one might have expected to be hushed up, this was it—and yet here it is told in all its stark shame. We know that Matthew very closely followed the narrative of Mark; and in Mark's gospel this sotry is told in even more vivid detail (Mark 14:66-72). We also know, as Papias tells us, that Mark's gospel is nothing other than the preaching material of Peter written down. And so we arrive at the amazing fact that we possess the story of Peter's denial because Peter himself told it to others.

So far from supressing this story, Peter made it an essential part of his gospel; and did so for the very best of reasons. ... We must never read this story without remembering that it is Peter himself who is telling of the shame of his own sin that all men may know the glory of the forgiving love and cleansing power of Jesus Christ.

And yet it is quite wrong to regard Peter with nothing but unsympathetic condemnation. The blazing fact is that the disaster which happened to Peter is one which could have happened only to a man of the most heroic courage. All the other disciples ran away: Peter alone did not. In Palestine the houses of the well-to-do were built in a hollow square around an open courtyard, off which the various rooms opened. For Peter to enter that courtyard int he centre of the High Priest's house was to walk into the lion's den—and yet he did it. However this story ends, it begins with Peter the one brave man.

[...]

What happened to Peter after [the cock crowed] we do not know, for the gospel story draws a kindly veil over the agony of his shame. But before we condemn him, we must remember very clearly that few of us would ever have had the courage to be in that courtyard at all. And there is one last thing to be said—it was love which gave Peter that courage; it was love which riveted him there in spite of the fact that he had been recognized three times; it was love which made him remember the words of Jesus; it was love which sent him out into the night to weep—and it is love which covers a multitude of sins. The lasting impression of this whole story is not of Peter's cowardice, but of Peter's love.

Just imagine being in the Mass where Peter preached the story of his betrayal of Christ! Wouldn't that have been something?

Quote is from Daily Study Bible Series: Gospel of Matthew, vol. 2 by William Barclay. This series first ran in 2008. I'm refreshing it as I go.

October

 Ok, this is titled October, but here in Dallas they would call it November because we don't have leaves turning fall colors until then usually. So I'm posting it now!

October, by Willard Leroy Metcalf, 1908. 

Via J.R.'s Art Place

The changing past

Nothing changes more constantly than the past; for the past that influences our lives does not consist of what actually happened, but of what [we] believed happened.

Gerald W. Johnson

A Movie You Might Have Missed #26 — Without a Clue

It's been 10 years since I began this series highlighting movies I wished more people knew about. I'm rerunning it from the beginning because I still think these are movies you might have missed.

Mystery and comedy. There may be no better combination, and certainly you won't find it done better than in today's movie.

Without a Clue features stellar teamwork by Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley, who are at their best here. Kingsley is Dr. Watson who actually is the genius at deduction. He has written his adventures as stories with a fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, so as to not hurt his chances at being named to a prestigious board. When the stories got so popular that people wanted to meet Holmes he hired actor, Reginald Kincaid to act the part. The problem: Kincaid is a two-bit, drunken, skirt-chasing actor (Caine) which causes no end of trouble and comic delight whenever "Holmes" tries to improvise his way through a case. 

 

It is a real delight to watch these two great actors throw themselves into their parts with wonderful comic timing. Caine gets a lot of mileage out of Holmes' efforts to appear a genius. This movie is especially good for any children who understand how twists work on the classic detective stories.

unstable Felicity by Cat Hodge

"Is Ohio your home?" Amita lit up. "Over Thanksgiving, I saw a Christmas movie set in a small town in Ohio, where the girl had to save her family's business by teaming up with the hot competitor, and he caught her when she fell off a ladder, and they got everyone to come together to fix up the old downtown. And then it snowed and they lived happily ever after," she sighed ...

===========

"Well, all your worries are over now! We'll straighten out your books, and then we're going to make the season merry and bright."

Oh, the season will be bright, Jill thought. That glow is just my family burning down.

Jill O'Leary hasn't been home for twelve years, except to attend her father's funeral. But now her mother's summoned her to help figure out the finances for the family's inn and Jill's all out of excuses. She's not sure what she dreads more — her demanding, self-absorbed mother or the White Elephant gift exchange.

Of course, her friend Amita has accurately predicted what we all expect in a Hallmark Christmas story and this book's got that and more. It also has elements of King Lear, which is a weird combination but it works. Somehow Cat Hodge delivers both a lighthearted, amusing Christmas adventure with the simmering rage, greed, and family dysfunction of Shakespeare for a very readable, funny story.

If a Hallmark Christmas and/or King Lear leave you cold, I understand. I myself avoid both. In fact, I had to look up the plot to King Lear online. But  this mashup is greater  than a sum of its parts. The elements that made it work for me were the results of Hodge's fertile imagination.

First, as I said, it is funny. Jill's machinations at the White Elephant exchange made me laugh. Quennedey's methods of squashing her mother's pretensions cracked me up. I loved Quennedey a lot. (When seeing how Quennedey's name is spelled, we understand exactly what her mother is like — a sign of Hodges' sly humor and intelligence.)

Second, there is a raw edge which opens up space for characters to grow. This mostly happens to the people around Jill but it is unexpected and interesting when it happens. This allows Hodge to  redeem a lot of the unlovable King Lear elements in a way that works for our modern times and that allow it to be a Christmas story.

I will say that I struggled in the beginning of this novella because I really disliked Jill and her knee-jerk rage. She definitely should have found a new therapist long ago. I was really shocked by one unrepentant action in particular.  It's a tough read when you don't like the main character. But I liked Kristin Lavransdatter and Gone with the Wind and really didn't like either of those main characters. As with those books, I just let this wash over me and enjoyed everything else. It also helped that it was kind of interesting to see the story once I realized that Jill was Lear's second daughter's — and she was not great (seriously, that online Lear summary really helped). So Jill was true to her origins.

You don't have to have seen King Lear or a Hallmark Christmas movie to enjoy this novel. The quirks, charm, and family drama are things we all understand and can appreciate. Get yourself a copy.

Pope Francis' homosexuality comments heavily edited in documentary

I was stunned, as was everyone to judge from the media headlines, when Pope Francis seemed to endorse same-sex civil unions in a documentary. However, I should have waited for the full context to be revealed.

Catholic News Agency (CNA) reports:

“Francesco,” a newly-released documentary on Pope Francis, contains comments from the pope on homosexuality and civil unions. Some of the remarks, however, are the result of editing distinct phrases from a papal interview and presenting them as a cohesive whole. ...

a CNA analysis of the interview’s transcript shows that other papal comments on homosexuality featured in “Francesco” were compiled by heavy editing of the 2019 interview’s video footage.

If you read the whole piece, CNA bolded the appearance of those words in an excerpted translation of the pope’s remarks during his 2019 interview. 

The Vatican still isn't commenting on the story and there may be further discussion to come, but it was nice to see the context for the Pope's comments.

A Review of Thus Sayeth the Lord That Makes Me Very Proud

Some recommended reading for your month of All Souls, Advent, or Ordinary-Time Bible study needs. Excellent intro to the prophets by Julie Davis.

Final verdict: This is a fantastic offering that fills a void in the Bible-study literature. I highly recommend this book if you are looking for a readable, down-to-earth introduction to the prophets that is a balanced combination of Bible study and reflections for personal inspiration and spiritual growth.

This wonderful review of my book Thus Sayeth the Lord comes from Jennifer Fitz. It's lovely to have someone I respect so much give such a glowing recommendation. It makes me really proud! 

Do go read the whole thing! I'll leave you with a last bit that filled me with more pride.

What makes this book especially good: Julie writes the book from the perspective of a former atheist, of a faithful-but-normal Catholic, and as someone engaged for decades now in a constant two-way conversation with the wider culture. You can tell that she really understands how people struggle with the faith and what it’s like to be looking at Christianity and scratching your head and wondering if the Catholic faith has anything, at all, to offer somebody like you.

Her depth and breadth of experience shows on every page, and the end result is a book that is exquisitely suited to parish Bible study groups, where participants may vary from curious-non-believers to earnest disciples, all thrown together in one classroom to puzzle out what can be a very daunting topic.

 

Gospel of Matthew — Love's Last Appeal to Judas

 Matthew 26:20-25

Usually we look at the scene where Judas is leaving the last supper and think about betrayal, staying loyal, and so forth. This, however, looks at what we can learn from Jesus in this situation.

Judas Iscariot (right), retiring from the Last Supper  by Carl Bloch

And now we can see Jesus' methods with the sinner. He could have used his power to blast Judas, to paralyse him, to render him helpless, even to kill him. But the only weapon that Jesus will ever use is the weapon of love's appeal. One of the great mysteries of life is the respect that God has for the free will of man. God does not coerce; God only appeals.

When Jesus seeks to stop a man from sinning, he does two things.

First, he confronts him with his sin. He tries to make him stop and think what he is doing. He, as it were, says to him, "Look at what you are contemplating doing — can you really do a thing like that?" It has been said that our greatest security against sin lies in our being shocked by it. And again and again Jesus bids a man pause and look and realize so that he may be shocked into sanity.

Second, he confronts him with himself. He bids a man look at him, as if to say, "Can you look at me, can you meet my eyes, and go out to do the thing you purpose doing?" Jesus seeks to make a man become aware of the horror of the thing he is about to do and of the love which yearns to stop him doing it.

[...]

There is sin and sin. There is the sin of the passionate heart, of the man who, on the impulse of the moment, is swept into wrong doing. Let no man belittle such sin; its consequences can be very terrible. But far worse is the calculated, callous sin of deliberation, which in cold blood knows what it is doing, which is confronted with the bleak awfulness of the deed and with the love in the eyes of Jesus, and still takes its own way. Our hearts revolt against the son or daughter who cold-bloodedly breaks a parent's heart — which is what Judas did to Jesus — and the tragedy is that this is what we ourselves so often do.

Quote is from Daily Study Bible Series: Gospel of Matthew, vol. 2 by William Barclay. This series first ran in 2008. I'm refreshing it as I go.

A Movie You Might Have Missed #25 — Shower

It's been 10 years since I began this series highlighting movies I wished more people knew about. I'm rerunning it from the beginning because I still think these are movies you might have missed.

Now we share one of Tom's favorite movies. Have you noticed that many of his favorites are gentle, charming, and humorous? Yep. But all individuals in their own way. This one is no different. 

This is the sweet, charming story of a son who returns home due to a misunderstanding. He has made a successful life for himself in another city while his father and brother have remained in business at the father's bath house. 

On one level the story is predictable, revealing the problems of the bath house regulars. As we expect, the returning brother has been somewhat estranged from his family and this, too, is resolved. For instance, I will never again hear "O Sole Mio" without thinking of this movie. 

However, on another level, there is complexity that was unexpected. This is provided by the brother who has remained at home and by the father's revelation of his past ... whereby we understand exactly why he loves running his bath house. Also quite enjoyable  are the glimpses of life in the father's corner of Beijing.

Autumn Leaves in Yokokan Garden

Autumn Leaves in Yokokan Garden, kskphoto via Find/47

 

Falling Leaves

 Olga Wisinger-Florian, Falling Leaves, 1899

A Movie You Might Have Missed #24 — Equilibrium

It's been 10 years since I began this series highlighting movies I wished more people knew about. I'm rerunning it from the beginning because I still think these are movies you might have missed.

Come now to a future, after the Third World War, where a hidden leader named "The Father" has decreed that the answer is to remove emotions as they are the root of all violence and evil. Banishing emotions leads to banishing art, music, and books as well, but that is a small price to pay for peace. Or so this futuristic society believes as they take their daily doses of Prozium which sublimates feelings. 

Christian Bale is John Preston, a Clerick whose job it actually is to enforce the anti-emotion laws by rooting out and destroying the underground sense-offender resistance who luxuriate in things like perfume, silk, and symphonies. One day he accidentally misses his daily dose of Prozium and ... you guessed it ... discovers what he's been missing. 

In many ways, the story line is predictable but watching it unfold brings a fair number of surprises, the acting is good, and the faces are lovely (Christian Bale, Taye Diggs). As well, there is the inventive "Gun-Kata," martial art with weapons at a super-high speed which lends itself to a choreography which is simply amazing to see. This came out around the same time as The Matrix which may be why it has been overlooked by so many, but our family prefers this movie.

Gospel of Matthew - Self Protective Lovelessness

 Matthew 25:14-30

This is the famous parable of the master who, before going on a journey, gives varying numbers of talents to his servants, according to their abilities. Two servants use them profitably to increase on investment. One servant buries his in a field. Upon return the master praises the profitable servants and condemns the profitless servant as lazy, saying the he could at the very least have put his talent in the bank where it would have earned interest.

In a long ago Bible study, the priest pointed out that the good servants success in "small matters" are only given perspective in the great joy of the master.

"Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your master's joy.

I love that the success even in small matters gives the master great joy.

Also, the lazy servant wasn't punished for trying and failing. He was punished for not even trying the bare minimum. You get the idea that possibly if he had tried and failed, the master might have been understanding. It is the lack of effort, not the failure to achieve, which is being condemned.

Ok, now let's turn to C.S. Lewis from his book The Four Loves. I already love this quote, but the C.S. Lewis Bible uses it for reflection on this parable.

The parable of the talents, depicted in a 1712 woodcut. The lazy servant searches for his buried talent, while the two other servants present their earnings to their master.

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

I believe that the most lawless and inordinate loves are less contrary to God’s will than a self-invited and self-protective lovelessness. It is like hiding the talent in a napkin and for much the same reason. "I knew thee that thou wert a hard man." Christ did not teach and suffer that we might become, even in the natural loves, more careful of our own happiness. If a man is not uncalculating towards the earthly beloveds whom he has seen, he is none the more likely to be so towards God whom he has not. We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them nd offering them toHim; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it.

This series first ran in 2008. I'm refreshing it as I go.

More valuable than any treasure

If you were to find a gold coin, would you ask yourself, "Why has no one else found it?" Of course not. You would not hesitate to take it as your own. Likewise, whenever you find a brother in need, realize that you have found something more valuable than any treasure—the opportunity to care for another.

St. John Chrysostom
via In Conversation with God 4 by Francis Fernandez

Triplets Gassho-zukuri houses

Triplets Gassho-zukuri houses, Koichi Hayakawa via Find/47

 

Mating Season

 

Mating Season, Remo Savisaar

Good, evil, and a thing's usefulness

This is long but so worth it.

When this reason, which is so just and apt—namely, that the goodness of God should create good things—is carefully considered and devoutly weighed, it puts an end to all controversies on the part of those who inquire about the origin of the world. Certain heretics, however, have not been willing to accept this reason. In their view, there are too many things—such as fire, cold, wild beasts, and the like—which are unsuited to the needy and frail mortality of this flesh (which itself stems from just punishment), and which actually do it harm. These heretics do not notice how flourishing such things are in their rightful places and in their own natures, or with what ordered beauty they are arranged, or how much they contribute, each according to its own share of beauty, to the whole scheme of things, as if to the common well being of all, or how much they actually work to our own benefit, if only we make appropriate and intelligent use of them. Even poisons, which are fatal when used wrongly, are turned into healing medicines when properly employed; and, on the other hand, even things that give us delight, such as food and drink and sunlight, are seen to be harmful when immoderately or improperly used. In this way, divine providence warns us not to blame things without thought but rather to inquire diligently into their usefulness. And when our insight or our weakness fails us, whe should believe that teheir usefulness is simply obscure, as were various other things that we have barely been able to discover. The very fact that a thing's usefulness is hard to find, in fact, serves us either as an exercise in humility or as an antidote to pride. For there is no nature whatsoever that is evil; in fact, "evil" is nothing but a term for the privation of good.

St. Augustine, The City of God, book XI

Christianity's leaves, flowers, root, and fruit

The rules and rituals of Christianity are not its core, but its leaves. Joy, the kind of joy that none of life's contrarieties can diminish, as the lives of countless saints from every walk of life so powerfully attest to, is its flower. But its root is God's love, and its fruit is God's love lived out in the humdrum routine of daily life by the followers of Christ.

John Bartunek, The Better Part