The Light is On- My Edits

The Archdiocese is doing a great campaign: "The Light is on for You" encouraging people to return to the sacrament of confession. Every church in the archdiocese will have a priest available for confessions every Wednesday night during Lent. Awesome!

This is the website they are using for FAQ's and frankly, I don't think it will have anyone jumping out of their seats to get to the Church. So for my own amusement, I came up with my own edits for the first two questions, which betray my CL leanings toward speaking to experience.

Why should I go to Confession?

Because you know that you need to. Because sometimes when it is quiet, like before you go to sleep at night, you remember something you did, something you said, or something you thought that day that you regret. You do something during the day and you think to yourself, “Why do I keep doing that? I hate that.” You want to be free. You want to tell someone that you are sorry. You know that you cannot change yourself by just willing to be better; You’ve tried that. Christ left us this sacrament as a very special place of His Mercy. You come before Him and bear your soul. You tell Him things that you have never told anyone and you are assured that He still loves you. Like the father in the story of the prodigal son, God our Father comes running to embrace you. For this Christ came and walked among us; That we would know the love of the Father right there where we most fear His gaze. You should go to Confession because the one you love, who loves you, is just waiting for you to call out to Him.

Why do I have to confess my sins to a priest?

You have to confess your sins to a priest because you are human. As a human being it is not enough just to pray silently and “think” that you are forgiven; You must hear the words. You must be in the presence of Christ in the priest who says “I absolve you from your sins”. You will have no peace without those words; You will always wonder if God has heard and pardoned you. Confessing to the priest also acknowledges that the sin you have committed has not only offended God but has also hurt His Body, the Church. It has hurt your spouse, your children, your best friend. The priest is a representative of this Body as well, of all those you love and still hurt. He forgives you for the community.

The Desert Knows

Read this amazing homily by Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP that was linked on Open Book.

Excerpts:

Lent is not about avoiding temptations. Lent is not about fasting or prayer or being good. Lent is about wandering into the emptiness, the vanity, the wreckage we have made of our spiritual lives and finding one more time the stalwart presence of God, the inexhaustible workings of the Holy Spirit. Seeking and finding the face of Christ.
(...)
Lent is a time for you to calculate with cold reason and a clean heart your commitments in this world. Where are you bound? To whom do you owe your money, your livelihood, your dignity…your soul? Who owns you? What ideas possess your mind? What passions fuel your heart? What images cloud your vision? What do you worry about and why? Here’s the question with which to examine your conscience before confession: exactly how would anyone know Jesus owns me body and soul?

Know the answers! You must. Because the desert knows and the desert will tell. The desert will tell the Devil and he will color in those drab images, season those dull fumes, stoke the fires of weak passion. He’ll parade your desires, sharpened and concentrated, parade them before you, lying to you, pampering you, telling you how much you deserve what you cannot possibly need and only vaguely want. When those ashes were traced on your forehead…at that moment, what did you want? Mercy? Forgiveness? Love? To be seen as pious? You will find it in the Lenten desert. But will your desires look like gifts among all that scarcity?

Pay careful attention to the gospel. Jesus went into the desert to pray, right? No. He went into the desert to fast, right? No. He went into the desert to start his new diet? No. Of course, he prayed and fasted. But he didn’t go into the desert to do those things. Rather he “was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days to be tempted by the devil.” He went to the desert so that he could be tempted. The devil tempted him with food, power, and worship. Jesus refuses each in turn. He quotes scripture and dismisses each temptation as a mere shadow of what His Father offers. The devil offers Jesus illusion, impermanence. And he will offer you the same. And you will accept his offer unless you understand with near perfect clarity and will what you want, what you desire as a faithful follower of Christ.

Lent is not about avoiding temptation. Lent is about walking the hot sand of deprivation so that what tempts you worms its way to the surface. (...)

Congratulations!!!

What a beautiful new addition to a beautiful family!

That is the "Mother's Smile" all right :)

Fred Kaan knows his stuff

The Hymn for today's morning prayer is amazing:

We turn to you, O God of every nation,
Giver of life and origin of good;
Your love is at the heart of all creation,
Your hurt is people's broken brotherhood

We turn to you that we may be forgiven
For crucifying Christ on earth again.
We know that we have never wholly striven,
Forgetting self, to love the other man.

Free every heart from pride and self-reliance,
Our ways of thought inspire with simple grace;
Break down among us barriers of defiance,
Speak to the soul of all the human race.

Teach us, good Lord, to serve the need of others,
Help us to give and not to count the cost.
Unite us all for we are born as brothers;
Defeat our Babel with your Pentecost.

Ave crux, spes unica

First I encourage you to read Jim Towey's latest post on Lent.

And to help your meditations this season on our crucified and dejected Lord, a little quote from Adrian Walker:

"I suspect that, like Jacob, all serious Christians sooner or later find themselves struggling with the crucified God in the night. If they remain Christians, it is because, just when they think they have beaten him with water-tight arguments, he surprises them with an unexpected move. They suddenly catch sight of the glory shining in his despised and humiliated countenance, and that is enough to dissipate all their objections in a single blaze of light."

I have certainly had periods in my life of wrestling with God, and was glad to find this reflection based on Jacob's wrestling match in Genesis at the beginning of a paper on faith and philosophy.

A handful of JPII students and alums watched the French film "Diary of a Country Priest" based on the book by George Bernanos the other day. Dr. Schindler commented that he thought Bernanos captured the essence of Christianity more than anyone else- with the possible equal of Dostoevsky. The film was a faithful adaptation (so they say- I have not read it yet!) and it truly is 2 hours of relentless drama. Not drama as used in the American sense of action-packed [at all], but rather the drama of an intensely-lived life in the midst of "not much" happening. Here you are faced with a priest who is so transparent, humble and true, that just like the other characters in the story, you see your own wretchedness. A great way to start off Lent. It especially convicted me of the need for more silence.

I hope that you are all starting off Lent well. I have already "messed up"- I did not wake up on time today. Thank God that this is a time of mercy, and is not in the end about what I can "do". Tomorrow, 7am.

Crossroads

Part of CL's work in NYC and DC is Crossroads, a cultural forum. Check it out here. And on the sidebar I added the blog, presumably done by the group in NYC.

It is a great work that seeks to bring people together for discussions of events, experiences in art and music, or really anything else that can rightfully be called culture.

Like a Child

Grass and I went to a puppet show last weekend with these two precious 4 year olds. This was an old bumper car that they wanted to sit in.

One of the girls was staying with the other that night, and she kept asking, "Lacy, are you happy that I'm sleeping over at your house tonight?" If only we all wore our desire for the assurance that others love us on our sleeve like that!! Maybe I'll start asking everyone now, "Are you happy that I work here?" "Are you glad that I am living here with you?" "Do you like me?" "Do you like spending time with me?" Presuming that the answer is yes, we could all be much more secure and happy :) Now, whether adults can handle such honesty remains to be seen.

Do you like reading my blog?

:)

I heart Jim Towey

President of St. Vincent College in Latrobe, and good friend of Sisters Grass and Water. He has a blog for his students!

Doctors know it all?

I remember the first time that an acquaintance of mine began medical school and I realized that he was going to be a doctor in a few years. A doctor. This person I knew. And the only thing that would change is that he went to school for a few more years.

That is the point at which I knew that doctors are not omnisceint. In fact, not even close.

We've all been in school, right. And we all know that schools have agendas, many teachers have their own agendas, and all these things effect what you hear in your classroom. And sometimes books aren't right either. They are all written by people, who learned from teachers, who had agendas too. And particularly in the medical field, the pharmacutical industry is totally and completely invested in what future doctors are going to prescribe to their patients, so their agendas come into play as well in the classroom.

All this is to say that if someone is suggesting that maybe birth control is not the best answer for you, do not dismiss them because they don't have a medical degree. Remember what a medical degree means. I'm not saying doctors are not intelligent- I certainly couldn't make it through med school- I'm just saying they are human and thus not infallible. That's why you go to get a second opinion about any big medical decision, right?

As usual this is prompted by the MP Evaluations. There are always a few women who write that they can't do NFP because they have a medical condition that requires the pill. And immediately I think of all the work that some doctors are doing in this country to really investigate fertility/ reproductive problems verses immediately presribing the pill for a quick fix. That's our modern mentality. But there are usually more natural ways to help women if you are willing to treat each person individually and listen to what is going on, which is not what many doctors do. And probably until they meet a doctor who does do that, many women will not even know that they should be listened to. I want to say to all those women- make sure that your doctor is listening to you, and do some research on your own to see what else might be possible, if there is any part of you that wonders about taking a pill everyday. And, if it is supposed to just regulate what your body does naturally, there's no reason not to learn more about what it is doing and how you can tell.

One small example. A friend of mine was pregnant. They gave her a due date which she thought was a little off. Using her NFP chart, it was pretty simple for her to say "Look, I know when we conceived" but the doctors did not listen to her. Pretty soon, they were saying that the baby was too small and they needed to perform all sorts of tests to make sure everything was ok. And once again, my friend thought this was very wrong because babies in her family tend to be quite large. So finally she got a midwife to look at her chart, to humor her. And sure enough, when the midwife calculated the due date according to my friend's calculations, the baby was exactly the size she should be for her stage of development. No extra tests needed.

I'm just saying that doctors don't know everything.

Another marriage prep eval note

Don't misspell misogynist. If you're going to use a strong word like that about someone, you look pretty silly if you can't even spell it.

Writing big and in all caps isn't effective.

The REAL world is... what exactly?

The Tale of 2 Marches

A Tale of Two Marches (Thanks to Kateri!)
by Tony Perkins

What a difference an ideology makes. Last Monday, 200,000 pro-lifers descended on the nation's capital to peacefully protest 34 years of abortion-on-demand. Despite record crowds and a line-up of speakers that included President Bush by phone, the March for Life earned little more than a footnote in the nation's news. Days later, radical anti-war protestors staged a march in Washington that mustered only 10,000, and the event made the front page of nearly every newspaper in America. Yet for all the media the small demonstration received, few news outlets reported the true headline of the day. According to reports, hundreds of demonstrators were allowed to take the steps of the U.S. Capitol during the march and desecrate the property with "anarchist symbols." When police formed a security line to stop them, U.S. Capitol Police Chief Phillip Morse ordered his men to fall back and allow the protestors to "exercise their First Amendment rights" by spray-painting the Capitol grounds with graffiti. One source at the scene said that Morse issued an order that no one was to be arrested for desecrating America's and arguably the world's greatest symbol of democracy. In an e-mail on his actions, Morse writes, "The graffiti was easily removed by the [Architect of the Capitol] staff... It is [our] duty and responsibility to protect the Capitol complex, while allowing the public to exercise their [freedom of speech]." Imagine the response had Christians "trespassed" onto this public property and prayed for our leaders! I dare say the outcome would have been quite different.


I happened to be downtown the day of the war protest, and I was struck by a number of things. First was the way that the people seemed to be conforming to their own stereotypes; i.e. a war protester from 1970. Now, I happen to love dressing in hippie skirts and scarves and such, but I would probably make it a point not to do so at a protest if I knew I would just be taken as a dismissable hippie. A second thing was the violence of some of their messages and the banality of others. (One guy was walking around with a sign that said hugs not war, "free hugs"- so people would go and hug him all day) Okay. Third was the number of people who were ice skating after their protest. I'm not kidding, we were there taking our youth group to the sculpture garden and the place was PACKED and sold out because of all the "protesters". Now I don't know if people from the March for Life went ice skating after the march, maybe they did, but somehow I doubt it. Usually people who come for it are staying in churches or have holy hours or talks or maybe go to a pub afterward for conversation. It's usually at least somewhat penitential (ok, maybe not reeeeally penitential, but not ice skating!). There is a lot of ideology going on in BOTH these things, and I think that's important to note. That's why I hate the speeches at the March for Life- It is ideology for a lot of those people. But it is truth to many others (a distinction worth making). There is also a sense at the March- unless you're with the ideology people- that you are not completely innocent in this; Your sins are part of the reason that you have to be there. Hence the reparation. But I got a sense of self-righteousness exuding from the war protest crowd. It's not their fault; It's all Bush's fault. They had nothing to do with the war and because they are so upright and noble they have come out to tell him to go to hell. Because THAT is right and respectful and appropriate. And it made me sad to hear the 5th through 8th grade kids in my youth group spouting all this stuff, directly from their parents of course, about how Bush is the most evil man in the world, and on Halloween one of them dressed as Dick Cheney because he wanted to be really scary. Lord have mercy. What a disservice it is to children to indoctrinate them into political ideology before they can even judge it. It reminds me of the scary fact from the last election. While many "conservatives" could understand and sympathize with some of the reasons an intelligent person would vote for a "liberal"; very few "liberals" could understand the other side at all, and in fact were violently offended by it. There is no attempt to really enter into an issue and seek the truth together, there's just a back and forth about opinion.


Back to this article, it really is astonishing the way that the media manipulates the truth. Lately I have heard this so many times and it is solidifying my lack of desire to watch the news. Unfortunately that also makes me quite ignorant on a lot of issues, but I guess I'd rather be ignorant than completely wrong and misdirected. A priest I have met recently returned from Iraq and had all kinds of stories about his time there that people will never hear because journalists there have been told that nothing positive will be published or aired. Nothing. Do you remember that streak of bombings at churches? It was happening so frequently and then just stopped dead- Did you ever wonder why it just stopped like that? Did you think maybe the bombers just got bored? This priest I met and a Chaldean priest he met over there searched the area to find all the Christian churches- the locations of which had not been known- so that security detail could be sent to each of them. Definitely didn't hear that. Thus ends today's rant.

Ecumenical Swing Dancing?

This weekend, a few friends and I went swing dancing at a great spot where you're guaranteed not to stand still unless you really want to. Lots of great dancers and a fantastic band.

By far the most memorable was when a man I was dancing with started asking about Catholicism and we went back and forth for 4 or 5 songs (still dancing) talking about Jesus, confession, the Real Presence, authority, divorce, zeal and the Holy Spirit. You never know when you'll be asked to give a reason for your hope, my friends! That Baptist is on his way to the Church. Veni Sancte Spiritu, veni per Mariam.

It reminded me so much of Guissani's statement that Christianity is spread by envy; Others recognize in Christians a humanity and a life that they desire for themselves. This man was already Christian, but I think it still applies.

54 Days until St. Joseph's Feast Day!

And time for hardcore phase one of the annual wretched novena to our patron. A rosary every day until March 19! If you can't do the whole rosary, pick a decade. If you can't do a decade, say a "Hail Mary". Whatever you do- or don't do- unite it to the rest of us. Happy praying!

Happy Birthday Sr. Sea!

I tried to post a picture of Lucy playing ping pong with Matt, but blogger is not in a happy mood this afternoon.

Happy 24th, my friend!!!! May it bring an increase in love, joy and peace in Christ.

Giussani wisdom

"Mercy is the attitude of the Mystery towards any kind of weakness, mistake or forgetfulness on man's part: before any crime committed by man, God loves him."

Read more!

Marching, marching, marching

Yes indeed, one more year has passed, and abortion has been legal in all of the US for 34 years.

But the March itself, well, you might have read my post about it 2 years ago. I'm not a huge fan, even though I went. There's just a lot of ickiness and ideology and misunderstanding of what is really going on. You must ALWAYS skip the speeches because they are awful and offensive. But it is the Catholic family reunion. Every year, I run into a young priest that I knew briefly when I was in high school and he was in the seminary. I saw our Sr. Rain in the sisters of life, and ran into Sr. Leaf who I haven't seen for almost 2 years. Of course it's nearly impossible to purposefully run into anyone, but when you don't expect to see someone, there they are.

By far, the highlight of the day for me was the youth rally and mass at the Verizon center. If you have never gone, I highly encourage you to volunteer next year or bring a group of kids to it. The energy and the unity of the Church in the Holy Spirit is just palpably present when you're in such a huge crowd of teens who are doing hand motions, the slow motion wave, and dancing and singing to the Lord. Hand motions may not be your thing, but I'm telling you, they are a freeing thing to do! And I think I need to give a talk to most of the seminarians who attended and sit front and center; They had better let the JOY of the LORD into their hearts, learn to dance, and not stand silent and boring! That was sad!

The most powerful moment for me was when I was leading 6 priests to their communion stations where I had "trained" a teen to stand and direct the people. I was actually given the grace to feel the truth that I was leading the Lord to His people. "Come this way, Jesus; they're waiting for you." And it was beautiful to look into the eyes of people on the way who understood that. Especially this one mom who was out there in the lobby and kneeled earlier after the Lamb of God- she was certainly too far away to even see the host from there, but kneel she did. Right there where usually people are pushing to see a fist fight at a hockey game or watch a pick-and-roll play in basketball, the Meaning of it all walked and gave Himself, once again, to thousands of souls who probably do not understand Him. I know I'm one of them!

How beautiful the feet that walked...

Interreligious Dialogue

I went to a forum this week about "the primordial relationship between God and the human person in Catholicism and Islam" and it was certainly illuminating. A few quotes from different people that I think sum it up:

"You can't help but feel a little triumphalistic."
"If this man is supposed to be the Islamic intellectual equivalent of Cardinal Scola, we are in trouble."
"I never realized how Pelagian Islam is."

and on the other hand, a priest who had been involved in this all day:
"I can see why so many Christians are converting to Islam; It is so simple, direct, clear and easy."

The two presentations were emblematic of the two very different ways we understand the world. No matter how many times you want to stress similarities and acknowledge our common brotherhood, you also MUST acknowledge difference.

Scola's paper, which was provided to all participants, was a brilliant and sweeping synthesis of the Catholic understanding of God's relationship with humanity through Jesus Christ. After 2 years of studying just that, I still left with new thoughts to chew on. Professor Siddiqi, formerly the President of the Islamic Society of America, gave us a rough overview of what Muslims believe on the topic... and it was not much. It is simple; God created us. Adam and Eve sinned. (b.n. there is not a concept of original sin in Islam; rather, we all simply follow their example- we are born with a pure nature and are naturally able to know what Allah wants from us, so it's not clear at all why we would sin anyway, or why Allah would be merciful to such people) Human beings are called to surrender their will to Allah and turn to him. We both believe in a God who created the world and should be praised and obeyed. We both believe God's law is written on our hearts. But there was just too much left unsaid. At the end, Cardinal Scola said about 5 HUGE issues he would like to ask Siddiqi but did not want to make him answer, i.e. the relationship between freedom and truth, reason and faith, and the like. Scola started his lecture with the human heart, with the perennial human questions "Who am I?" "Why do I exist?" None of these seemed to be part of the understanding of Islam. If Siddiqi was truly listening, I think he would have had to object strongly to what was actually being said.

Scola: Jesus Christ is the center of the universe and of history.
Siddiqi: Jesus Christ is one of the 25 prophets we acknowledge and respect.

How are these two reconcilable? At least state that. Interreligious dialogue does not mean skimming over differences. It means seeking to understand the other as a person and their beliefs as what shapes them. It means somehow allowing the difference to be fruitful- like in man and woman.

Pursuit of Happyness

I can only go to movies with JPII Institute students, or people who just "get" us weirdos.

We got in a discussion at lunch about this movie, and somehow in a group of daily mass and Jesus-loving Catholics, the particular weirdness of my education reared its (beautiful?) head.

From the desire to be understood, Jesus deliver me!

The premise of the movie is distinctly American: the triumph of the human spirit, the benefits of perseverance, the greatness of taking a big risk and seeing it pay off against all odds.

What did I expect? I guess I had hoped for something deeper than I got. There are directors in the world who could do great things with a story like this-- a man who keeps failing even to the point of being homeless with his son but lands an internship and subsequently a very prestigious job as a stock broker. A good artist could make a lot out of that.

Instead, the message was that happiness is found in dollar signs. That you should risk everything for the sake of a dream even if it involves risking your marriage, even your life.

The arguments of many today and many others are all valid and interesting. It is amazing and cool to see how someone could just go for something big against all odds and especially for someone without a college degree to know they can still be successful. It showed a man who would do anything to make sure that his son knew his father.

But is it ok, really, for a bright and intelligent man to allow things to get so bad that his wife is working double shifts while he still tries to sell medical supplies (his first job- I hope you've seen it or this won't make sense)? He certainly could have gotten at least a part-time job to help them get through while he wasn't selling much. Pride.

And is it ok that his marriage was torn apart and his wife left him and their son? Yes, it was her decision to leave, but she was pretty desperate and you could see that the frustration had been building up after a long time of "pulling more than her weight" to take care of them. Chris's passion that his son not grow up without a father should have also translated into a passion that he not grow up without a mother either.

The first scene when he sees all the stock brokers and says "They were all so happy" I figured was going to lead to him realizing in the end that happiness did not lie in money like he thought. Nope, not the lesson. The last scene is him crying with joy because he got a high-paying job. That's it. Money IS the answer to happiness. There were plenty of opportunities for the film to suggest that happiness did not lie there, and that even rich people had struggles. Nope. Their lives are perfect in their box seats at football games and fancy cars. Shallllllllow.

And finally, in the end, besides the main character, the only faces of homelessness in the movie are the stereotypes. I've heard this called a "social work movie"; No, it's not a social work movie. You don't learn anyone else's story. The only other homeless character who is recurring is a typically crazy one used for comic relief. It would be one thing if that was intentional and for effect (i.e. when you're homeless you feel invisible, just another face in the crowd) but it wasn't done that way. It doesn't ask any questions about that. It also doesn't deal with the question of why Chris did not have any friends or family around. If you're going to treat his character as if he's the orphaned only child of poor parents, you at least should explain that, and that still doesn't help explain why he has only 1 friend who owes him $14.

Luckily I saw the movie with Sr. Morning who shared the same quandries. And I'm starting to think that I can't even go to the movies anymore.

We will never be normal again, my friends.

Our Poor Clare sister!

Check it out, the monastery is online, and they're seeking help for our Kirsten! (Thanks Dawn!)

Children are connected up there

Read these excerpts from an article in Faith & Family and feel the tears welling- thanks to blog friends!