Light Number Four

Rise up in splendor! Your light has come, the glory of the Lord shines upon you. See, darkness covers the earth, and thick clouds cover the peoples; But upon you the LORD shines, and over you appears his glory. Nations shall walk by your light, and kings by your shining radiance. (Isaiah 60:1-2)

I was asked last year to write an article on the Advent Wreath for a parish newsletter. It was never published. But, here you go:

The Spirit and the bride say, "Come.” Let the hearer say, "Come.” [Rev 22:17a]

Please ask yourself, “Can I genuinely pray from the heart, ‘Amen! Come Lord Jesus!’ as John the Apostle did?” It can be difficult. For many of us, our lives are comfortable. We all have times of stress, anguish, and unhappiness, but most of us are not ready to trade the life we know for the tribulation of the Second Coming. Fear of this is understandable. But that fear can be replaced with “joyful hope” through the pious observance of Advent.

What would Easter be to us were it not preceded by the journey of Lent, walking with our Lord to the Cross? So too, Advent is the key to the preparation for and appreciation of the Incarnation, manifested by a birth in the poverty of refugee lodging. God the Son condescended to become man. Imitate Him during this much-neglected penitential season.

A simple, traditional devotion to aid your family’s liturgical focus is the Advent wreath. Place the blessed wreath at the center of your dinner table. After the family has gathered for the meal, turn off ALL the lights. Before the meal blessing, light the candles, one each for that particular week of Advent. The lighting should be accompanied by prayers, Advent hymns, or readings (made more challenging by the dark, of course), customized by your family’s preferences.

From our faith, we know that we live in a world of darkness and Christ is our only light [Jn 1:3-5]. But our eyes adjust to the darkness, and we can fail to recognize our need for the Uncreated Light. This nightly devotion provides us a perspective on reality. The burning candles become for us, “…a symbol of the prophetic light gradually illuminating the long night prior to the rising of the Sun of justice.” [Directory on Popular Piety, 98]. The subdued light draws the family together and reminds them of Whom is at their center, and that they too are refugees until the day they behold the Eternal Light, gathered with their true family for a feast beyond imagination. After four weeks, even children will anticipate the Infant Jesus more than Santa Claus.

Whether He’s descending the clouds, placed in a manger, or lifted by the hands of a priest, you and your family will welcome the Divine Guest in your heart, and pray with grateful longing, “Come, Lord Jesus!”

For resources on this and other family Advent devotions, visit our Gift Center and view the Advent Workshop at www.catholicculture.org.

A Good Lesson for Advent

This post from the Acton Institute, along with the documentary trailer, really struck me:

Just over a year ago, I traveled with the Acton Institute to Rwanda in preparation for a new project on poverty. Although we were there primarily talking to entrepreneurs about wealth and poverty, it was impossible not to have questions about the 1994 genocide. In less than 100 days, nearly one million people were murdered and tens of thousands were responsible for these deaths. Flying into the country with that knowledge, a mere 14 years later, I didn’t know what to expect. I was anxious and unsettled, the same sort of tension that I felt while visiting Tim’s body at the funeral home. The weight of death stood in stark contrast to such a vibrant culture.

Genocide destroyed Rwanda — socially, economically, and politically. After some measure of stability was restored, the new leaders needed to find a way to further return order and rebuild the infrastructure that was lost. Punishing the murderers and enacting justice was immediately a problem. How do you uphold justice when the guilty are too many to count? The small, landlocked country didn’t have the prison space to lock up all of the killers. With an overwhelming backlog of court cases and little hope of full reparation, Rwanda’s leaders tried something revolutionary. Incarceration and execution were set aside in favor of reconciliation. Beginning in 2003, over 50,000 killers who acknowledged their part in the genocide were released and reintegrated back into society. The doors were opened for genocidaires to live side by side with the surviving members of families they had destroyed.

Advent should help us to face the ugliest elements of our lives, reminded of the shortness of our time to fill the valleys and make low the hills. The Gospel of Gaudette Sunday contains a stark note of caution regarding the One, "...Whose fan is in his hand, and he will purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his barn; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." Few things can focus the need for repentance like examining those in extreme situations:

Filmmaker Laura Waters Hinson jumps headlong into the tension between the justified victim and the repentant killer. Her hour-long documentary, As We Forgive, tells the personal stories of two women struggling to forgive the men who took their families from them. Hinson also shares the testimonies of the men, wracked with grief and remorse, as they do their best to find forgiveness and rebuild trust. With the help of Rwandan mediation groups, the victims and killers meet face to face in an
attempt to reconcile.

There is nothing forced about the forgiveness process Hinson exposes in As We Forgive. She simply uses the camera as a window through which the audience watches it unfold. The story follows Rosaria, who has already forgiven the man who killed her family. Her journey in the film is one of re-building trust. I liked Rosaria immediately and was amazed by the peace and gentleness that flowed from her, despite the incredible hardships. But not so with another woman, Chantal, who has no desire to meet the man who wronged her. The pain she suffered is tangible and forgiveness is nothing compared to the justice she feels she deserves. Hers is a story of deep grief and a desire to withhold forgiveness.

I will never forget the personal stories I heard from the survivors of the genocide during my visit. The stories of the killers, however, were not told nor did I ask to hear them. Hinson, on the other hand, has the insight to recognize the importance of the guilty men’s accounts. Both men describe the darkness that overcame them and how the weight of their actions has affected their lives. Their burden of guilt is heavy and, although terrified to meet and interact with Rosaria and Chantal, both men do whatever they can to redeem themselves.

Anyone else have trouble forgiving those in the family who squeeze the toothpaste from the top of the tube?

Check out the whole post - I think it's a timely subject. While you're doing that, I'll head out to check Home Depot and see if they rent bulldozers. I've got to ramp-up my leveling project.

Next mystagogue project - avoiding the "righteous anger" crutch. [Oh, how I love that one :( ]

UPDATE - I notice that the author of this post is a new contributor to the Acton Institute blog. She's got an interesting video of her own on Rwanda and poverty. Check this out:

Thoughts on Poverty. from Tabitha Blanski on Vimeo.

An Old Standby

Okay, so Andy and I are lazy mystagogues. Just add a "z" to the title, and you begin to figure out why we couldn't get jobs as writers (and that's before you actually read this stuff we post).

Since I'm lazy, but still want this blog to be active, and still want all three of our followers to remember that we haven't fallen off the face of the earth (I saw Andy last night, and he's doing fine), I will let St. Alphonsus Liguori guest blog. After all, when you can't think of anything to blog about (probably because there is too much going on to narrow down a coherent thought - granted, a coherent thought would be new for this blog, but it is still a goal) go to a timeless classic.

Have you hugged your mother today?

M

y dear Queen and Mother, Mary, I will address thee in the words of St. Germanus : "Thou art omnipotent in saving sin­ners ; thy prayers are all-powerful with God, because thou art the mother of true life."—Serm. iii. in Dorm. B. V. Then, O my mistress, if I have recourse to thee, all my sins cannot make me despair of salvation. Thou obtainest by thy prayers whatever thou wishest. If thou prayest for me I shall certainly be saved. I will then say to thee with St. Bernard : Pray for me, who am so miserable, O great Mother of God, for thy Son hears thee, and grants whatsoever thou askest (Depr. ad glor. V.). I am indeed a sinner; but I wish to amend my life, and I glory in being specially devoted to thee. I am, it is true, unworthy of thy protection; but I know that thou hast never abandoned any one who has placed his trust in thee. Thou art able and willing to save me, and I trust in thee. When I was in the state of perdition, and forget­ful of thee, thou didst think of me, and didst obtain for me the grace to enter into myself. How much more ought I to trust in thy mercy now that I am dedicated to thy service, and that I recommend myself with confidence to thy prayers! O Mary ! pray for me, and obtain for me the grace to be a saint. Obtain for me holy perseverance ; obtain for me a great love of thy Son, and of thee, O my amiable mother! I love thee, O my Queen! and hope to love thee always. Do thou also love me, and obtain for me the grace that I may be transformed from a sinner into a saint. - Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Preporation for Death, Consideration XXXII

Thanks for guest blogging Doc. Come back soon!

Defining Moment?

You have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thy enemy.  But I say to you, Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you:  That you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who maketh his sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust.  For if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? do not even the publicans this?  And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more? do not also the heathens this?  Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect.  (Mt 5:43-47)

Timing is such a mystery.  Today, at about the same time (give or take a few hours) thousands, if not millions, of people in our country were offering the sacrifice of our Lord for an end to abortion, a gunman was entering a Lutheran church to turn a notorious abortionist into a martyr.  What are you up to Lord?

I often ask that question.  I appreciate the fact that He tolerates such questions from finite creatures.

A few things come to mind.

1.       -- The murder of George Tiller will be manipulated to silence the pro-life movement.  He is now the trump card to silence all debate, today and for the next 20 years.  Here are the “facts” that the pro-death mentality will make the following assumption, which they do in many cases:  Criminals, like this gunman, aren’t really responsible for their own actions.  Sociological elements cause such behavior.  This gunman, therefore, is the product of the groups that promote the idea that abortion actually kills a human being.  So if you oppose abortion, you are encouraging acts like this.  DON’T BE SILENCED!  PUT THEM ON THE DEFENSIVE! It's important to understand that these people have a self-serving agenda, and explaining to them a thousand times over the next ten years that you don’t condone the murder of abortionists plays right into their hands.  Don’t play that game.  “So, are you accusing me of murder?”  Make them answer that question, yes or no.  Don’t let the conversation go any further until they give you a definitive answer.  If the answer is “no”, then they have no business linking your pro-life views with the actions of a terrorist.  If the answer is “yes”, then you need to call a spade a spade.  “Maybe in your Orwellian universe it is murder to support the lives of unborn children, but that stands to reason, since it was similar logic that allowed, and continues to allow, millions of unborn children to die year after year.”  Counterattack the logic in short-order.  Abortion proponents have been waiting for this moment to turn the tables on the pro-life movement.  They wont’ let it pass.  Don’t run.  Meet them head on.  And whatever you do, do not wear this man.  Make the abortion advocate wear their lame attempt to silence and brand you.

2.      -- The murder of unborn children happens silently, while abortionists get front page attention.  By my count, this is 6 abortionists and their staff to be murdered since 1993.  In that same time period, there have been about 20 million unborn children killed in their mother’s wombs by surgical abortion.  Every life is precious to God.  So we cannot simply write-off six lives as insignificant.  But neither can we ignore the disparity.  Being an abortionist is dangerous, but much less dangerous than being an unborn child.  Keep this reality in mind as the media targets the pro-life movement.

3.      -- Do you take our Lord seriously when he tells you to love your enemy?  Well, here He is presenting an excellent opportunity.  Tiller is a particularly egregious foe.  His participation in needless late-term abortions means that this man brutally killed many helpless children at a stage in life when they were unmistakably human.  This is about as cold-blooded as it gets.  Did he die in his rebellion or did he receive final mercy?  We don’t know.  His particular judgment is likely over.  But our God is not bound by time.  We can pray now that this man repented at the moment of his death and was spared eternal fire.  Both God and Satan want his soul.  I don’t think it does us much good to side with Satan on anything.  So please, offer prayer  that Tiller be granted eternal joy, as well as all his supporters in the pro-death camp.  Rosary, Mass or Divine Office intentions would be best, but offer something for this poor soul.  That’s about the only love we have left to offer George Tiller.  But at least it is something, and it may make a difference for him. 

It’s important to remember in times like these to avoid cynicism.  “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself.” (John 12:32) God seems to be littering our world with crosses.  A person of faith, as we all should be, should gaze out on those crosses and praise God for drawing the world closer to Himself.  That is his promise, and that should be our hope.

As always, act as a Christian should.  The murder of George Tiller could be a defining moment in the pro-life movement.  Will we go forth or retreat?  Stay faithful, and you put the definition on this moment.  Don't let the pro-abortionists and one lunatic terrorist do it for you.

We've just celebrated the mass of Pentecost.  Now is not the time to hide the truth, but proclaim it without fear.  "The Spirit of the Lord fills the whole world. It holds all things together and knows every word spoken by man, alleluia." (Wisdom 1:7, Introit for Pentecost)

Update: Jeff Miller has a roundup of some reactions from Catholic bloggers.  While you're praying for Tiller, remember also his grieving family.

The Sky is Falling!!!

This unresting anxiety is the greatest evil which can happen to the soul, sin only excepted. Just as internal commotions and seditions ruin a commonwealth, and make it incapable of resisting its foreign enemies, so if our heart be disturbed and anxious, it loses power to retain such graces as it has, as well as strength to resist the temptations of the Evil One, who is all the more ready to fish (according to an old proverb) in troubled waters.

Anxiety arises from an unregulated desire to be delivered from any pressing evil, or to obtain some hoped-for good. Nevertheless nothing tends so greatly to enchance the one or retard the other as over-eagerness and anxiety.  - St Francis de Sales, Doctor of the Church, Introduction to a Devote Life, Part IV

Light blogging this week.  Well, make that no blogging until now.  Why?  I have to admit that my attitude this week would have been something very wrong to share.  Anxiety has been hard at work on me.  Work has been about as stressful as I can remember.  And the news lately?  I know it can get worse, but this steady drip of death news is sucking the atmosphere dry of hope.

Let’s see, where to begin?  Everything Obama has been bad news.  Thanks to the chance discovery of uncounted ballots in Minnesota (and those chance discoveries always seem to favor the party of death) and the betrayal of a pro-death Republican in Pennsylvania, the president now has the rest of this congress to alter the fabric of America for generations.  And not just our country.  He also wants to export modern American family values to countries that just aren’t aborting their kids fast enough.  Kathleen Sebelius gets in without a wimper thanks to a potential swine flu epidemic.  And now we have a vacancy on the Supreme Court that will be filled by someone even more radical than Obama, not that Justice Souter was any picnic (thanks a lot HW). 

And what’s to turn the tide?  Obama is in the oval office thanks to a growing electorate of the unmarried.  In 2007, 40% of the births in the United States were illegitimate.  Courts are dictating gay marriage, and no one revolts?  This nation has forgotten that the primary purpose of marriage is for the procreation, support, and education of children.  Now marriage is all about self.  So even though the people still instinctively know something is wrong with gay marriage, they can’t argue why without sounding like a bigot.  In two generations, who will be left to explain the purpose of marriage?  Two generations ago, people instinctively knew abortion was wrong.  Four generations ago, people instinctively knew contraception was wrong.  Slowly, sometimes not so slowly, this Culture of Death is claiming our country, a nation that was once portrayed as that “shining city on the hill.”

What’s to turn the tide?  The institutions that saturate our secular culture and influence minds and behaviors are all on the side of this brave, new America.  Entertainment media, news media, corporations, education at all levels – how is one to avoid the groupthink that sex, materialism, and uber self-esteem is the key to happiness?

So I think you get the gist of my anxiety this week.  Bleak prospects at work, bleak prospects for the future of this country (not to mention all the other countries unfortunate enough to follow our lead) and, not mentioned previously, an inordinate number of friends, family and co-workers are going through tough times with employment, sickness, and other tragic circumstances.  Anxiety.  That doesn’t make for an interesting blog post.  Nor a beneficial one.

The Blessed Mother’s Immaculate Heart will prevail.  I know that, with all my heart I know that.  Christ is the victor, and I’m on His side most of the time.  But it is such a challenge to see the decline of goodness in our time and have faith that God will bring about a greater good.  My faith is weak, therefore, I fear.

But the Lord’s mercy is never exhausted, even for those of weak faith.  Today, I have a reprieve.  I failed to pray for it.  In fact, my prayer life slipped mightily during the last week.  Nevertheless, He’s granted a reprieve, and it came though my marriage and the fruit of that marriage.  It came from a child.

I usually say a rosary or chaplet in my car or listen to talk radio on the way home.  I really didn’t feel like praying today (**Alert – I am aware that this is the best time to pray.  Thanks for thinking that anyway**), nor did I want to increase my anxiety by listing to other people complain about what’s going on.  That might alert me to something I didn’t know, and ignorance is preferable in my situation.

I’m weak, so I turned to a source designed for people in my state.  Pop music.  While commuting home from work, to take my mind off the misery of this week, I turned to the music that has made a considerable contribution to the Culture of Death.  To my credit, I dialed away from most of the songs that were too ME ME ME ME ME focused, but a few of them slipped through, like Jesse’s Girl, and Tonight and the Rest of MY Life (I only know the chorus to that song, and listening to the rest, I got the impression that Nina is signing about being a demon.  How’s that for the soul!).  I got to sing along to one of the great sap songs in history, “Honey you!  Are my shining star.  Don't you go away.”  (Don’t worry, that song ain’t going away from any of the heads of you blessed readers.  He he.)  You just have to sway along with that one.  And I got to chill to a Counting Crows song I’d never hear before, but yet I had, if you know what I mean.

And then I had to gasp as I’m sort of singing along to Man on the Moon (“sort of”, meaning my ears cannot discern what Michael Stipe is singing most of the time) and discovered, for the first time, that the song takes silly cheap-shots at organized religion, modeled no doubt by the Catholic Church.

Well, at least it ended on a high note.  A song about anxiety came on the radio.  It’s a song called Overkill, one I used to sing along to in my adolescent years.  This was a version I’d never heard before.  This was Collin Hay solo, just him and his guitar.  Very nice, and very apropos for the mood.  I sat in the driveway until it ended.

Then I entered the house singing.  Don’t worry, my family is used to it.  “Day after day, it reappears.  Night after night, my heartbeat shows the fear.  Ghosts appear and fade away.”  My daughter, bless her, hugged me as I walked in, and listened to me sing as I made my way to the kitchen toward my wife. 

“Daddy, what song is that you're singing?”

“It’s an old song called Overkill.  It’s by a group called Men At Work.”

“Are we going to sing that at Mass?”

My wife and I just about died laughing.  Anxiety gone!  And it hasn’t returned.  Thank you Lord! You truly stoop to conquer. 

(For those of you who don’t get the irony of a five-year old asking if we will be singing a pop song called Overkill at the mass, you obviously aren’t on the All Are Welcome-Gather Us In-City of God-Canticle of the Sun-We Are Called five-week cycle.  You didn’t get it, but that’s okay, because you already have so much)

In your mercy keep us free from sin and protect us from all anxiety as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ. – Roman Missal

Go Fish

The "Spirit of Vatican II" (or SVII for short[see update below]) takes a blow in the diocese of Steubenville. The American Papist has details:

Okay, technically, Catholics in the US are only allowed to dispense from the year-round Friday abstinence from meat if they substitute a comparable penance for it ... but in practice, the vast majority of Catholics have forgotten to even do this. Bishop R. Daniel Conlon, however, has dispensed with the substituting ... and has instead brought back the simple Friday abstinence from meat in his diocese. I especially respect that he ties this sacrificial abstinence to witnessing for the unborn and providing them with concrete assistance:

"I am inviting the Catholic people of the Diocese of Steubenville to resume the practice of abstaining from meat on all Fridays throughout the year, but with a twist. I am asking that this be not only a penitential practice but also an experience of prayer and service. This can happen by connecting abstinence with our witness to the sacredness of human life. (In another section he says: Abstinence can also be service if we eat simple meatless food and donate the financial savings to the poor or to pro-life efforts.)"

I've heard detractors of Friday abstinence say that it's not that much of a sacrifice. In fact, this is true. But neither is saying three Hail Mary's after confession. It doesn't have to inflict pain in order to be a sacrifice. Man cannot make a sacrifice of his own worthy of our Creator. God takes small sacrifices, like plain bread and wine, and gives us Himself in return. What's good about Friday abstinence is it reminds us that we're Catholic. It's a devotion that causes one to make different choices, to plan in advance, and to have to mortify one's appetite from time to time. One does not disrupted something as routine as eating without recalling why, and it becomes an offering, small as it may be. Additionally, it reminds others that we're Catholic. Just today, I had a person at work count me out of pizza for tomorrow for this reason. He informed me that Lent was over despite being certain that I already knew that.

I know the dispensing of Friday abstinence had little to do with Vatican II, at least officially. But this is clearly one of the fruits of that SVII. Most of those fruits seem to be directed toward the shedding of our Catholic identity, be it liturgy, music, prayer, devotions, vocations, theology, or attitude. And like all the other dominoes that fell, it leaves those of us who grew up in the post-conciliar years scratching our heads. After all, they didn’t really dispense with Friday abstinence. They allowed it's dispensing only in the case of a willful substitution of penance. But no one knows that! Well, some people know that, but if you will allow me to generalize, this amendment to Friday abstinence was universally misunderstood. I guess my annoyance at liturgical abuses is misplaced when we can’t even get a simple precept of the Church correct. How could the shepherds of the Church allow this ignorance among the faithful?

Well, maybe they had other fish to fry.

Good for the Diocese of Steubenville! I pray that the faithful get behind this. If they do, other episcopates may follow Bishop Conlon's lead.

UPDATE - For clarification purposes, I'm not an advocate for ignoring Vatican II.  Quite the opposite.  So I am clear - Vatican II was guided by the Holy Spirit.  The term "Spirit of Vatican II" is what is coined by liberals to do and to advocate anything they want.  It is a spirit of infidelity, and has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit. 

Time to Get Holy

In his apostolic letter "NOVO MILLENNIO INEUNTE" or "At the Beginning of the New Millenium" (written over eight years ago :shock:), among paragraphs 30 and 31, Pope John Paul II wrote:

"I have no hesitation in saying that all pastoral initiatives must be set in relation to holiness."

Did you read that? All pastoral initiatives must be set in relation to holiness. Our wonderful Pope, John Paul the Great, was writing to the universal church stating that all pastoral initiative must be set in relation to holiness.

How much have you heard about holiness at your parish? Do Catholics really know that they are called to be holy? Why aren't we hearing about this kind of thing more?

Someone asked him, "Lord, will only a few people be saved?" He answered them, "Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough. After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door, then will you stand outside knocking and saying, 'Lord, open the door for us.' He will say to you in reply, 'I do not know where you are from.' And you will say, 'We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.' Then he will say to you, 'I do not know where (you) are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!' ~ Luke 13:23-27

How many times have we passed this passage by and ignored it or shoved it aside because it was too difficult? How can getting to heaven be hard? Especially when we have all these sacraments and this apparent "formula" for getting to heaven. Yet here we hear about people eating and drinking in His company and Jesus teaching in their streets. Is this not exactly what we are getting at each mass? Jesus is addressing this to members of His Church - and telling them that the way is narrow and many will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough - and simply showing up at mass two times a year, every Sunday or even every day is not enough.

What does Jesus mean when he says that we are not strong enough? Many protestants believe that they don't have to do anything once they "are saved", why would they have to be strong to enter heaven? Many Catholics believe that simply observing the sacraments, if even in a mechanical way, gets them to heaven, what does that have to do with being strong?

The fact is, both erroneous "beliefs" have nothing to do with being strong. There is something more needed. And the Bible tells us what that is:

This is the will of God, your holiness. Therefore, whoever disregards this, disregards not a human being but God, who (also) gives his holy Spirit to you. ~ 1 Thessalonians 4:3a,8

The word "holiness" actually in a way means "strength" or "stability". Being holy is being strong, and this is the strength we need to enter heaven.

How do we become holy? It’s a process. We need to pursue God with our whole heart, persevering in prayer and working to grow both in love for Him and in virtue. Pursuing God alone will not gain us the strength we need to enter heaven; we cannot make ourselves holy. But it does demonstrate to God that we love him, that we truly want to be holy, and He then will give us what we need in our lives to make us holy, and the grace to become holy, and the therefore the strength to open the gate.

I found a wonderful series of talks, provided (partially) for free by the National Fellowship of Catholic Men and the Catholic Men's Fellowship of Pittsburgh, concerning St. John of the Cross and his collected writings. St. John of the Cross wrote four works which all concern growing in holiness. John Paul II was profoundly influenced by this great doctor of the church. This is required listening.

• Talk 1 of 6: Transformation in Christ - A Saint for the New Millennium: the Life, Work and Vision of St. John of the Cross


• Talk 2 of 6: Transformation in Christ - Beginning the Journey: Our Response to God's Call


• Talk 3 of 6: Transformation in Christ - The Providential Role of Trials and Dryness


• Talk 4 of 6: Transformation in Christ - Our Response to Spiritual Blessings


• Transformation in Christ - The Remaining Talks (Discs 5 and 6)

The last two talks you have to buy. The six disc set is $30 including shipping and handling. I think if you just start listening to the series you will realize what a deal this is.

Please pray for me that I may grow in holiness, and for all Catholics to take up this universal call to holiness.

Soul Train

“Where there is no knowledge of the soul, there is no good: and he that is hasty with his feet shall stumble.” Proverbs 19:2

As your proto-typical lay mystagogue, I often spend a good twenty-to-thirty seconds pondering the deep mysteries of the faith.  One that has gripped me the last several weeks is my soul.  My soul, which is supposed to magnify the infinite God.  My soul, all of which is supposed to love God.  My soul, which said, “The Lord is my portion.  Therefore I will wait for Him.”  So much that we do as Christian faithful is for the soul, this thing that makes us living, immortal, and in the image of God.  Yet, I don’t know my soul.  I know my big hammer-toe, the odd dimple in my forehead, and my compulsion to eat cold hotdogs with ketchup right before retiring to sleep.  My soul, I must confess, I know only what I’ve been told, and that, unfortunately, hasn’t been much.

Knowing what’s good for the soul yet not recognizing the soul itself is where I find myself.  If only this wonderful gift from God would show up in some way.  Maybe then I could work harder for it.  Then I could see the damage I do when I sin.  Maybe then I could see the good that I do when I fast.  As a sinful, self-centered guy, I crave confirmations.  I want to be holy, just so long as it doesn’t get in the way of my own pleasure.  But maybe if I could see my soul in the mirror, or feel my soul in the nerves, or in some other way sense the soul, I could sacrifice.  I could measure progress with my senses, then I could recognize the benefit for myself and thus have a strengthened will to do what is right.

Now I know what you’re thinking after reading this (all three of you who read the blog) – “You’d be a whole lot better off if you started thinking about something other than yourself.  Like, maybe, hmmm, I don’t know…  God?”  And you are absolutely right to think that.  That is my problem.  That’s the core of my problem.  And I’m really good for those 20-30 seconds thinking about other people; my family, my friends, suffering children, things like that.  But it always seems to come back to me eventually.  I have trouble concentrating, which is why my blog posts tend to ramble. 

Now, back to the soul.  As the proverb says, where there is no knowledge of the soul, there is no good.  To state the obvious, that’s not good.  So what’s my problem?  Why can’t I connect to this spiritual gift that is an integral component of me?  Tonight I was out watching the kids as the sun was setting, reading a few pages from Pope Benedict’s book, written under the pseudonym Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, The Feast of Faith.  He gives me a clue to this problem.  Actually, he strips me naked:

Psychologists tell us that our rational, everyday consciousness is only the surface of what makes up the totality of our soul. But we are so hounded by this surface awareness that what lies in the depths can no longer find expression. Ultimately man becomes sick for sheer lack of authenticity; he no longer lives as a subject: he exists as the plaything of chance and superficiality.  This is connected with our relationship to time. Our relationship to time is marked by forgetting. We live for the moment. We actually want to forget, for we do not want to face old age and death.  But in reality this desire for oblivion is a lie: suddenly it changes into the aggressive demand for the future, as a way of destroying time.  However, this romanticism of the future, this refusal to submit to time, is also a lie, a lie which destroys both man and the world.  The only way to master time, in fact, is the way of forgiveness and thankfulness whereby we receive time as a gift and, in a spirit of gratitude, transform it.

All three of you reading this blog – please pray for me that I might find my soul.  I’d like to find it before the day comes that my soul is all I have.  I think the more I know my soul, the more pleasant that day will be.

Happy Birthday Papa.  You are truly God’s gift to the Church in our age. 

Bless the Lord, all his works: in every place of his dominion, O my soul, bless thou the Lord.  Psalm 103:22