August 2016

New Evangelists Monthly - August 2016

New Evangelists Monthly - August 2016

Forward

...about this eBook

All of Pope Paul VI's Warnings About Artificial Birth Control

BIG C CATHOLICS by Matthew Coffin

Our 2016 Cross Country Travels by the Numbers

Campfires and Cleats by Chris Capolino

Eight reasons God's mercy helps us forgive ourselves

JOY Alive in our hearts by Nancy Ward

10 Reasons I Can Not Vote for Trump (or Clinton)

Catholic Stand by Birgit Jones

19 Years Ago We Said "I Do" and 19 Special Marriage Mementos...

A Slice of Smith Life by Tracy Smith

Romanticism, Feminism and Misandry

LMS Chairman by Joseph Shaw

Standing Firm in Faith with Love

Kitchen table chats by Denise Hunnell

You will be with me in paradise today

Catholicism and Adventism by Stephen Korsman

The Papacy But Not This Pope

If I Might Interject

A prayer book with a little whisper from yours truly

Peace Garden Passage by Roxane Salonen

A Lesson and a Cure

by Tony Agnesi

Taking Your Little People to Church = MASSive Victory!

Little Douglings by Carissa Douglas

Scales from My Eyes

Journey to Wisdom by Deacon Paul Rooney

Ashley Judd, Trump and a Personal Take

Catholic365

Required Reading

God-Haunted Lunatic by Rick Becker

I Wish

Harvesting The Fruits of Contemplation by Michael Seagriff

Padre Pio's Prayer for the Church

The Shield of Faith by Frank Rega

The Role of Suffering in Discipleship

Bartimaeus' Quiet Place by Bartimaeus Timeo

The Scent of Her Presence

Theologyisaverb by Elizabeth Reardon

The Kids Need a Bed Tonight

It Makes Sense to Me by Larry Peterson

Favorite Marriage Quotes

Plot Line and Sinker (Ellen Gable, Author) by Ellen Gable Hrkach

What God has Joined, Let No One Divide

Your Holy Family by Allen Hebert

Accepting Forgiveness

Bible Meditations by Barbara Hosbach

God gives us more than we can handle

Third Place Project by Mike Landry

Surviving Difficult Days

Pauca Verba by Fr. Stephen Morris

It Can't Be That Bad!

Castle Keane by Mary Keane

Why I WANT My Toddler to be Angry

Under Thy Roof by Kirby Hoberg

Everything I'm Not: Responsible Parenthood

Sweeping Up Joy by Alicia

Those Darn Catholic Politicians

Quiet Consecration by Leslie Klinger

Ascent

With Us Still by John Schroeder

When God Says Wait

by Carolyn Astfalk

Two Watershed Moments

A Spiritual Journey by David Wong

Alito: "Those who value religious freedom have cause for great concern."

Leaven for the Loaf by Ellen Kolb

When God Dies

Renew The Church Blog by Thomas and Deborah Richard

His Eyes on Us

bukas palad by Fr. Adrian Danker

A 'Chance' Meeting at a Local Store Makes a Huge Impression

Catholic Conundrum by Christina Nagy

Friday, August 5, 2016

Daily Reflections by Robert Collins

Pervasive Weeds

Shifting My Perspective by Claire McGarry

Has Pascal's Wager Really Been "Debunked"?

Nisi Dominus

Remember Who The Enemy Is

Only A Mere Woman by Jenn Tatum

How My Grandmom shrunk her world is a lesson for Us All!

A Moment From De Sales by Fr. Richard DeLillio

Distributism vs. Globalism

Practical Distributism by David Cooney

Jesus (blue background... finished)

Grace to Paint by Sister Maresa Lilley

Why I Don't Use Contraception: A Man's Perspective

A Couple of Catholics by Pat and Nicole Padley

A Plea for Healing (but only if you want it)

Mere Observations by Jeff Walker

Fear and Trembling

The Accidental Organist by Catherine Prady

Our Lady of America

by Tom Perna

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

The Koala Mom by Bonnie Way

How do we, as people of faith, respond to such relentless evil?

Brutally Honest by Tom Zampino

When we tribalize conflict, we create a tribalized society. It's that simple.

Brutally Honest by Rick Rice

On Moral Dilemmas and Not Giving Up the Ship

Backs of People's Heads and Baby Faces by Katie O'Keefe

Saint Maria Goretti: Her Influence on Me

by Virginia Lieto

Prayer Hacks: Turn your day job into a prayer

The Salt Stories by Amy Wiggin

Novena for Our Priests and Deacons

Veils and Vocations by Jennifer Elia

Starmus v. Festival of Creation

Justin's Corner by Justin Soutar

Discernment and the Spark of Conviction

by Margaret Felice

St. Ignatius and His First Principle and Foundation

Creo en Dios! by Susan Stabile

Scripture says that we are saved by...

Catholic365 by De Maria

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Forward

New Evangelists Monthly is an informal, dynamic, crowd-sourced “meta-magazine” showcasing the best posts faithful Catholic bloggers publish each month. Here you will find many different, but faithfully Catholic viewpoints, insights and perspectives.

Contributing authors submit their very best piece from the prior month between subsequent first and second Saturdays. Readers are welcome to visit anytime, even while contributions are still being accepted for a new issue. Back issues are available in the archive.

eBook editions such as this are available within a few days following submission deadlines (the second Saturday of each month). eBook formats include .mobi for Kindle users, .epub for most other eBook readers and .pdf for everyone else.

For the latest edition of New Evangelists Monthly, or for more information about this New Evangelization initiative, visit us at:

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COPYRIGHT NOTICE:   Regardless of where you enjoy New Evangelists Monthly, either online or in this format, note that copyright is exclusively retained by the respective contributing authors. If you wish to use or redistribute any of their content, please contact them directly for licensing information.

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All of Pope Paul VI's Warnings About Artificial Birth Control [at BIG C CATHOLICS]

July 25th marks the 48 year anniversary of the publication of Pope Paul VI's landmark encyclical

Humanae vitae

(Of Human Life: On the Regulation of Birth). It reaffirmed the Church's teaching on the immorality of artificial birth control, the meaning/purpose of conjugal love between husband and wife and the sanctity of marriage. The encyclical was greeted with criticism in many circles, but was applauded by others, including St. Padre Pio, who days before his death

conveyed his support in a letter to Paul VI

.

Pope Paul VI’s seventh and last encyclical, in addition to affirming the Church’s long held prohibition against artificial contraception, articulates a vision of marriage and responsible parenthood that underscores the immense dignity and divine calling of husband and wife. Paul VI spoke of marriage as "the wise institution of the Creator to realize in mankind His design of love" (HV 8). Marriage properly understood, is the conjugal union of a man and woman for life, of exclusive and mutual fidelity, for the procreation and education of children. The dual purpose of sexual union is unitive: the bonding of spouses in greater love and intimacy, and, procreative: to collaborate freely and responsibly with God in the transmission of human life so as to be open to the blessing of children.

In addition to discussing the joys and challenges of matrimony, Pope Paul IV enumerates four consequences should the Church's teaching on contraception be dismissed. They are: infidelity and moral decay; a loss of respect for women by men; the abuse of power and; unlimited dominion, the coercive use of reproductive technologies by governments. (The text from

Humanae vitae

cited below is from paragraph 17 of the encyclical.)

1. Infidelity and Moral Decay

Five decades after

Humanae vitae

's release, the number of divorces, abortions, our-of-wedlock pregnancies, and sexually transmitted diseases have skyrocketed. Paul VI's observation that: "Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards," has only grown more prescient with the passage of time.

2. Loss of Respect for Women by Men

Even when women were second class citizens, their role as mothers, wives and nurturers was widely valued. Every effort was made to honor and protect their virtue. With the advent of artificial birth control, men increasingly view pregnancy as their female partner’s responsibility and refuse to marry even after fathering children. Paul VI's words have proved to be prophetic. "Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection."

3. The Abuse of Power

Paul VI contends that the widespread acceptance of contraception would be a "dangerous weapon... in the hands of those public authorities who take no heed of moral exigencies." Many parts of the world face underpopulation; whereby the birth rate is far less than the number of deaths annually. Such societies face "demographic suicide" amid an "anti-child" mentality that discourages large families and putting children ahead of career. Paul VI predicted public authorities embracing such a mindset:

"Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law... Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? ...

It could well happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may give into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife."

4. Unlimited Dominion

Test-tube-babies, gender reassignment surgery, frozen embryos, and the passage of euthanasia laws all reflect our attempts to conform nature to our desires instead of cooperating with it. Paul VI's insight presages these developments: "Consequently, unless we are willing that the responsibility of procreating life should be left to the arbitrary decision of men, we must accept that there are certain limits, beyond which it is wrong to go, to the power of man over his own body and its natural functions—limits, let it be said, which no one, whether as a private individual or as a public authority, can lawfully exceed."

A Reason for Hope

Paul VI makes a positive observation about the good that comes from following Church teaching on contraception. While acknowledging that spouses may face difficulties acquiring the self-discipline needed to practice periodic abstinence, he nonetheless affirms such self-discipline is possible, with the help of sacramental graces. In paragraph 21, he states:

"For if with the aid of reason and of free will they are to control their natural drives, there can be no doubt at all of the need for self-denial. Only then will the expression of love, essential to married life, conform to right order. This is especially clear in the practice of periodic continence. Self-discipline of this kind is a shining witness to the chastity of husband and wife and, far from being a hindrance to their love of one another, transforms it by giving it a more truly human character. And if this self-discipline does demand that they persevere in their purpose and efforts, it has at the same time the salutary effect of enabling husband and wife to develop to their personalities and to be enriched with spiritual blessings. For it brings to family life abundant fruits of tranquility and peace."

Paul VI's positive vision of self-discipline between spouses is further explicated by Saint John Paul II in his Theology of the Body. Moreover, the proliferation of information and interest about natural family planning and its increasing use among Christians of every denomination is proof that it is a viable alternative to artificial contraception. Paul VI's vision of married love is a powerful response to the excesses and moral depravity of the "Sexual Revolution."

This contribution is available at http://www.bigccatholics.com/2016/07/all-of-pope-paul-vis-warnings-about_24.html
Copyright is retained by the contributing author (follow above link for info on this piece).

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Our 2016 Cross Country Travels by the Numbers [at Campfires and Cleats]

Since returning from our two and a half week cross country 
camping trip...coast to coast...

New York to California, with 

maaaaaaaany 

stops in between for

natural, historic, literary and, 

of course, generally f-u-n sights,
there's so much to record here and share with you!

Thought I'd start with a basic run-down 'by-the-numbers.'

I'm kind of a list person, as you know, and so to journal about

the adventure, initially, checklist-ish, is a  pretty good way

 for me to keep a handle on the  details for myself
 as well as sharing some of the moments

big AND little, with you all!

Oh, there are blog posts aplenty to come!

Pictures, reviews of places and sites,

commentary of the journey!

I think I've "enough"  blogging posts stored up for 

q-u-i-t-e some time!

So here goes~

 18 days

duration of the trip

1,344 

pictures taken~

Don't pnic....I won't share all of them!

24 states 

visited...or at least driven through!

 1 day of rain

Wow, were we lucky!

Took this photo from the car as we neared Oklahoma City 

on our second night out

47 license plates spotted!

My younger son kept a tally.

He is still missing Alaska, Delaware and Rhode Island.

(Yes we did actually spot a Hawaii plate!)

8,721 miles driven

coast to coast

23 gas tank fill ups

2 times 

crossing the Golden Gate Bridge on foot!

18 national parks,

monuments, battlefields visited

Yosemite National Park in CA

12 wacky or unique  sign pictures

Not as many as in previous travels

Lost track of

the number of times I panicked that I would not be able to get out of the Grand Canyon

on day two of our hike ascending this natural wonder of the world

 See all those faint "markings?"

Those are trail switchbacks that we hiked to get down and back

 from rim to Colorado River and back to rim.

 10.3 miles

down and 10.3 miles back up again--

on the South Kaibab Trail from the Grand Canyon's south rim

to the Colorado River at Phantom Ranch and back again.

9 1/2 hours

time it took us to ascend the Canyon trail.

We left at 2 AM and arrived at the south rim at 11:30 AM.

The first two hours were magnificent.

The last 7 1/2 were hell.

14

Roadside geology lessons

Given by my hubby, 

who's an earth science teacher and geology enthusiast

Only 2 drives down Lombard Street

(left, taken from the car.

Right, after I jumped out and ran down the street 

to get a shot of the van ON Lombard)

50 million years Age of these Knightia fish we discovered while digging at Ulrich's Quarry in WY.

 1 box of graham crackers / 

1 bag of marshmallows/ 

1 package of Hershey's chocolate bars

   eaten up for our s'mores~!

5

number of times that someone actually asked us if we are homeschoolers

because our children are "so polite and outgoing!"

Really.

Talk about making our day!

 0 flat tires or auto breakdowns!

Yay

7 times

 someone asked us

 NOT

"Where are you from?"

BUT

"What part of NY are you from?

Do we really sound that New Yawkish????

Hmmmm

 And then 1 of those people told us he was surprised because we're

not how he'd picture NYers.

Is that a compliment?

 1

song sung,

 as we left our campground each morning:

(Thanks Willie)

But sometimes, 

< depending on how everyone was getting along. >

8 loads of laundry

 once we arrived home

~Unquantifiables~

~pounds of rocks the hubby brought home for his classroom

( and his own kids!)

But not from the national parks, of course, whose slogan is,

"Take only pictures; leave only footprints."

~memories

Unscheduled, unhurried, unplugged memories

I'll be back with lots more soon

                                                                 Friends, as always,  

thank you for stopping over and 

spending some of your precious time 

here at my home on the web!

Have you signed up to receive my posts in your email inbox?

   If not, just enter your email address here

so we can be in touch regularly!

Enter your email address:

        You might wish to follow on Facebook as well.....

This contribution is available at http://campfiresandcleats.blogspot.com/2016/07/on-road-again-our-2016-cross-country.html
Copyright is retained by the contributing author (follow above link for info on this piece).

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Jesus, The Consoling Christ by Bernard Plockhorst (WikimediaCommons)

God’s mercy abounds. We see it in all the sacraments as he breathes new life into us at Baptism and Confirmation, feeds us in the Eucharist and forgives us in Reconciliation. As I wrote in How God gave his gift of mercy through me, he brings us into challenging circumstances and allows us to be merciful beyond our capacity.

He never stops giving us opportunities to heal as I wrote in How God’s mercy gives us second chances. We can ask for his mercy in every situation that needs his forgiveness, and expect healing to follow.

St Augustine said that forgiveness is what happens when we “surrender our natural desire for revenge.” How do I ask for and receive God’s mercy in forgiving myself for my failings? For the hurts I’ve caused others? Sins confessed, forgiven by others and God that still haunt me?

I get to the point where I’ve forgiven everyone else and stopped wanting to hurt them for hurting me. Then I realize the next step is to forgive myself, but it’s hard to expect to heal when I know myself and my failings so well.

Refusing to punish myself

I know that forgiving myself doesn’t mean believing my excuses and allowing myself to continue doing what’s wrong. It means refusing to give into the temptation to punish myself for having failed. Using the wisdom of St. Francis deSales and St. Augustine, Dr. Greg Popcak in a blog post on Patheos taught me the folly of this approach. Dr. Popcak writes that in Introduction to the Devout Life, St. Francis de Sales, “notes that our sins tend to be a flawed attempt to make ourselves feel better.”

Therefore, the worse we make ourselves feel about our sins and failings the more likely we’ll be to sin again in that same pathetic attempt to make ourselves feel better for having sinned! It is a vicious spiritual cycle. If we were to apply Augustine’s formula for forgiveness to ourselves, we’d have to say that forgiving ourselves means surrendering our natural desire to hurt ourselves… for having hurt ourselves. Think about that a minute. How quick are we to heap pain on ourselves for having hurt ourselves? Does that even make sense? How is that supposed to help?”

Applying God’s mercy

What helps is God’s mercy, applied to ourselves. Here are eight reasons to forgive yourself and stop hurting yourself:

God loves you just as you are. Yes, he really does! Still, he wants you to grow spiritually. When you block his love with unforgiveness you hinder his grace from reaching you.

We enter heaven through a series of doors of forgiveness. His forgiveness of our sins. Our forgiveness of the sins of others. Our forgiveness of our sins. Don’t hesitate at the last door.

We are all cells in the Body of Christ. When one of us is broken, through sin or self-condemnation, we weaken the whole body and everyone suffers.

When we accept God’s forgiveness, we show our trust in him. When we don’t accept his forgiveness by forgiving ourselves, we show dishonor and distrust.

When we withhold forgiveness from ourselves like a punishing parent, we set ourselves above God, the highest authority and final word on forgiveness.

When we don’t forgive ourselves for how we hurt others in the past, we put a barrier between God’s healing power and us.

When our conscience prompts us to forgive others, we know how to forgive them and seek the Sacrament of Reconciliation. If we leave the confessional without peace, we can pay attention to our restlessness of conviction and let it prompt us to forgive the self-accusations already forgiven by others and God.

When we say that we forgive ourselves and yet don’t take any action to change our attitude about ourselves, we are not seeking or accepting the power God gives us to forgive.

Three components of effective apology

We can use the three components of effective apology to help us let go of the desire to hurt ourselves for having hurt ourselves. We ask for God’s mercy to help us

Understand how we have hurt ourselves and give us empathy and compassion for ourselves.

Make a plan of action to be merciful to ourselves.

Recognize that we can treat ourselves better. We have a right to do stop hurting ourselves and heal with God’s grace.

God wants to give us his mercy and free us from every impediment to loving him wholeheartedly, including being at peace with ourselves. With our cooperation in receiving his mercy, he will do it.

Which of these eight reasons is hardest for you to accept and act upon?

(© 2016 Nancy H C Ward)

This contribution is available at http://joyalive.net/8-reasons-gods-mercy-helps-us-forgive/
Copyright is retained by the contributing author (follow above link for info on this piece).

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10 Reasons I Can Not Vote for Trump (or Clinton) [at Catholic Stand]

The political season is upon us and we would be hard-pressed to recall one that was more acrimonious. Division has been sown in families, churches, and the public square. Unlike the sort of division foretold by Jesus, in reference to who would or would not follow Him, this division is solely of this world. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have garnered their positions as presidential candidates. Notwithstanding some unforeseeable circumstance, they will represent their respective parties. Unlike other election cycles, however, neither candidate is suitable to lead our nation. There is no need to enumerate the problems with Mrs. Clinton but, due to a fancy political sleight of hand, the trouble with Mr. Trump needs some deeper delving.

Trump is a Political Chameleon

During the 1970’s Stephen Stills penned the folk song ‘’. Listening to the lyrics, it comes to mind that this would be a fitting theme song for the Trump candidacy. One has only to listen to his speeches to various demographics to realize that there is a definite change of position depending on his audience.

Love the One You’re With
Stephen Stills

If you’re down and confused
And you don’t remember who you’re talking to
Concentration slips away
Cause your baby is so far away

…but if you can’t be with the one you love,

Honey, love the one you’re with

His Own Words Contradict Him

Trump is a confusing speaker. While he utters words of being pro-life, he champions Planned Parenthood and speaks of the many good things they do. Perhaps the good things PP reportedly does can be debated, but a true pro-life advocate will be able to tell you in a heartbeat that ending the life of an unborn child cannot be absolved by doing other good works. Yet the newly coined pro-life candidate. Trump. then went on record with a decidedly pro-abortion statement, “Laws are set” on abortion. On the one hand, Donald Trump promises to select pro-life Supreme Court Justices while at the same time advocating that his pro-abortion sister would make a great SCOTUS addition.

The Lessor of Two Evils Is Not a Valid Reason

Let me be perfectly clear. Hillary Clinton presents a morally bankrupt option for the American voter. The myriad unethical positions she holds need not be repeated here. Yet Trump is not a morally sound alternative. He has so many positions that teeter between what we want to hear and his former self that there is little question that he is a moral wild-card at best. When we also consider his rampant misogyny, long history of racism, jokes about the , and shady business dealings we find Trump to be just another unacceptable candidate.

The maxim, “Two wrongs don’t make a right” comes to mind. None of the above are a valid, morally sound choice. Remember that there are more than two choices, the two party system has become corrupt as the lines defining them have blurred. We, who are of the Kingdom of God, do not owe allegiance to any earthly power.

Trump is a Loose Cannon

Ever the boisterous boor, Trump has made a living from his bully persona. From ‘ you’re fired’ to playing fast and loose with businesses, he presents quite the quandary when it comes to electing an honorable leader. A temper tantrum with other world leaders during a delicate negotiation does little to illicit any hope of the national security our country’s needs.

Having Abortion Exceptions Makes Him Pro-Choice

Abortion exceptions are nothing more than a pro-choice stance with fewer choices. That child, marked for death because of the sins of her father, has just as much right to live as do her lovingly conceived peers. How does one explain 40+ years of pro-life posturing on the part of our representatives and still little headway for these innocent victims? Apparently, the incremental approach has been little help to those children conceived by rape or incest.

Trump Is In It for Himself

Being an opportunist doesn’t make you a just leader, it makes you me-centered. One thing Donald Trump has never done is shy away from exposing his greedy underbelly. He is proud of his conquests – whether they are businesses or women. As one who proclaimed never to have felt the need to confess guilt, it is doubtful that Trump would find a way to lead unselfishly. As a “Close the deal” businessman, his fortune has been made off the backs of those who served a useful purpose.

I Am Only Accountable for My Own Vote

When judgment day comes, we won’t be asked about the political strategy we employed. What will be asked of us is how faithfully we discerned our actions according to the commandments of God. Life is not to be reduced to a chess match. My one vote will not make the difference but if many of us took the hard route and voted for a Godly candidate, the result would be a Godly leader. It is the fear of not playing the worldly game that keeps good citizens on the track of voting for bad candidates. As long as a truly grassroots uprising fails to grow, we will continue to get what we deserve – candidates going from mediocre to worse.

No, Refraining from a Trump Vote is Not a Vote for Hillary

A vote for a third party, writing in a candidate, or refraining from voting for a presidential candidate is just that. It is not a vote for Hillary Clinton. If you find yourself vehemently shaking your head in disagreement, please read this delightful analogy using cookies and poets.

Trump is a Democrat in Republican Clothing

Although he has donated to both parties, Donald Trump has donated more to ultra-liberal candidates including, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Hillary Clinton. He was also a Democrat until he saw that his best shot was to run as a newly minted Republican. While he was a Democrat, Trump embraced the entire anti-life, anti-God platform of the Democrat Party. A convenient candidate, who opportunistically jumps ship, does little to instill confidence in this voter’s mind.

One Presidency Cannot Repair the Damage That Took Decades to Create

The only Savior this world has ever seen – or will ever see – is Jesus Christ. The faulty thinking that seeks to justify a vote for Trump is impossible to realize in real life. The litany of problems faced by our nation – healthcare, terrorism, financial ruin, loss of religious liberty, commercialization of women and sale of unborn baby parts – will take decades of righteous leadership to undo. Donald Trump is not the person to begin the pilgrimage down that path.

Even if a moral champion was elected, years of Congressional failure would have to be addressed as well. Instead of placing all of our hopes in one candidate, we should address the moral failure of all representatives. Accepting empty speeches and backtracking leaders has been the norm far too long. Every vote should be carefully discerned by moral standards. Hold the feet of our representatives – from dog catcher to president – to the fire of righteous judgment. Isn’t it time to aspire to be led by those who lead us to salvation?

This would be a good to time ponder, “What would we get if Trump won?” Within the answer lies the source of my trepidation. Based on the facts garnered about Trump, there are certain conclusions to be drawn. What we would get from a Trump presidency will not be like anything we have ever had before – because Trump is unlike any candidate we have ever had. His positions come from a position of power. Morals and ethics are not really given a seat at his table.

How terrible would it be to have the strongest pro-life/moral plank ever in the GOP platform and then have a president wh0 adhered to it even less than any previous one?

This contribution is available at http://www.catholicstand.com/10-reasons-can-not-vote-trump/
Copyright is retained by the contributing author (follow above link for info on this piece).

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19 Years Ago We Said "I Do" and 19 Special Marriage Mementos... [at A Slice of Smith Life]

It's July 12 again which means another wedding anniversary for my husband and me!  
19 years?????  Hard to believe!  

If you have followed my blog awhile, these pictures and even this post may look familiar since last year on our 18th wedding anniversary this was my post. (Copy and paste is a wonderful tool, especially when I should be doing a million other things besides blogging!)  But, hey I love the post so much, why not keep reposting it? 

We just got back home from a great family vacation to MD, PA, and MA.  In MA we celebrated my Aunt and Uncle's 50th wedding anniversary with a Mass where they renewed their wedding vows and then we had a dinner and lots of dancing!  Celebrating a 50th wedding anniversary with family was a great way to lead into our anniversary week!   I hope to blog about our trip soon! 

Ok, now on to this special edition of A Slice of Smith Life...our anniversary post with 19 special mementos...

19 years ago today we made a covenant and said "I do!".

Together, hand in hand, we have shared so much since first meeting on the beach in 1992.

Today we celebrate our marriage of 19 years.

This wonderful journey has been filled with many memories, blessings, trials, and joyful tears.

With 5 blessings, I continue to love growing old with you!

Everyday with you is a gift and so much fun too!

Happy Anniversary to us! I love you!

Memento 1: This photo of the church's ceiling is one of our favorites. The photographer captured this beautiful shot during our wedding ceremony. 

On our way to the reception after our ceremony

Since my hubby and I met on the beach we had a beach themed wedding cake complete with realistic-looking and delicious candy seashells cascading down the cake. The cake was so beautiful! She also made the shells so realistic that some of our wedding guests would not bite into them because they thought they were real seashells!

A close-up photo of the candy shells on our cake. Thank you Nancy for your beautiful cake art!

On top of our cake was this cross uniting 2 wedding bands placed in the candy coral. This cross is now hanging in our home as a constant reminder of Who keeps our marriage and love strong.

Two are better than one: they get a good wage for their labor. If the one falls, the other will lift up his companion. Woe to the solitary man! For if he should fall, he has no one to lift him up. So also, if two sleep together, they keep each other warm. How can one alone keep warm? Where a lone man may be overcome, two together can resist. A three-ply cord is not easily broken.  Ecclesiastes 4: 9-12

In our home we have wedding momentos hanging or displayed in various locations. I always enjoy looking at them as a constant reminder of our marriage promises and gifts. To celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary I thought I would share 18 wedding momentos that are dear to us that decorate our home and 1 photo that shows something special my husband made for me. :)

Warning: long post with even more pictures.  I feel like I'm back 19 years ago as I make this post so scroll down fast if you don't have time to read everything and walk down memory lane with me.  Plus, 19 years ago I wasn't blogging, but if I was, you can be sure I would have our wedding posted in more detail and pictures :) 
Memento 2:  This is a pre-wedding picture that I thought I would throw in here.  This was taken on the beach in July 1995, two years before our wedding.  

Memento 3:  We have this poem hanging near our kitchen/dining room and it was written by my mother-in-law one night in the middle of the night when it just popped into her head, as she explained it.  She surprised us with this framed poem and read it to us at our rehearsal dinner.  She scanned my husband's and my foot prints from our birth certificates and placed them onto the poem.  Anthony's prints are in the top left corner, while mine are on the bottom right. We will treasure this gift always and it's one of my favorite wedding gifts! 

It reads:  God Knew...

God knew what He was doing when He made these little feet.  

He knew it would be our destiny that someday we would meet. 

He knew that we would fall in love and eventually wed.

He knew the path we would follow and in His foot steps our feet would tread.  

Memento 4: Here is a Marriage Prayer that was a wedding gift from one of our friends (who is now a priest).  We have this prayer hanging in our bedroom and I love its simple, yet meaningful words.

It reads:  Lord, help us to remember when we first met and the love that grew between us.  To see the good within the other, and to solve our problems.  Help us to say the kind and loving things and to ask forgiveness of the other.  We put our marriage in your hands.  Amen.  ~N.V. Pearle

Memento 5: This was a gift that we have hanging in our bedroom...an apostolic blessing from then Pope John Paul II who is now Saint John Paul II!   

Memento 6: Here's the church ceiling picture, as posted above, framed on our wall.  I love this picture so much it gets two memento spots on this post! :) 

  Memento 7: Going to the reception photo in a glass frame

Memento 8:  My wedding portrait taken by my Dad who is a professional photographer, but he hired his photography friend to take our wedding.

Memento 9:  Mr. and Mrs. Smith at the altar

Are you still with me?  Halfway there! ...  :)
Memento 10 & 11: Our wedding invitation that my parents framed for us.  Our invitation has seashells on the border to go with our beach themed wedding.  I edited the bottom of it to distort some location details, hence the funny looking print :)  Our wedding album sits on our dining room buffet and occasionally I'll see our children flipping through it. 

Memento 12 & 13: I love this bride and groom plate painted by our friends from college.  On the back of the plate they accidently wrote "Love one anoter" so we all had a good laugh about that.  I love the plate for the fact that they took time to make it so cute and unique with it's own "unique" spelling :)  The white candle is decorated with our wedding invitation that was glued on by a relative and given to us as a gift. We light it each year on our anniversary. 

Memento 14 & 15: Our unique starfish frame that was gifted to us that holds a picture of us cutting our wedding cake at the reception.  In the background is a picture of flowers that are popular in St. John Virgin Islands where we went on our honeymoon.  The picture on the right side shows the cross that was on top of our wedding cake and also hanging on our wall is a plaque with a beautiful marriage blessing on it.  

The marriage blessing is so beautiful I'll share a close up shot so the words can be read: 

Memento 16: Here's another unique and special gift that we have hanging in our foyer.  It reminds me of Asian artwork.  When you look closer, what do you see?  The drawing is actually each letter of my first name and my husband's first name.  Tracy...Anthony

Memento 17: Our "domestic church" was established in 1997

Memento 18:  Scenic pictures hang in our home from St. John, Virgin Islands, where we went on our honeymoon.  We would love to go back to this beautiful place.  Maybe one day...

Memento 19:   In 2010, Anthony was power washing our house and he surprised me by creating this special message for me on our driveway.  Awww...I love you too Anthony! :)

OK, so if you stuck with this post to this point, I'm impressed and I thank you for taking the time to read it and view the pictures.  If anything else, maybe some of my mementos will give someone wedding gift ideas :)
One tradition that we have done each year on our anniversary since our first anniversary is watch our video from our wedding. Now we did get married before the digital age so the color quality is...90ish, but the memories of our day continue to be with us each time we play our video. We did copy it onto a DVD to help make it last longer.   
It is a joy to now watch the video with our children as the younger ones have asked through the years why they weren't there to celebrate with us ;-) Each year we are not only reminded of our holy vows we took in front of our Lord, family, and friends, but we also get to see friends and loved ones that are no longer with us here on earth, which is sad. :(  You know I still get "butterflies" and filled with excitement just before I watch the part of the video where I'm about to meet my true love at the altar and begin our lives as husband and wife!  
Finally I'll sign off this looooooooong wedding anniversary post with one more picture (I really promise, just one more) :)

The reason I post this picture is because recently I came across this blog post about Why Should Men Propose on One Knee? and I thought I would share the author's insights about this honorable and well-known tradition. Of course, my husband isn't proposing here, but you get the point. 

We've been blessed with 19 wonderful marital years and I look forward to the next 19 + years ahead as God wills it.  

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Romanticism, Feminism and Misandry [at LMS Chairman]

This is a little interjection into my series on Callum Brown's thesis that religion became feminised in the 19th century.

Callum Brown writes (

The Death of Christian Britain

):

As femininity and piety became conjoined in discourse after 1800, the spectre arose of masculinity as the antithesis of religiosity. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, a wife's femininity was perceived as a threat to piety and household, and a husband established his moral status by controlling her. From 1800 to 1950, by contrast, it was a husband's susceptibility to masculine temptations that was perceived as a threat to piety and household, and the wife established a family's respectability by curbing him. Exemplars of piety changed sex, from being overwhelmingly male to being overwhelmingly female, and the route to family harmony no longer lay in the taming of the Elizabethan shrew but in the bridling of the Victorian rake, drunkard, gambler and abuser.

(p88)

During 1887 and 1888 the religious newspaper the British Weekly published some forty articles on 'Tempted London', a series concerned with the moral condition of men and women in the capital. Men and women were dealt with separately - men during the first thirty articles, women in the last ten. The nature of moral weakness in the two sexes was conceptualised very differently. The articles on women were organised on the principle that occupational exploitation corrupted women. ... The iniquity of the trades in which the women worked were studied in detail, focusing on low wages, home working, long hours and the exploitation of employers and merchants. ...The women themselves were not deemed 'immoral', ... but as victims ...
...The men's articles were organised around three headings: drink, betting and gambling, and impurity. The venues for each temptation were studied in detail...

(p89)

Brown's focus on the role of gender in religious change forces us to confront something which is not far below the surface in a great deal of Victorian fiction: the Romantic exaltation of the female, and contrasting, jaundiced, view of masculinity. There are a number of things which I think need to be absorbed from this in any discussion of gender in the Church today.

First, this view of women is not an intrinsic part of Christianity. A very different view prevailed before 1800. The similarity with medieval Chivalry is superficial. Romantics liked to refer to Chivalry, but not only can the two movements not be rolled together as 'the attitude before Feminism' (as they were separated by three centuries), but they are quite distinct in content. As I have noted on this blog, Chivalry did not deny women's sinfulness, nor did the Chivalric ideal stop men

exercising authority

over rebellious women.

Second, the pre-1800 view of women Brown describes is specifically Protestant. There are of course aspects of Catholic thought and culture which provide parallels, but Protestants were perfectly aware at the time that Catholics had a broadly contrasting view of things, and created a picture of Catholicism as effeminate, soft, and indulgent, as a polemical response, a picture which, remarkably, survived some decades after Protestantism's own flip into femininity.

I realise that this is going to sound

parti-pris

 to non-Catholic readers, but it really does look to me as though Catholic culture was able to maintain a reasonably balanced outlook on gender as Protestant culture veered from one extreme to the other: from misogyny to misandry.

Third, and this is the most surprising but also the most undeniable aspect, we can't blame Feminism for the misandry found in Evangelical and other religious circles today. The Evangelical blogger

Dalrock

likes to examine the extraordinarily unbalanced treatment of men and women by conservative evangelicals in the USA, a treatment with echos in the Catholic Church, but what they sound like is exactly what their predecessors sounded like in the 1880s.

Fourth, this sheds a very interesting light on Feminism. Feminism is (among other things) a reaction against the distorted conception of femininity which Romanticism built up - women being made of glass, having no sexual appetites, having no legitimate ambitions outside the home, etc. etc. - but feminists are not so eager to jettison the feminine moral superiority which was part and parcel of that conception.

Feminists regard the women of the 1950s and earlier as in need of 'liberation'. A new vocabulary is required, however, to describe the abject enslavement and denigration of the men of that era: chained to brain-numbingly tedious and meaningless industrial or clerical jobs, when they weren't being mown down in brutal wars, and told, for their pains, that they were intrinsically wicked and that all their favoured pastimes were wrong. Who was going to free the men?

The take-home message I'd like to convey to the readers of this blog is this: that it is a mistake to attempt to deal with Feminism, whether that is imagined as opposing it or in some way coming to terms with it, by appealing to Romanticism - by rolling back one's conception of femininity to 1955. This is what I see both the

cod-Chivalric

movement and the

Alice von Hildebrand

/ Theology of the Body movement as trying to do. The reality is that insofar as Feminism rejects Romanticism, in its angelic conception of femininity, it is right to do so, even if it is unable replace this conception with a better one. Insofar as Feminism accepts Romanticism, in its view of women as morally superior to men, it is wrong.

In many ways I appreciate Romanticism. Romanticism as a movement opposed important errors, and was responsible for great artistic achievements. But it is not the route out of our present morass.

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Standing Firm in Faith with Love [at Kitchen table chats]

If I look at myself, I realize that I do not fit into neat categories. I am Catholic. I unequivocally support the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death. I tend to vote Republican and have what would be considered conservative principles. Yet, I oppose the death penalty. I drive a Prius. I am open to some regulation of gun sales for the sake of safety. I am not a caricature of any political ideology. And you know what--neither is anyone else.

Politicians may set themselves as icons of an ideology. Maybe they truly believe their own dogma. Maybe they are just seeking power. However, the ordinary unknown individuals who follow these standard bearers are far more complex than the sound bites and political rhetoric.

My

latest article at Catholic Stand

offers some thoughts about how easily we make instant generalizations about people we don't know. Making these broad brush assumptions is lazy. We can make judgments about actions. What is right and what is wrong is not determined by a majority vote but by an objective truth that transcends mere human whims and desires. But we cannot know a person's heart from afar. We have to listen to them. We have to get to know them. And we have to allow them to know us.

Two young men invaded the sacred space of a Catholic Church

in Rouen, France and murdered an elderly priest, Fr. Jacques Hamel, during Mass. They claimed to be doing it in allegiance to ISIS and to Islam. It would be easy to say that all Muslims are evil and some have done so. But that would be wrong. Those who justify violence and murder are evil. The local

Muslims have refused to bury

the  perpetrator of this atrocity because they do not want to "taint Islam" with such horror.

Muslims in France

as well as other parts of Europe attended memorial Masses to show solidarity with Catholics and to display their opposition to the terrorism of ISIS.

Do I think Muslims are in error in their theology? Yes, I do. Do I hope that they someday come to believe in Christ? Of course. But I am not going to lead them to Christ spewing hatred. All people, regardless of their ideology, are made in the likeness and image of God. For that reason alone they deserve to be treated with dignity, respect, compassion, and mercy. We are commanded, not asked, by God to love them.

The current political season looks to be the ugliest in my lifetime. It is tempting to withdraw and deal with the aftermath after the elections in November. However, nothing short of the moral standing of our country and culture hangs in the balance. It is an uphill battle to bring the light of truth out of the morass of evil that appears to be overwhelming our society. We have no choice but to accept the challenge and remain engaged.

We cannot abide evil and errors in order to get along. Tolerance of evil is not love. We must stand firm in faith. To admonish sinners and to instruct the ignorant are acts of mercy and we would be remiss in our Christian duty if we failed to do so. But it must always be done in charity. It must always be done with respect for the human dignity of those who disagree. Before engaging in such correction, stop and pray. Ask for patience, wisdom, generosity, and humility. The goal is to gain disciples for Christ, not to win political points. Let all know we are Christians by our authentic love.

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You will be with me in paradise today [at Catholicism and Adventism]

Jesus to the repentant thief on the cross:

Luke 23:43 (KJV) – And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.

Andrea del Castagno – Crucifixion

Every single time in the Bible that “Truly I say unto you” is used (or the equivalent in various translations), it takes the form of “Truly I say unto you, [statement being made]”

Never is it “Truly I say unto you [time that the statement is being made], [statement being made]”

Therefore, if we let the Bible teach us what it means, and we don’t manipulate its words, Jesus said that the thief would be in paradise with him that very day. Not heaven, but paradise – there is a difference.

Would Adventists be willing to revise Matt 5:18 to say the following?

For verily I say unto you till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled. (CommaRevised KJV)

I doubt it. Both ways is means the same thing in this case, but it would highlight the biblical truth that the fulfilment has come, something Adventists don’t believe.

Finally, consciousness after death was the mainstream belief, and Josephus attests to this. By telling the thief that he would be in paradise that day, Jesus would have made a statement that fitted perfectly with mainstream Jewish belief, and everyone would have understood it that way.

Are we really willing to believe that Jesus used false doctrine to make a point?

I believe that the Bible shows us the language it uses, and it’s clear that Adventists misplace the comma. And I do not believe that Jesus taught false doctrine in this passage.

Further reading:

Soul sleep – are the dead alive in heaven, or not?
And no man hath ascended up to heaven
Paradise vs Heaven
Ecclesiastes and the dead

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The Papacy But Not This Pope [at If I Might Interject]

The title of this article comes from a passage written by Hans Urs von Balthasar about the growing hostility towards the Pope:

“The papacy but not this pope” is a further step. Beginning with Gerson, Gallicanism attempted this step (with the best of intentions, theologically) by trying to differentiate between the sedes, which is indefectible, and the sedens, who is not. This approach was mistaken and impracticable from the outset, as de Maistre pointed out. Gasser, in his final address at Vatican I, emphasized that infallibility is not a prerogative of an abstract papacy but of the pope actually reigning. Bossuet, despite his sincere identification with the Church, forever wavered in his position regarding the papacy, measuring with “two measures and two weights” and taking shelter under similarly useless distinctions that simultaneously pledge obedience and refuse it. Moreover, there is the whole Gallican issue of acceptation (“toujours des énigmes!” remarks de Maistre), which plays on the ambiguity of being “in one accord” with the spirit of the Church communio, on the one hand, and simply obeying the directives of superiors on the other. Y. Congar has written on what is justified and what is not in this approach. The reservations of Gallicanism do not at first touch the communio. Rather, they wish to qualify every papal decision, be it by an appeal to a council or by a stipulation that the directives must be accepted by the whole Church (bishops and flock) to be valid.

Another kind of stipulation is applied by the Jansenists, who support papal authority as long as it does not clash with a higher forum, e.g., the authority of St. Augustine, the authentic interpreter of the Pauline doctrine of justification. There were endless quarrels over the bull Unigenitus, about its range, its interpretation and about the earlier distinctions made by the Jansenists between the quaestio facti and juris. (The Pope condemned the statements of Baius or Jansenius, but did he condemn them in the sense in which the authors meant them? This, it was thought, would have gone beyond his competence.) All these were attempts to avoid an unappealable final decision by the existing papal authority. Surely conscience is the final authority of an individual’s moral behavior, but when a community within the Catholic Church refers to a dictate of its collective conscience against a final papal decision, it has already lost the sense of the Church communio.

von Balthasar, Hans Urs. The Office of Peter and the Structure of the Church [†] (Kindle Locations 1039-1057). Kindle Edition.

The thing that bothers me the most about the Church today is seeing growing numbers of Catholics who once defended the Church from Vatican II through Benedict XVI, but now question the orthodoxy or wisdom of Pope Francis at some level and look to alternate leaders to follow instead. While some have taken this to the level of claiming the Pope is dangerous, most seem to treat the Pope as if he doesn’t understand the faith. Articles with titles like “What the Pope needs to learn about X” are not rare in these times. In essence, the people who refuted attacks on past Popes from theological liberals seem to be embracing these arguments against Pope Francis and using the same ad hominem attacks (papolatry, ultramontane) against those Catholics who defend him.

These Catholics don’t like what he says and they want to disagree—BUT (and I think this is important to stress) they don’t want to commit sin in doing so. This is why the opposition to Pope Francis revolves around the dividing lines of where his words stop binding and where they can label his words as “error.” The danger is, they run the risk of going too far and crossing the line they want to respect. In this article, I hope to identify some of these danger zones.

“When Do I Have to Obey?"

The attitude that asks when what the Pope says is no longer binding is a dangerous one. It’s dangerous because it implies that the authority of the Pope is a burden we must escape from. In contrast, St. Pius X spoke about what sort of attitude Catholics should have:

Therefore, when we love the Pope, there are no discussions regarding what he orders or demands, or up to what point obedience must go, and in what things he is to be obeyed; when we love the Pope, we do not say that he has not spoken clearly enough, almost as if he were forced to repeat to the ear of each one the will clearly expressed so many times not only in person, but with letters and other public documents; we do not place his orders in doubt, adding the facile pretext of those unwilling to obey—that it is not the Pope who commands, but those who surround him; we do not limit the field in which he might and must exercise his authority; we do not set above the authority of the Pope that of other persons, however learned, who dissent from the Pope, who, even though learned, are not holy, because whoever is holy cannot dissent from the Pope. (Allocution Vi ringrazio to priests on the 50th anniversary of the Apostolic Union November 18, 1912)  [§]

Reading the words of St. Pius X, I see him as saying: When the Pope speaks to us, whether he intends to formally teach or not, he speaks for our benefit and we would be wise to learn from what he has to say. If he is right, then the Catholics who try to find excuses not to listen or think the Pope is a burden or harmful do not love him in deed, even if they love him in theory. But, when defenders of Pope Francis cite this allocution, these critics argue that this does not apply. I have read some comments saying that St. Pius X couldn’t have anticipated a “modernist, Marxist Pope” or he wouldn’t have said this. But his words do not justify this opinion or allow people to appeal to other theologians or saints against the Pope.

The Church has been clear on the range of authority of the Pope. It’s not just in his ex cathedra teachings. It also exists in his governing the Church. The First Vatican Council teaches, in Pastor Æternus:

If then any shall say that the Roman Pontiff has the office merely of inspection or direction, and not full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the universal Church, not only in things which belong to faith and morals, but also in those things which relate to the discipline and government of the Church spread throughout the world; or assert that he possesses merely the principal part, and not all the fullness of this supreme power; or that this power which he enjoys is not ordinary and immediate, both over each and all the Churches and over each and all the pastors of the faithful; let him be anathema.

 Vincent McNabb, ed., The Decrees of the Vatican Council (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1907), 42.

People who say ad populum is wrong may want to take note.

The Pope has the right and responsibility to apply the timeless teaching of the Church to the circumstances of today. Bishops and theologians advise him, but the final decision is his. When he does so, he is binding and loosing as Our Lord intended in Matthew 16:19. We trust in The Lord to protect us from a Pope binding a bad teaching or loosing a good teaching.

When The Pope Isn’t Speaking as Head of the Church

But what about when he’s not teaching as Pope?

I won’t deny that Papal press conferences and interviews cause headaches. I just deny the claims of some people who say the Pope causes these headaches. But this does bring us to the question of the Pope speaking as a man and not as the head of the Church. This is a recent phenomenon. Popes St. John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis have given interviews, addresses and written books during their pontificates but were offering their private views, not teaching as the Pope. How are we to approach this? A 1915 book on apologetics offers this insight:

The Pope is therefore not infallible when he gives a decision as man, bishop, scholar, preacher, or confessor, nor when he expresses an opinion on questions of art, politics, or secular science. Infallibility is quite distinct from personal impeccability.

 F. J. Koch, A Manual of Apologetics, ed. Charles Bruehl, trans. A. M. Buchanan (New York: Joseph F. Wagner, 1915), 177–178.

What the Pope says in these cases are not protected under the charism of infallibility. But it doesn’t follow that this means what a Pope says in these circumstances are laden with error. His holiness, learning, and wisdom as a man, bishop, scholar, preacher or confessor still exists and we should consider this. People who defend the Pope on these grounds are not guilty of Papolatry. Nor are they ultramontane.

What this qualification does mean is we don’t call someone a heretic just because he disagrees with what Benedict XVI says about Our Lord in his Jesus of Nazareth books. It also means if a Pope like John XXII speaks in a homily, he’s not teaching heresy or defining a teaching. It also means that the laws he passes as ruler of Vatican City (or earlier of the Papal States) are not Church teaching.

The Fact that Bad Popes Existed Doesn’t mean Pope Francis is One

Another pitfall to avoid is thinking just because bad Popes existed in Church history does not mean Pope Francis is one. Bad behavior goes back to St. Peter eating apart from Gentiles (Galatians 2:11-14), and Popes are sinners just like the rest of us. So every Pope will have cringeworthy moments. But when people appeal to bad Popes to argue Pope Francis is one, they dredge up the notorious Popes. Benedict IX, John XII, Alexander VI, Julius II and others.

The problem with this appeal is these Popes behaved badly, but they did not teach badly as Popes. Either they taught rightly or did not teach at all. The Popes who did wrong did so as men or as rulers. They practiced vice, treated their position as if they were a secular king. etc. Pope Francis behaves nothing like this, so it is an irrelevant analogy. Some, realizing this, will point to John XXII [∞], Liberius, or Honorius and argue that they spoke falsely or heretically, and Pope Francis can do the same. The problem is, the Church denies those Popes taught heresy, even privately. Their faults were they taught ambiguously or did not act when they should have. So these Popes antics don’t mean Pope Francis is heretical.

That brings us to our next point.

Do We Understand Context and Meaning? 

The problem with people accusing Pope Francis of holding error is that they assume that Pope Francis embraces the dubious claims of Cardinal Kasper and then interpret the Pope’s words according to the meaning the Cardinal gives them. For example, some Catholics are afraid that the Pope’s Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Lætitia promotes giving the Eucharist to the divorced and remarried. Yes, Cardinal Kasper appears to favor this. But the Pope said something entirely different:

Integrating in the Church doesn’t mean receiving communion. I know married Catholics in a second union who go to church, who go to church once or twice a year and say I want communion, as if joining in Communion were an award. It’s a work towards integration, all doors are open, but we cannot say, ‘from here on they can have communion.’ This would be an injury also to marriage, to the couple, because it wouldn’t allow them to proceed on this path of integration.

That’s one example of how people put a meaning into the Pope’s words he never intended. They assume that “integrating” the divorced and remarried into the Church means giving them the Eucharist and get upset. But they don’t consider whether the baggage they attach to a word is what the Pope intends. We who are Americans or western Europeans have a view of the world we think is normal, but the rest of the world doesn’t share it. He describes problems in South America and we think he hates capitalism or America. He talks about gradually moving people away from vicious customs in Argentina and we think he supports American vice. That’s not his fault. That’s our fault for assuming the rest of the world thinks like us.

We make this worse by our reliance on instant news coverage popping up on our smartphones from religiously illiterate sources. They take one sentence from an interview and treat it as if he is changing Church teaching. We rely on the analysis of that one sentence and form an opinion before the full transcript comes out. The problem is, you can’t interpret Pope Francis by one sentence. You have to look at his whole answer. He tends to describe a scenario first, and from that scenario describe a solution. If you don’t keep the scenario in mind, the quoted sentence sounds like he’s okay with sin. But if you do look at his whole answer, it becomes clear that he is not okay with sin.

I think we rely too much on bullet points and one sentence summaries. As a result, we aren’t used to diving into complex descriptions when we find them. But that’s our problem, not the Pope’s, and it’s our task to understand what he means, not to blame him because we misinterpret through our cultural mindset.

Conclusion: Judgment vs. Love and Respect

can. 1404 The First See is judged by no one.

One thing we have to remember when people want to question the Pope’s orthodoxy, that act assumes they have the right to judge his actions. Such an action implies their knowledge and their fidelity to the Church is greater than his. It assumes to read his heart and mind and finds them wanting. But we cannot do this. When the Pope teaches, we need to give assent (Canon 752). When he speaks privately, we need to be respectful. We have no right to judge him.

That doest mean the Pope can do whatever the hell he wants and we can’t say anything. There is fraternal correction. St. Thomas Aquinas describes how we must handle this:

I answer that, A subject is not competent to administer to his prelate the correction which is an act of justice through the coercive nature of punishment: but the fraternal correction which is an act of charity is within the competency of everyone in respect of any person towards whom he is bound by charity, provided there be something in that person which requires correction.

Now an act which proceeds from a habit or power extends to whatever is contained under the object of that power or habit: thus vision extends to all things comprised in the object of sight. Since, however, a virtuous act needs to be moderated by due circumstances, it follows that when a subject corrects his prelate, he ought to do so in a becoming manner, not with impudence and harshness, but with gentleness and respect. Hence the Apostle says (1 Tim. 5:1): An ancient man rebuke not, but entreat him as a father. Wherefore Dionysius finds fault with the monk Demophilus (Ep. viii.), for rebuking a priest with insolence, by striking and turning him out of the church.

 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, (II-II q.33 a.4 resp.) trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne).

The problem is the social media complaints against the Pope show nothing fraternal. It assumes wrongdoing and speaks in an unflattering way. Some is patronizing. Some is abusive. But it generally assumes the Pope is, at best, guilty of fuzzy thinking or, at worst, a heretic. People do speak of him as if he were a burden. People do say they still wish Benedict XVI was still Pope. People do hope he’ll retire or die soon. Not everybody does these things, but the point is the attitude which thinks he is a burden to the Church is undermining our faith and trust in the shepherds. We look at what he says and does and judge whether we think it is acceptable or not.

But what we don’t ask is if we are sinning in our attitude. St. Pius X linked loving the Pope with respect and obedience. He rejected the idea of looking to another theologian against the Pope. But how many people look to Cardinal Burke, Cardinal Sarah or Bishop Athanasius Schneider [∑] as being more reliable than the Pope when it comes to fidelity to the Church?

I want to be clear I don’t seek to judge any individual or blog here. I wrote this article because I see troubling things undermining the authority of the Church and the Pope, leaving people afraid and mistrustful. I just hope to encourage people to think a different way about these things, trusting God to protect His Church under Pope Francis just as He protected the Church under every other Pope. If any person is struggling with these things, I hope my reflections help and do not drive them away in defensiveness.

__________________________

[†] The actual title of the book was Der antirömische Affekt which translates as “the anti-Roman attitude.” (according to Google Translate) The book spoke about the hostility to the Pope c. 1974. Much of this anti-Roman attitude seems to fit today as well.
[§] This translation was from 2012 when Benedict XVI was Pope. Many people who cited it then deny it now.
[∞] Despite the views of some, Pope John XXII did not even preach heresy privately because the Church had not yet defined the matter at the time he offered his opinion.
[∑] I want to make clear here that I do not blame them for people elevating them this way against their will. 

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A prayer book with a little whisper from yours truly [at Peace Garden Passage]

Before this week, all I knew about the little prayer book’s release was that it would be out sometime around Fall 2016; this was the expected launch of the compilation carried out by Catholicmom.com founder Lisa Hendey and her counterpart, Sarah Reinhard. But this week, I’ve learned a new, more specific timeline: August 2016! (There it is, third from the left!)

Lisa had invited contributors of her award-winning faith website to be part of the project bringing together 80 writers and a whole lot of prayer into one little book — a devotional that can be savored the whole year through. Blessedly, I’m among them.

bioNot only have I come to respect Lisa’s work from afar, but I’ve had the chance to hang out with her up close. We roomed together at the 2012 Catholic Media Conference in Indianapolis (she’s second to left and I’m far right). So I know she’s the real deal — a great editor with a good heart and an eye for meaningful writing.

It was a joy for me to work on my contributions. But the really fun thing about this is that while my small part will be included, I have yet to read the other contributors’ entries. Which means only three will be known to me, and 362 will be a surprise — fresh reflections from fellow Catholic mothers that I, too, can savor.

It’s both a gift from me and to me all at once, and, I dearly hope, a welcomed treasure for you as well.

This week, a taste of what’s coming arrived in the mailbox.

A little from the Amazon description:

Created by moms for moms, these hope-filled meditations touch on the issues and concerns you face as you try to get through the day with a sense of God’s presence in your life. Whether you are a new or seasoned mom working in or outside of your home, this inspiring collection of reflections for every day of the year will help you:

stay in touch with the seasons of the Church year

remember Mary’s loving presence on her feast days

keep company with both new and familiar saints

see the spiritual meaning of secular holidays, and

make you smile with occasions such as Houseplant Appreciation
Day and National Popcorn Day.

I’m so grateful for the chance to have this beautiful prayer companion to help lead me through the year ahead. More than at any other time, it seems we really need to be sustained by prayer right now.

If you’re the type to get a jumpstart on such things, pre-orders are already happening at Amazon, so head over there to claim your copy.

I’ll be giving away a free prayer book in the future, too, so stay near for a chance to win one.

Finally, no prayer book would be complete without a whole lot of prayer behind it. I ask for prayer here often, and am always grateful for the quiet response — petitions brought graciously to the feet of the Lord of the universe. If you could spare one for this project’s success, the whole crew involved with this would be mighty appreciative. The gain for us is not financial, but spiritual.

Q4U: What and/or whom companions with you most closely through your spiritual life?

This contribution is available at http://roxanesalonen.com/2016/07/a-prayer-book-with-a-little-whisper-from-yours-truly/
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A Lesson and a Cure

A Lesson and a Cure“If someone who has worldly means sees a brother in need and refuses him compassion, how can the love of God remain in him? Children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.” –1 John 3:17

It was the shortest doctor’s appointment I have ever had, but one that I have been waiting and praying for for almost a decade.  The doctor walked into the room, leaned against the counter and said, “You’re cured!”

A year following my cancer surgery in a routine blood test, my family doctor found some elevated liver enzyme levels that required some additional testing.  The results were, “You have Hepatitis C!”

Hep C, long associated with drug users, blood transfusions and outdated blood testing was now a reality.  Did I get it from the surgery or was this something that I have had a long time?  Was it a nick as a squirmy kid at the barber shop with an unclean razor or intermingling blood during a childhood reenactment of Tonto and the Lone Ranger becoming blood brothers?  I’ll never know.

Following the diagnosis, I discovered that the cure rate for my genotype was less than 30% and the treatment was a year of weekly injections and a daily pill regimen.  Along with my doctor, I decided to forgo the treatment and wait for research to develop a new drug that might have a better chance of success.

Eight years later new drugs entered the market.  One of these is Harvoni.  Unlike the old protocol, Harvoni involved taking one pill a day, every day for 12 weeks.  And, its success rate was nearly 100% in my genotype.

“Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, his mercy endures forever.” –Psalm 118:1

These drugs are expensive, over a thousand dollars a day, over $90,000 total for the 12 weeks, and after three failed attempts to get insurance to cover it, I was finally approved for the treatment. I began in January and I completed it 12 weeks later.  After a month, blood work showed no signs of Hepatitis C and it was still gone after 12 weeks!

The protocol calls for additional blood work after 3 months and if the virus was still undetectable in the blood, it was considered a cure. Yesterday I received that news.  Praise God!

As I fought back tears leaving the hospital following receiving this wonderful news, I remembered an encounter I had just 24 hours before.

As I returned to work following lunch, I saw a man sitting on the ground, leaning against the wall of the building that appeared to be crying.  He appeared to be in his mid-30’s, was disheveled, and seemed to be in distress.

“Are you alright,” I questioned.

“No,” was his response.  “I have a prescription that I need to have filled badly, but I don’t have enough money to get it. Without these drugs, I don’t know what might happen.”

“Do you have the prescription with you?” I questioned.

“Yes, right here,” he quickly responded.

I reached out my hand and said, “Come, right now and let’s go inside and get this filled.”

“Do not withhold any goods from the owner when it is in your power to act. Say not to your neighbor, “Go, come back tomorrow, and I will give it to you,” when all the while you have it.”  –Proverbs 3:27-28

As we left the drug store, he hugged me, and thanked me over and over.  The prescription cost less than 20 dollars.

Quite the contrast; my $90,000 dollar treatment made available because I have a job, a good health insurance policy, and access to the best doctors and treatment, and this person whose life was in danger for lack of $20 dollars.

Just 24 hours before being told of my cure, God was teaching me a lesson in gratitude, humility and mercy.  He taught me that the best way to celebrate my blessing was to work to insure those same blessings are available to the less fortunate, whether it’s paying for a $20 prescription or making my voice heard in the marketplace of public opinion.

In my lifetime, God has given me two miracles, “you’re cancer free” and “you’re hepatitis is cured!”  I am humbled and grateful for God’s mercy.  If I can ask one more thing in prayer, please Lord, make the next miracle one for him.

And, thank you Lord, for the lesson and the cure!

This contribution is available at http://tonyagnesi.com/2016/07/a-lesson-and-a-cure/
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Taking Your Little People to Church = MASSive Victory! [at Little Douglings]

Last Sunday at Mass, as the 16 month old twins climbed all over Patrick, pulling on his ears, digging their shoes into his lap, then gut, then chest, I saw something incredible. A smile. I did a double take. 

For me, Mass can sometimes feel like a war zone. Us verses them. I often spend the time trying to anticipate potential threats that could mean "Mass destruction" at the hands of our 5 under 5:  Song books - potential weapons (or casualties), my clothing - potential wardrobe malfunction-in-waiting, the people sitting in front of us - potential victims susceptible to unsolicited back scratches and hair tugging. Even the perpetrators themselves can turn on each other in an instant or simply feel the need to release a war cry. My eyes jet back and forth seven thousand times before the second reading is even complete. It can be stressful and altogether exhausting.

Yet there was my husband, with his big smile. He nonchalantly placed his foot onto the kneeler in front of him to block the two year old from her fifth attempted escape and popped a bottle into the mouth of the twin (who had just been bopped on the head by the other twin) just as she was about to erupt into tears.

Crazy. Plain and simple.

I asked him afterwards how he could seem so at ease in the height of battle - and not just "at ease", but joyful even. He said that the priest's words during the Mass had had a deep impact on him:  Pray, brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.

This. This effort to herd our little guys during Mass, to guide, teach, comfort, prevent or deal with outbursts, all of it, it's our sacrifice. And the words spoken by the priest point to the dignity and importance of the act. In caring for these little balls of crazy, we sacrifice the calming, serene, enjoyable experience that the Mass can offer for those who attend with... well, hands that are not caught in overdrive. That is a great sacrifice!

I love that we have a role to play in this, and that even if we miss out hearing everything or receiving consolations, we can just focus on pouring ourselves into this task and know that it is pleasing to God. It's kind of freeing. 

Before the new revised translation of the Mass, the words my and yours were simply clumped together as our sacrifice. But I'm so happy that the language now emphasizes the distinct roles of the priest and that of the congregation. The priest speaks in the person of Christ, who is both priest and victim. "My offering" is the offering of His very body and blood - poured out for souls. The offering of the congregation is not only the bread and wine, given to us by God and offered back to Him, but it's also the various personal offerings and sacrifices we bring. Parents attending the Mass with overly energetic little ones can feel good about their offering - a total gift of our bodies and energy and possibly our sanity - an outpouring for the good of our children and as an act of love for all concerned. And these offerings are acceptable indeed! 

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Scales from My Eyes [at Journey to Wisdom]

Sunday August 7, 2016

A Reflection on Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-19, N.A.B.

Imagine waking up tomorrow morning in a foreign country, China for example. Most of us would be forced to use lively gestures and animated facial expressions as a means of communicating with the Chinese people. How useful would wide eyes and flailing arms be in getting directions to the American Embassy? Also, spoken Chinese is a tonal language with lots of upward and downward sounds often described as very bouncy or lively, and to us it would sound like nonsensical gibberish. On the whole, this would be an unpleasant experience!

Then, imagine stumbling onto a group of English speaking Italians. What a break! Admittedly their heavily accented English would be hard for us to understand, but at least we could communicate with them.

In this Scripture reading Abraham and Sarah traveled to the Promised Land in faith and became aliens in a foreign country, an uneasy situation to be in, and one that we can relate to:

¹ Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.

² Because of it the ancients were well attested.

⁸ By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; he went out, not knowing where he was to go.

⁹ By faith he sojourned in the promised land as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs of the same promise;

¹⁰ for he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and maker is God.

¹¹ By faith he received power to generate, even though he was past the normal age—and Sarah herself was sterile—for he thought that the one who had made the promise was trustworthy.

¹² So it was that there came forth from one man, himself as good as dead, descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sands on the seashore.

¹³ All these died in faith. They did not receive what had been promised but saw it and greeted it from afar and acknowledged themselves to be strangers and aliens on earth,

¹⁴ for those who speak thus show that they are seeking a homeland.

¹⁵ If they had been thinking of the land from which they had come, they would have had opportunity to return.

¹⁶ But now they desire a better homeland, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

¹⁷ By faith Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was ready to offer his only son,

¹⁸ of whom it was said, “Through Isaac descendants shall bear your name.”

¹⁹ He reasoned that God was able to raise even from the dead, and he received Isaac back as a symbol.

What do Catholics have in common with Abraham and Sarah? Like them, we are aliens in an unfamiliar land. Christians, especially Catholics, should always have a disquieting sense of discomfort, the uneasiness of being strangers in a foreign land because, like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Sarah, this world is not our homeland; we are strangers here.

Our Catholic faith and community identity sets us apart from the Christian non-Catholic and non-Christian society which surrounds us. Some of the words and ideas uttered by that society should sound like Chinese to us, like nonsensical gibberish. On the other side of the coin, our Christian non-Catholic brothers and sisters do not understand some of our customs and beliefs, and when they speak out against us our sense of alienation is usually amplified.

What are we to think when some of our fellow Catholics and Christian non-Catholics endorse abortion, euthanasia, religious discrimination, or immoral behavior? In this regard they are like that group of English speaking Italians that we bumped into on our imaginary visit to China: because of their accent we can make out some of their words, but we clearly don’t speak the same language.

The author of 1 Peter wrote:

¹¹ Beloved, I urge you as aliens and sojourners to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against the soul. – 1 Peter 2:11 N.A.B.

This author’s message is clear: this earth is not our native soil. We are aliens; we don’t belong here; we are journeying to our eternal home. It’s worth repeating over and over: we are aliens on this earth; we don’t belong here; we are journeying to our eternal home.

There was a common belief among some of the Old Testament Hebrews that they should figuratively chew on and absorb the Law of Moses daily, like food, so that it would become part of their nature. Similarly, if we can chew on and absorb the concept that we are aliens on this earth, such things as pride, materialism, greed, wrath, and even fear of death will fall away from our eyes like scales, like the scales which fell from St. Paul’s eyes, and we will be blessed with true vision.

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Ashley Judd, Trump and a Personal Take [at Catholic365]

Ashley Judd, a popular actress, spoke to the DNC praising those who worked to keep abortion on demand legal. As a victim of sexual assault, she went on to say, “If abortion had not been safe and legal at that time, I would have been forced to carry to term and deliver a child that was conceived in rape”. Touting her support of staunch abortion advocate Hillary Clinton, Judd continued, “I am very grateful to NARAL and Men for Choice for allowing me the dignity to make that excruciating decision for myself”.

One Crime, Two Victims

As horrific as sexual assault is, the child conceived by this act of violence is innocent. Even the perpetrator of the crime is not given a death sentence – why would the child? Ask rape conceived advocates of life like Rebecca Kiessling and they will tell you that they are happy to be alive.

Kiessling has been working steadfastly for years as an advocate for those, who like her, were sentenced to death by their mothers. Fortunately in Kiessling’s case she survived and, as an attorney has made much headway in convincing legislators and the public alike that abortion exceptions are not the way to go. Her group, Save the 1, has a strong public presence and those who were conceived in rape, as well as their mothers, join the team daily.

Two Acts of Violence

The reality of the situation is that the violence of abortion does nothing to negate the violence of rape – it expounds the violence to two victims and does nothing to assuage the violation of the mother. What women who think like Judd need to remember is that a pregnancy from rape is not permanent. Nine months of gestation will allow an innocent child to be born. After birth there are choices available – keep the child or place her with a family through adoption.

A Personal Take

My personal experience demonstrates that the righteous solution does not advocate death for an innocent child. Nor did it complicate my survival. Had abortion been chosen, there would be one less person in the world. His two beautiful sons would not be here and there would have been a lifetime of regret and guilt on my part. Instead, a terrible situation, did not contribute to more violence – it added more lives.

Trump and Abortion Exceptions

My gratitude for a pro-life decision lies with those who formed my conscience and shared the Catholic Faith, as well as those who have endured in the bitter fight to save unborn lives. In keeping with this ideal, the idea of abortion exceptions is repugnant to me. Hillary Clinton is, head and shoulders, the most supportive of abortion of the two major candidates now presented to American voters. Yet the candidacy of Donald Trump does little to quell fears of business as usual when it comes to abortion. Still in the infancy of his proclaimed pro-life stance, Trump has made it clear that he stands for abortion exceptions – rape, incest, and life of the mother. Too many of his pro-life statements give pause to the pro-life faithful as well.

Voter Discernment

In discerning my options as a Catholic voter, I have come away with a decision that is new to me. In past elections, my vote has been given to the best possible choice between the two candidates presented by the major parties. It is inarguable that the pro-life platform of the RNC has never been stronger. Yet, if the options of candidates we are offered fail to represent these values they are of little consequence when measuring their qualification to lead us for the next four years.

It is my opinion that voting for the ‘lesser of two evils’ or the least objectionable candidate is no longer palatable for me. The ever downward trajectory that this strategy has brought us has reached it limits. There are too many reasons for my discernment to mention here but a thorough reading of 10 Reasons I Can Not Vote for Trump (or Clinton) will give more than enough information to understand my decision.

As faithful citizens we are presented with two moral choices in any given election where there is no ideal candidate. One is to vote for the one who appears to represent the least moral harm. The other is to vote for someone, of our choosing, who may not win but who more fully upholds Church Teaching.

From this point on my choice will be the latter. My objective is to vote my conscience, invoke a bit of soul searching on the part of my fellow citizens, and to civilly discourse the direction our nation is taking. In the end, we must all rely on our fully formed consciences.

To him therefore who knoweth to do good, and doth it not, to him it is sin. James 4:17

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Required Reading [at God-Haunted Lunatic]

They may have only those books
which are necessary for their religious exercises.
~ The Rule of St. Francis (1221)

I’m just beginning the earliest stages of formation in the Secular Franciscan Order (OFS), and I had an orientation meeting with Sr. Agnes Marie recently. She walked me and Ray, a fellow newbie, through the process – the different stages of formation, from Inquiry to Candidacy to Profession – and gave us some books. A pile of books, really: A formation manual, a volume of prayers and rituals, and a book entitled, To Live as Francis Lived: A Guide for Secular Franciscans. I’d also dusted off my old Breviary and brought it along – the OFS community prays the Divine Office together when they meet – and had tracked down my copy of the Franciscan Omnibus of Sources as well.

A whole shelf-full of tomes – to follow the poor man of Assisi? Don’t get me wrong: As far as I’m concerned, there’s no such thing as too many books – which you’d see right away if you visited our home. Still, it seemed ironic that I’d so much stuff would be required to walk in the way of one who required so little.

It reminds me of a scene in The Mission (1986) – do you know that film? Directed by Roland Joffé, it’s a moving tale of courage and conversion that takes place in the jungles of 18th-century Paraguay. There, the Jesuits have established elaborate mission centers (“Reductions”) where the indigenous Guaraní have the opportunity to learn about Christ and become acclimated to European cultural ways.

To our modern ears, that sounds uncomfortably like Western paternalism and imperial conquest, but there’s more to the story – and it’s based on historical events. The real Jesuit Reductions were certainly oriented to evangelization, but they were also a hedge against oppression. At the time, there was no consensus in Europe regarding slavery, and that extended to the colonies. Thus, the Guaraní and other tribal groups were at risk of enslavement depending on where they dwelled: The Portuguese permitted the practice in their territories, but it was forbidden in Spanish colonies – which is where the Jesuits located their Reductions.

At one point, Rodrigo Mendoza (Robert De Niro), a reformed mercenary and slave trader, seeks reconciliation with the Guaraní he’d been persecuting as well as with God. After a profound redemption, Mendoza asks Fr. Gabriel (Jeremy Irons) how he can demonstrate his gratitude. Mind you, Fr. Gabriel is a Jesuit priest, someone well familiar with libraries and intense study, so you’d expect at least a couple books in response – maybe a treatise on forgiveness and then a copy of The Spiritual Exercises by St. Ignatius.

But, no. The Jesuit pushes a small Bible across the table to Mendoza, and says, “Read this.” , you hear a voiceover of De Niro reading St. Paul’s “Love” passage in I Corinthians 13 (from a modified King James Version):

Though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing.

São_Miguel_das_Missões_(Brazil)At the same time, on the screen, De Niro’s character interacts with the Guaraní – conversing with them, laughing and smiling with them. It’s stirring depiction of redemptive love in action.

There’s lots more to be said about this film (by all means, see it if you haven’t!), but the message of this particular scene is clear: The essence of the Faith is found in Sacred Scripture – it’s the one indispensable book. “Ignorance of the Scriptures,” wrote St. Jerome, “is ignorance of Christ” (DV #25), and there’s no doubt that St. Francis would’ve concurred – his own revolutionary conversion was precipitated by hearing the Gospel proclaimed to him afresh.

What’s true for Francis is true for his followers. In a 1956 address, Pope Pius XII called the Secular Franciscans a “school of Christian perfection,” which makes so much sense. We want to become saints ourselves, and the Secular Franciscan Order is like an ongoing seminar in which we study and imitate the way of sanctification that Francis himself followed. And, like any school, this one has required reading – actually, a single text. Here’s how the authors of To Live as Francis Lived put it:

The textbook of that school is the Gospel, the inspired faith-vision written down by the Church in the New Testament. This is primary. Any additions such as the Rule and Constitution are merely attempts to make some practical suggestions about carrying out the gospel in the circumstances of the twenty-first century.

There’s a stark parallel to this in The Imitation of Christ with regards to those who prefer pilgrimages to prayer. Thomas à Kempis editorializes that those who constantly flit around shrines and holy places might be missing out on what will truly benefit their souls:

Often in looking at those memorials men are moved by curiosity and novelty, and very little fruit of amendment is borne away, especially when there is so much careless trifling and so little true contrition. But here in the Sacrament of the Altar, Thou art present altogether, My God, the Man Christ Jesus; where also abundant fruit of eternal life is given to every one soever that receiveth Thee worthily and devoutly.

Why exhaust ourselves making pilgrimages if we’re not already attending to the Real Presence awaiting us in the churches right where we live? Similarly, there’s no point in reading erudite studies on Christology and thick books of theological reflection if we’re not first putting in our time with meeting Him in the written Word itself.

There’s no question that Sr. Agnes knows this – and lives it! Giving us baby Franciscans a pile of books wasn’t meant to frame the formation process as a course of study – by no means! The history and theology, bylaws and ceremony are important, but only supplemental. What is truly needful is an openness to the Holy Spirit and an eagerness for Christ – whom we encounter in Word and Sacrament. St. Francis himself pointed the way, and that Way is laid out for us in Sacred Scripture, especially the Gospels. They’re our essential reference, and they’re entitled to a reserved spot on the top of our “to-read” stacks.
_______________________________

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I Wish [at Harvesting The Fruits of Contemplation]

The answers to the problems facing our nation and world will not be solved by any of our political parties or politicians. These issues are spiritual in nature and beyond the ability of mere mortal men and women to rectify. 

Unfortunately, far too many of our  religious leaders have failed to properly guide us or defend God's Truth.

Unless and until they do so and unless we surrender our wills to our Almighty and loving Creator and Lord, evil will roam the face of this earth.

This post is not a political attack, though some will treat it as such. It is simply an attempt by a simple man to stand up and defend the Truth, since too few of those charged with such obligation have been willing to do so.

It pains me to write this piece, but far less than the silence of so many of our Cardinals, Bishops and priests offends our Loving Lord and jeopardizes the salvation of souls.

Do you notice their silence and/or inaction: 

When a Presidential candidate issued an ultimatum that our Churches and all who profess to be Christian must abandon their deeply held religious beliefs on such intrinsic evils as abortion, contraception and the nature of marriage? We must, she commanded, reject God’s law, acquiesce to those promulgated by mere humans and thereby promote a culture of death;

When she and her party insisted we must use taxpayer dollars to provide abortions and to fund Planned Parenthood’s insatiable appetite to kill and sell aborted body parts?

When politicians and government officials (of all political parties) claiming to be Catholic obstinately persist in advocating and supporting public policies contrary to God’s law and Church teaching, even after being advised by their Bishops of their error?

When so many of our Bishops and priests refuse to withhold the Sacred Species from such offending public figures and thereby become facilitators and accomplices to such sacrilege and sin.  

When an entire parish is reported to have given a standing ovation to one of their Catholic politician/parishioners professing to be personally opposed to intrinsic evil, but who has consistently supported legislation and public policies contrary to God's Law.

Let there be no doubt: when these things occur, you know there has been a failure of spiritual leadership and catechesis, as well as an absence of zeal for the salvation of souls.

On the other hand, look how quickly certain Cardinals, Bishops and priests publicly criticized the suggestion of Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments - the man charged by Pope Francis to fully implement the authentic reform of the Liturgy intended by Vatican II - that as many parishes as possible return to the long standing and never intended to be abandoned posture of celebrating portions of the Mass facing the Lord and not the people?

Such contrasting responses speaks volumes.

When you read the advice St. Catherine of Siena gave to the Cardinal of Ostia more than 600 hundred years ago, you can imagine what she would advise our Cardinals, Bishops and priests today.

(From

In The Image of St.Dominic

by Guy Bedouelle, O.P.)

Oh, how we miss her fearless and courageous voice and witness! 

Since she no longer walks this earth, other simple folk must step up to the plate. 

Ask for the courage to defend Truth.

Let there be no mistake: THIS is spiritual combat! Arm  yourself with prayer and fasting. 

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Padre Pio's Prayer for the Church [at The Shield of Faith]

". . . pray that He Himself will take on the defense of Jesus in the Sacrament, either by bringing about an end to the world or to stop so much iniquity." 

Padre Pio composed a powerful, beautiful, and still-timely prayer for the Church as part of a letter he wrote just over 100 years ago to one of his spiritual daughters, Annita Rodote.  Addressing our Heavenly Father, he wrote:

"May the apostasy of many souls belonging to the sheepfold of Jesus Christ come to an end once and for all.  May God's reign come soon; may this most holy Father sanctify His Church; may He abundantly shower His mercy on those souls who have not known Him up to now.  May He destroy the reign of Satan and reveal, to the confusion of this infernal beast, all his evil snares; may He reveal to all slaves of this awful wretch what a liar he is.

"May the most tender Father enlighten the intelligence and touch the hearts of all men, so that the fervent may not become cooler or slow down in the ways of salvation, that the lukewarm may become more fervent, and those who have moved far from Him may return.  May He also dissipate and confuse all the wise of this world so that they do not wage war and inhibit the propagation of His reign.

"Finally, may this most holy Father banish from His Church all the dissension that exists, and impede the birth of more, so that there will be only one sheepfold and only one Shepherd.   May He multiply a hundredfold the number of chosen souls, send us many saints and learned ministers and sanctify those we already possess.  May He, through them, make fervor return to all Christian souls.

"May the number of Catholic missionaries increase, as we once again have reason to complain to the divine Master: "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few."

"Annita, don't ever forget to pray for these needs which I have set out.  Thus, without your either being an apostle, a priest or a missionary, you will gain that crown which the heavenly Father has prepared

ab aeterno

for them.

 Padre Pio's then-isolated Friary in San Giovanni Rotondo around the time he received the stigmata in 1918.

"But there is another prayer which you must never neglect:  See how much scorn and sacrilege is committed by the sons of men towards the Most Holy humanity of His Son in the sacrament of love?  It is up to us, Annita, as we have been chosen beforehand by the Lord's goodness, to be members of His Church, or as St. Peter says: of a "royal priesthood." It is up to us, I repeat, to defend the honor of this meek Lamb who is always concerned when the case of souls is in question, but always silent where His own case is concerned.

"Let our entire lives, our every action and all our aspirations be completely directed towards making reparation for the offenses which our ungrateful brothers continually do to Him.

"But our thoughts must be raised higher still.  There is a Father up there who alone can and must give everything to glorify this most holy Son of His.  We must knock at this divine Father's heart, with holy and filial confidence, and pray that He Himself will take on the defense of Jesus in the Sacrament, either by bringing about an end to the world or to stop so much iniquity."

----

Used with permission.  From Padre Pio's letter to Annita Rodote, March 8, 1915;

Letters

, Volume III, pp. 63-67, translated by Geraldine Nolan.  Also appearing in the May-June 2016 issue of the Voice of Padre Pio magazine, published by Padre Pio's Friary in San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy.  Subscription information available at

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The Role of Suffering in Discipleship [at Bartimaeus' Quiet Place]

Challenges to Discipleship: The Role of Suffering

“Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.” (1Peter 4:12-13)

One of the great barriers to entering into true discipleship with Christ is our problem in understanding the role that suffering plays in those who, through faith, have dedicated their lives to follow Jesus.

I am Crucified with Christ ..

The first thing that hinders us about accepting the role of suffering in discipleship is that our natural selves cannot comprehend it. If Christ Suffered for us and took on our sufferings why then should believers still endure suffering as part of our calling? The second thing which hinders us is that, even upon beginning to understand the Lord’s calling for us to endure (certain types of) suffering, we cannot receive it because we lack sufficient faith to enter into and willingly receive the suffering to which we have been called.

After all, why would a good and loving God, insist that those He loves pass through the trials of suffering, especially when that suffering comes on us seemingly without cause or seeming justification. Wasn’t Jesus’s suffering sufficient?

This of course brings up the topic that the citation from Peter’s Epistle alludes to, that is, our participation in the sufferings of Christ. From this brief mention we begin to surmise that we, His Body, like the apostles, are destined to drink the same cup as he drank from, that is , the cup of suffering. That is, the suffering caused by His rejection and torture by the world and the establishment for the proclamation of the Good News of the Kingdom.

This then is the main theme of Peter’s Epistle to the suffering church at Rome. To encourage them to endure their persecution in Love, as Jesus endured His persecution in Love.

The Testing of our Faith

In the beginning of this first epistle, the Apostle Peter indicates that the primary reason that the father permits this type of suffering to enter into their lives (and therefore ours as well) is that, through their endurance, through faith, that same faith may be proven to be genuine, just as Gold in order to be assayed must be tested as if by fire.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade — kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” (1 Peter 1:3-7)

Just as Jesus’ faith was tested through suffering so our faith also will be tested to determine if it is genuine. For there is such a thing as false faith and many have been deceived by their own human desires into presuming that their misdirected human zeal is the faith needed for discipleship. The Apostle Paul himself decries that, “ .. Demas has abandoned him for this present world” (2 Tim: 4:10), and in his first letter to Timothy he says: “… By rejecting conscience, certain persons have suffered shipwreck in the faith; among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have turned over to Satan, so that they may learn not to blaspheme” (1 Tim. 1:19-20).

In the Deuterocanonical literature we have the challenge for discipleship clearly stated :

“ My son when you come to serve the Lord prepare yourself for trials. Be sincere of heart and steadfast, undisturbed in time of adversity. Cling to Him, forsake Him not; thus will your future be great. Accept whatever befalls you, for in fire Gold is tested and worthy men in the crucible of humiliation”. (Sirach 2: 1-5)

Discerning the Types of Suffering We are to Endure

Peter makes it clear in his epistle that the type of suffering that he is exhorting us to endure is the unjust suffering imposed by others on us because of our faith or stand for righteousness. For this, he says, is consistent with our calling. Note that he does not include that suffering which comes to us because of our own unjust ways and sin.

“For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.” (1 Peter 2:19-23)

We also note that Illness or disease is not listed as the type of suffering we need to endure as Christians, In fact, he concludes the above paragraph as follows:

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” (1Peter 2:24-25)

Because of Jesus’ suffering and atoning work on the cross disease is not deemed a suffering that we Christians must endure as part of our path to discipleship. For this reason we attend to medical doctors and for this reason we are exhorted to pray for each other healing. Jesus did not have any sick disciples. It is not the Father’s will for us.

No! The types of trials we are to endure as disciples is how others treat us because we are outspoken disciples of Jesus. Not those who hide in a corner and are afraid to express their faith but those who openly confess Christ not only by their confession but also by the fruit of their confession – that is, the very lives they live!

Yes! They will revile us, persecute us, censor our prayers, expel us from their fellowship. We will lose many whom we formerly called “friends” but in being bold to proclaim Christ to the world we will be drawn into a new community, a new family of brothers and sisters in Christ who are not afraid of being called Christians and who live their lives in the truth of the Gospel, empowered by the Holy Spirit!

“Baruch haShem” – Praised be His Holy Name! Amen and Amen!

Bartimaeus

© B.R.Timeo and Bartimaeus’ Quiet Place, [2008-2016].

Related Links to this Article

Assessing our Discipleship

Discipleship: Accepting the Challenge

Prayer To Receive the Holy Spirit

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The Scent of Her Presence [at Theologyisaverb]

“An awareness of smells can illuminate our present. It can help us live more mindfully and gracefully. It can help us recognize that God’s goodness saturates the world, in scents that are both obvious and subtle.”

Ginny Kubitz Moyer, Taste and See ( Loyola Press)

Early morning dew, the scent of grateful peonies and roses greet me.
The aroma of homemade strawberry rhubarb and blackberry pies cooling midday meet me.
Nighttime breezes carrying a day well spent at play, leave me ..the promise of yet another summer day in the South.

My Grandmother’s house was my favorite place to be as a child, particularly in the summertime.  What might appear as lacking in structure or activity, each day was abundant in hidden treasures that could only be discovered by a slower pace and ready spirit. All this I too might have missed had I not been seeking- albeit anticipating- God’s respondent grace and presence. Grandma’s hard work in the garden wafted through her small home as she baked and canned the fruits of each day’s gifts. Receiving the present she also prepared for the future, when these would not be as easily gathered. Mindful also that nothing given should ever be wasted.

Indeed, there are so many indelible memories forever tied to the smells of my childhood spent with my Grandma. Sunday mornings brought an even more unique scent- as my Grandma readied herself for church service. Not accustomed to wearing makeup or perfume during the week, grandma was on this day a delightful combination of Ivory soap, Jergens lotion, Covergirl makeup and Emeraude perfume. How I loved this smell, so much so that I would take it all in as I cuddled close before church. Infused with the understanding that Sunday’s were intended to be special, she put forth her best for God.

Many years later I would smell that smell once again, over 1, 400 miles apart. Then 33 and in my third trimester I could not travel as she feel seriously ill this time. My heart was nonetheless with her, and almost without pause I found myself praying for her throughout the day.

“Lord let her know how very much I love her, let her know that though I cannot be there in person that I am truly beside her. If I could carry her as she carried me all these years, I would.”

God heard my prayer, and knew the close bond he had established between us would not end in death. Only moments before the phone rang, God gave me an otherwise inexplicable gift-my Grandmother visited me. In the shower, I suddenly and overwhelming experienced the all enveloping scent and presence of my Grandmother. It was all around me, permeating every space with love and memories. As tears of joy and grief streamed down my face, I said my goodbyes- for now, fully embracing the gift of being with her again. Profoundly aware that God was allowing me to experience this sacred moment of my Grandmother’s passing from this world to the next.

Then just as suddenly as she had come, she was gone. Though I tried to recover the scent for an instant, I knew that she was no longer there. As the phone rang, with my cousin who had been sitting with her in these last few moments on the line, I knew her words before they were spoken.

“Liz, Grandma just left us..”
“I know..she was here..and just left too.”

I then shared with her how I knew and the unbelievable love that I had felt in these last moments.Together we cried tears of joy for the gifts given to be with our grandmother all these years. Though eleven years have now passed- the fond memories of growing up through every season infused with the scent of her presence will forever remain, evidence of the world unseen .

Peace,

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The Kids Need a Bed Tonight [at It Makes Sense to Me]

IT MAKES SENSE TO ME
By Larry Peterson

Three days a week, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m they come and they wait. Three days a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday they come just to get a drop of reprieve from the outreach center; a bus pass to the VA or to get to a job interview, a bag of groceries, a voucher to get used clothes at the thrift store, maybe a small amount of money to help pay an overdue utility bill, and sometimes just to talk to someone, anyone who will listen.

The homeless, the disabled, the sick, the unemployed, the downtrodden, the marginalized, addicts and ex-cons just out of the "big-house" all stop by. All are different, yet all are living with one common denominator running their lives---survival.

It was 8:30 a.m. and the sun was already doing its thing, slowly roasting the folks as they waited patiently for the doors to open, some having been there since 7 a.m. Florida, ah yes, palm trees, blue skies and beaches--just another day in paradise.

Andre and Jessica had made the three mile walk to the St. Vincent de Paul outreach office and had arrived at 8 a.m. They signed in and were #11 on the list. At 10:15 a man opened the door and called their name. As they approached he smiled and said, "Hi folks, c'mon in. Sorry it took so long. How you guys doing today?"

He knew how they were doing and they knew that he knew but his friendly, unbureaucratic manner quickly put them at ease. "Okay, have a seat. I'm Joe. At least it's cool in here, right?"
They sat, sighed and let the cool A/C soak into their overheated bodies. They said nothing.

"Well now," Joe said looking straight at them, "I can see you have some heavy duty stuff going on. I hope we can help. So, what exactly is happening?"

They were a mixed race couple and they could feel inside themselves that whoever this man was it did not matter at all. You can just sense some things. They loosened up. Andre began to speak and tears quickly fell from Jessica's eyes. "Look, man, we got two kids, six and eight years old, and we're getting kicked out of our place at 11 a.m. if we don't come up with $58.00, and we ain't got a dime."

"Where are the kids now?" Joe asked.

“With a neighbor. Look, we don't care so much about us but the kids need a bed tonight, know what I mean?"

"I do Andre, I do. And for what it's worth, you guys need a bed too. Where you staying?"

"Barkley Motel over on---"

"Oh yeah, I know the place well. Here's the thing, Andre, we don't pay rent monies from this office. We just don't have the funds. But let me make a call."

Joe picked up the phone and pushed the numbers for the Barkley. He knew them by heart. He smiled kindly at them and, as he waited for an answer, twirled his finger in the air as if to say, "C'mon--pick up already".

After several moments went by he said, "Hello, hey Sam, this is Joe over at the St. Vincent de Paul outreach office. I have a couple here, Andre and Jessica-----What? What are you talking about? You have to be kidding me. They have until 11:00 a.m. Look Sam, these folks need that room now--not a new one tomorrow. You should have called me. Now, just “unrent” their room. I’ll be over myself about 12:15."

Andre's and Jessica's hopes had risen and fallen in a matter of moments. Andre, a big man, said, "Man, what we gonna do?"

Joe asked, "What happens after tomorrow? Getting through today is almost like a stay of execution."

"No, no, tomorrow I know I can get some work. Just gotta get through today. Plus, we got a place lined up for next week. Her mom worked it out. She's up in Jersey and she knew someone and, anyway, come Saturday we'll be okay. She’s even sending bus tickets for the greyhound over on 9th St. We leave Saturday afternoon. Next week is 4th of July and we plan on being in Jersey and celebrating. We just gotta get through till Saturday."

"No kidding, Andre. That's awesome. But today is only Wednesday. Well, we can't have the kids without beds tonight….and tomorrow too. Now, here is a food voucher. Go across the street to the pantry and get some groceries. Then bring them home with you."

"They ain't been too nice to us over at the motel. And if I ain’t got the $58.00 they won’t let us in."

"Don't you worry about that. Trust me, okay. You go back there, everything will be all right."

It was almost 1 p.m. when they arrived back at the motel. They walked to the front desk  and Sam, the manager, smiled at them. "Okay, I have good news for you. You're paid up through Saturday."

Jessica almost collapsed from relief. Andre held her up and a happy tear rolled down his cheek.

Back at the St. Vincent De Paul office Joe finished up the paperwork from the 23 clients he had served that day. As he filed Andre and Jessica’s sheet into the folder, he held it up for a moment, looked at it and smiled. And a well-deserved smile it was.

* An edited version of this appeared in Aleteia on July 2, 2016

                             ©  Larry Peterson 2016 All Rights Reserved

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Favorite Marriage Quotes [at Plot Line and Sinker (Ellen Gable, Author)]

The theme for NFP Awareness Week is NFP: Love, Mercy, Life: Opening the Heart of Marriage. Since NFP definitely “opens the heart of marriage,” and since today is the anniversary of when my husband and I met, I’d like to share seven of my favorite quotes on marriage.

1. “Intense love does not measure; it just gives.” (Blessed Teresa of Calcutta) This quote so perfectly illustrates the sacrificial love of marriage and, indeed, of any relationship. I see this illustrated every day when my husband goes above and beyond to sacrifice for our family. I try to live this quote: every morning I wake up and think, “What can I do to make my husband’s life easier today?”

2. “Marriage is an act of will that signifies and involves a mutual gift, which unites the spouses and binds them to their eventual souls, with whom they make up a sole family – a domestic church. ” (Saint John Paul II). Love is not merely a feeling; it is a choice. Every day I have an opportunity to choose to love my spouse. Sometimes it isn’t easy, but it’s always worthwhile.

3. “Be not afraid.” (Saint John Paul II) As shown in the photo below, I certainly wasn’t afraid of what the future would hold for us. I was too happy at that moment to think of future difficulties and challenges. I had no idea what the next 34 years would bring. All married couples will face hardships and challenges. But they will also experience great joy to balance any hardships. Of course, couples who enter into a sacramental marriage (and who live their faith) have the additional graces to assist them in handling any challenges and hardships.

4. “The two shall become one.” (Genesis 2:24) There’s no better illustration of our unity and oneness than our children who are the walking “representations of our love.” (cr Saint John Paul II).Easter fam cropped

5. “Be fruitful; multiply.” (Genesis 1:28)

6. “How can I ever express the happiness of the marriage that is joined together by the Church strengthened by an offering, sealed by a blessing, announced by angels and ratified by the Father? …How wonderful the bond between two believers with a single hope, a single desire, a single observance, a single service! They are both brethren and both fellow-servants; there is no separation between them in spirit or flesh; in fact they are truly two in one flesh and where the flesh is one, one is the spirit.”(24) Tertullian (cr Familiaris Consortio Saint John Paul II) I love this quote from Tertullian, who exquisitely describes the spiritual and physical joys of the one flesh experience of Christian marriage.

7. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. (Romans 4:6) Prayer is such an important part of a sacramental marriage. But having people pray for you is also essential. In that regard, I’d like to share one of my favorite anniversary gifts: a beautiful card that was lovingly made for us by Dominican Novices back in 2012 when we were celebrating our 30th anniversary. Each sister signed her name to one day in May with a note below saying that “In honor of this occasion, we will offer 30 days (plus one) of prayer with a different sister praying for you each day this month.” Wow.

Text and photos copyright 2012/2016 Ellen Gable Hrkach

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Your Family was started on the day you got married, and after you took your vows. The presider may have uttered words similar to the ones above.  It not only applies to you and your spouse, but also to your entire family.  The world many times seeks to separate what God has joined together.

Living the Life

As our kids were growing up, we got involved in Church, sports and social club activities.  It got to a point that we were busy every night of the week.  I was a member of the church choir, my wife and I were deeply involved in building a Catholic School, three of our children were playing soccer and I was coaching them, and our daughters were members of a Catholic Girl’s club.  In addition to these church and family related items, I worked full time with a bit of travel and even took lessons to become a private pilot.  When a new opportunity for spiritual growth or volunteering came our way, our method of deciding whether or not to say yes was to take a look at our calendar and see if there was any spare time.  If there was, we said yes until every moment of our life was filled with activities.

Each of the activities we were involved in were good, it was the sheer number of activities that was bad for us.  Looking back on that time in our lives, I don’t think we realized that this constant busyness was unhealthy for our family.  We were just living a full life, volunteering for every worthwhile cause and making sure that each of our children was able have all the fun a child should have.  We were on the road to burn out and to losing touch with our young family.

Then I took a new job and one of the highly suggested activities at my new company was to spend a couple of weeks at our corporate offices helping out in the technical support call center.  It was a great way for a new Systems Engineer to quickly learn the technical aspects of the products while helping out our short-staffed support team.  My wife and I discussed this extended business trip and we decided to buy an RV and make a family trip out of it.  When the planning was completed, I had arranged a trip to California and back that lasted just under a month with stops at customer sites, national and state parks, theme parks and visiting friends and family along the way.  I don’t know that I fully realized the immediate profound effect this trip would have on our family, nor the way it would shape our family life and rhythm for the rest of our lives.

Life Lessons from Living in an RV

When preparing to leave for this trip, we had to squeeze 10 people, all our clothing, bicycles, and any personal items we needed for a month into a 31 foot Class C RV with no slide outs and limited storage.  This was a serious exercise in detachment, not only from possessions, but from our normal routines.  I still did my work on the road, but pretty much everything else in our normal routine changed.  We didn’t have any sports, school, social or church activities, we left all that behind when we pulled out of the drive on our way to California, we only had each other.

Our commitments at home weren’t missed, we didn’t long for our things, we had a great time and really grew closer together as a family over the course of our trip.  We ate all our meals together, we visited shrines along the way, attended Sunday mass and an occasional daily mass together, met with friends in different cities, and we explored the beauty of God’s creation.  In summary, we retreated from the world, prayed together, played together and formed closer bonds with each other and with the Lord.  We emerged from our month long adventure a changed family with a renewed focus on what was most important in our lives.

The Family MissionGrandCanyon

God taught us that one of his greatest gifts to us is our family.  Each of our children brings something unique to our family, something we didn’t have before and something that makes our family unit better.  We learned that we really like our kids and they like us too. Our kids didn’t need to be kept busy with tons of activities, they were just as happy, maybe even more so, to simply be with us.

Unhealthy patterns had crept into our family, this RV trip was a good exercise which allowed us to take a step back and evaluate our lives and our family routine.  We began to regularly spend time in prayer as a couple and as a family, asking God what our family’s mission should be and where we should be spending our time and energy.  At times this exercise has resulted in minor adjustments, and sometimes  major life changes to our family routine to ensure that we meet our primary goal of leading our family to heaven.

Every family needs to retreat from the world on a regular basis, this can take the form of a family vacation, a family retreat, or just making Sunday family days.  But if you don’t plan for them, they probably won’t happen.  Your family is a great gift from God, be sure to nurture and care for it.

Join us for a Retreat for Families this October (10/21/2016) in Texas.  The theme for this year’s retreat is “What God has Joined Let No One Divide”  We will delve deeper into this topic and offer practical advice on how to keep your family close together and activities to help you start this process during the retreat weekend.  Sign up here:

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Accepting Forgiveness [at Bible Meditations]

iStock_000003550839XSmall“I will renew my covenant with you, and you will know that I am the Lord. I will forgive all the wrongs you have done, but you will remember them and be too ashamed to open your mouth.” The Sovereign Lord has spoken. Ezekiel 16: 62-63

Why is it so hard for us to accept forgiveness as the gift that it is? We want to deserve forgiveness or earn it. We can’t. If we deserve it, it’s exoneration, not forgiveness.

When we try to excuse or deny the hurt we’ve caused others or the damage we’ve done to ourselves or to our relationship with God, it gets us nowhere. When we create alibis to prove what we did wasn’t so bad, it does us no good. When we acknowledge our wrongs and are truly sorry, God forgives us. We’re better off honestly acknowledging our weaknesses. Then we can recognize the truth:  forgiveness is about God’s goodness, generosity, and love, not our worthiness. We don’t have to open our mouths except to say thank you.

Once we accept God’s forgiveness as the free and precious gift it truly is, there’s no reason to keep wallowing in our misdeeds and mistakes. We can stop going on and on about it. We don’t need to dwell on our sins once we have honestly laid them at God’s feet. Once forgiven, we are free to move on and do likewise.

Prayer: Thank you, Lord, for the gift of your forgiveness.

Reflection: Can you trust God’s forgiveness enough to let go of your regrets?

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God gives us more than we can handle [at Third Place Project]

Photo Credit: CollegeDegrees360 on Flickr (Creative Commons)

I came across a quote a number of years ago that is often (erroneously) attributed to Mother Teresa: “I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish that He didn’t trust me so much.”  I’ve used it in the past when I’ve presented or answered questions on suffering – largely because it’s a comforting quote.

Everyone suffers, so the problem of pain is one of the most obvious impediments to faith in God.  The above quote (whoever said it) emphasizes not only God’s nearness to us in our suffering, but also a belief that God only tries us to our limits and no further.  And it would seem that this understanding of suffering is strongly supported in the writings of St. Paul:

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus ‘sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” -2 Corinthians 4:8-11

The only trouble here is that I’m not convinced that it’s actually true that God only tries us to our limits…  and I don’t believe that this is what St. Paul meant, either.

Don’t get me wrong here: I firmly believe that God has His hand on each of us through whatever circumstance that we face, and that He leads us through and beyond all of our most difficult moments.  I’m not questioning God’s love, faithfulness, or His presence in our day-to-day lives.  What I am calling into question, is both God’s reasoning for allowing us to experience difficult traumas in our lives, as well as whether he pushes us beyond our limits.

For several months, I’ve been following the story of Tommy Tighe (Twitter’s “Catholic hipster”) and his family as they’ve lived through an agonizing experience. As they were expecting their fourth child this spring, the 20 week ultrasound revealed that their son had a terminal kidney condition – one which meant that this child would only survive a few minutes after birth.

For 19 weeks, he and his wife waited for Luke’s birth both hoping for a miracle and dreading that it would never come. In Mid-May, Luke Tighe was born and lived for about an hour.  Tommy has been very open in sharing this experience with articles at Aleteia and Catholicmom.com.  While the devastating experience of this family is one I can barely begin to comprehend, his insights have challenged my understanding of faith and suffering.  And it was something he tweeted a few weeks ago that really got my attention:

God always gives you more than you can handle.

You become a saint when you finally give in and realize you can’t do it without His help.

— Tommy Tighe (@theghissilent) June 23, 2016

It’s the second part of Tommy’s tweet that reveals the shortcomings of the first quote.  If God only ever tried us to our limits – and not a step further – would we believe ourselves to be self-sufficient? Suffering has a unique way of drawing us beyond ourselves to think about eternal things – if we aren’t pushed beyond our limits, would we ever reach a point where we’re willing to admit we can’t make it through this life on our own, and we ask for His help?

One of the stories that makes this clear more than any other is John 11 – the death & raising of Lazarus.  The Gospel account tells us that, upon learning of Lazarus’ illness, Jesus waited two days before going to Lazarus’ house.  By the time he arrives at the house of Lazarus, he was dead and already in the tomb four days.  In what may be one of the most beautiful moments in the Gospels, Lazarus’ sister Mary takes Jesus to the tomb of her brother and there Jesus weeps (John 11:35).  There are no parables to be told, no beatitudes to be spoken, or great sermons to be given.    Jesus is standing beside the tomb of a dear friend, crying along with Mary and Martha.  It’s hard to make any sort of argument that Lazarus was not tested beyond his limits: HE DIED!  But that experience of suffering was one meant to glorify God (John 11:4) and to point towards eternal life (John 11:25-27).

So where does this leave all of us?   The most obvious fact is that each of us suffers.  The fact that is less obvious – but is still true – is that for many people, suffering seems to be overwhelming – and, it would seem, justifiably so.  God allows each of us to suffer far more than any of us can bear on our own – but thankfully, God never leaves us alone in our pain – Tommy and Lazarus’ story make that clear – Jesus comes to us and He weeps right alongside us.

But the pain is never the end of the story.  Lazarus’ resurrection foreshadows for all of us the fact that this life with all of its pains (intense as they may be) are the beginning of something so much more.  And while it may be trite to say this to someone who is suffering – they may need our weeping more than our words anyway – the rewards of sainthood and the joy of Heaven will put these moments in their proper context:

“I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”  -Romans 8:18

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Surviving Difficult Days [at Pauca Verba]

Sunday, July 24, 2016

Surviving Difficult Days [at Pauca Verba]

These are difficult days. One television commentator said, "It seems as if the nation has veered off into shadow".  After the murder of five police officers in Baton Rouge, a mother broke down before the cameras and said, "Our children have lost the right to be safe on the street". And the host of a radio call-in show used the term "ammo-sexual" referring to the intense intimacy the nation shares with guns. 
Saint Paul tells us in the Letter to the Philippians that there is a Christian response to the world where it is warped and diseased:

Delight yourselves in the Lord, yes, find your joy in him at all times. Have a reputation for being reasonable, and never forget the nearness of your Lord. Don't worry over anything whatever; whenever you pray tell God every detail of your needs in thankful prayer, and the peace of God, which surpasses human understanding, will keep constant guard over your hearts and minds as they rest in Christ Jesus. My brothers and sisters I need only add this. If you believe in goodness and if you value the approval of God, fix your minds on whatever is true and honorable and just and pure and lovely and admirable." Philippians 4:6-8 

Recently while in Rome during the Jubilee Year of Mercy, my twelve year old friend Katie, made a visit to the chapel at Santa Maria Maggiore which houses the relic-crib of Bethlehem. We can see the boards of the crib through the glass "egg" in the photo here. In anticipation of her pilgrimage I asked her to write a poem-prayer as she sat in the chapel. Her poem is a true, honorable, just, pure, lovely and admirable stream of consciousness, where in an awake and attentive silence she allowed her mind to roam. 
A stable   filled with hay   with oxen and sheep   with cows   a donkey   and mice by your feet.
There was a mother who gave birth to a king,   a king in a stable, not a grand palace. The animals knew of his power and love,   and gave their manger,   a king's crib made of wood.
The stable had sheep The stable had hay The stable had love The love of  a king who would die for his people The love of parents who would guide and protect The love of a God who would save creation   even if it meant he would die on a cross.
The manger is here   still made of wood   placed in a church   in a case of glass and gold.
People come, who kneel   and say their prayers to the king. The stable and the manger   not fit for an earthly king   were all you needed on the day of your birth.
People come to admire your humility   as shepherds and wise men did on that day People still flock to what once was your crib   to see the place where you laid your head.
KD

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It Can't Be That Bad! [at Castle Keane]

I had a strange conversation today. About family size, naturally. These happen to me all the freakin’ time. I was at the park with the children and an older couple is on the path walking toward us. He says, “You have three, so it can’t be that bad!”

I reply, nonplussed, “No, not at all.”

She says, “Do you think you need two more?!?”

“That would be all right.”

The two of them crack up, “Oh ho! Oh ho!” as if I’d said something kinky.

Maybe they think I don’t know what causes it. It seems to be a common assumption.

Yeah, people are weird. But more and more I feel like the weirdo, because I DON’T have a plan. Even among NFP-ers, it seems like more and more I’m hearing about spacing children far enough apart for optimal physical and psychological health, being responsible for the sake of the environment, how learning NFP should be required before marriage, etc. etc. This feels like buying into the freak-out culture. It all makes babies sound so dangerous. I don’t have a target number of children. Never did. We’ve never charted, but been just fine with a general awareness of how my body works and what it looks like when babies are likely to happen. We never had an unexpected pregnancy or anxiety about achieving pregnancy. Breastfeeding has kept me infertile for at least a year after each baby. When I was really depressed after moving the second time last year, I couldn’t deal with the idea of being pregnant just yet. So my husband gave me a little space during the fertile weeks for a few months. Now we’re back to letting nature happen. It just hasn’t been rocket science for us.

I realize that we are very blessed in this. I definitely understand that sometimes a more, shall we say, technical approach to the marital embrace is helpful for those who struggle with infertility or who really need to avoid pregnancy but don’t have such obvious fertility signs. That said, the way we’ve handled things in our marriage, not micromanaging our fertility, has been the normal way of things for millennia. Now of course it’s super, super, weird. People don’t know how to process the information that I don’t know how many children I want to have.

Here’s the thing. NFP isn’t magic. Contraception isn’t magic. The nature of sex is to make babies. So it can never be ruled out all together, even if one uses some kind of contraciption. That “openness to children” part of marriage is permanent. Neither are we guaranteed a child when we want it. So here we go procreating with reckless abandon. But really, it is highly unlikely that I will have ten kids. I’m almost thirty. I have about ten to twelve years of slowly declining fertility left. I had three children in eight years. So mathematically, I will probably end up with a large family but certainly not Duggar-sized. Financially we can provide much more than most people around the world, even if that might not include a college education.  (I’m a drop out, myself, so don’t try to convince me college is necessary for life!) We are healthy and the first three kids are doing all right thus far! We really enjoy our family. As far as I can see I don’t have any reason to worry about having “too many” children.

But is there really any such thing as “too many” children? Mother Teresa of course famously said that’s like saying there are too many flowers. But really, if we do have that big family and then suddenly become poor, or have major illness strike, or some other calamity, would we regret having them? Is a child something that, by its nature, we ought to resist? Should we be worried about having another one?

That’s crazy talk. And yet here we are. The basic assumption that it’s responsible to avoid pregnancy is just a hidden source of anxiety, to my thinking. Because a child is now by default a *bad thing*. As aforesaid, the nature of sex is to make babies. So the thing that is meant to unify the husband and wife in a profound way is now a source of this *bad thing*. So sex is now kind of the enemy. Sounds like a miserable way to live. And if you read this kind of news at all, you know that American couples really don’t have sex all that much! How can this be good for anybody?

We also avoid the potential for regret that we didn’t have more children. As far as I know, there haven’t been any scientific studies on this, but I have met enough older ladies that have expressed regret at not having grandchildren or wished that they hadn’t prevented having more themselves. (Yes, really! People tell me this stuff!) This regret at what might have been is real.

So what happens when we give up the idea we can and ought to control exactly when we have babies? You might think you ought to avoid pregnancy, then break your leg in a ski accident and discover you’re actually carrying twins. You might have to rely on friends to take care of you when you are on bed rest and then have a preemie. You might end up childless, to your complete surprise and disappointment. All true stories of people close to me. They all have peace in their hearts.

So what if we just acknowledge that some things are just out of our hands? Make our peace with not being in control of the Universe? That we are not gods? 

What if we just entrust it all to the one who is God? Trusting that He will work it all out for our good?

Crazy.

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Why I WANT My Toddler to be Angry [at Under Thy Roof]

I've been blessed with relatively even-keeled kids. They have their toddler over-reaction moments (trust me) but they really are pretty well behaved kids. But situations come up when I really WANT them not to react calm and serene. I want them to be angry when anger is needed.

This came up at the park the other day.

Therese was playing around in the sand, and another little kid came up and started messing with her dress. She did not like it. She slapped the kid's hand down, said "No!" nice and loud, and shook her little finger in their face telling the kid how not ok she was with this in toddler babble. Ended with "Bye!" which we all took to mean "I'm done, leave now." Kid scampered off, and a few minutes later they were playing nicely together in the sand with no more attempts to cross Therese.

I was super proud of her. But not everyone was. Another adult tried to say how the other kid "didn't really mean it" and "it's really ok". No, no it wasn't ok, and I do not want to teach my kids that you shouldn't react strongly when your boundaries are crossed.

I was reminded of this meme that I first saw pinned to our parish business manager's bulletin board:

We SHOULD be angry sometimes. It's called

righteous anger

.

We are now in a social situation where we have to have college orientation events about "

No means No

" and teaching 18 year olds how to establish boundaries.

Because they don't know this

.

We should be ashamed of ourselves. What have we been doing all along to not teach our kids how to say, and hear, the word no?

We should be angry at injustices and boundry tresspasses. It's not ok. Social life depends on the establishment of social norms

and their enforcement

. Expecting little kids to be ok with their boundaries being disrespected opens the door to all those later issues.

If we've learned anything from our many failed attempts to correct rape culture it's that this is a highly entrenched problem. The solution cannot be had from catching kids at orientation - I believe it must start as little kids. I have to allow my one year old to have boundaries, and I have to be ok with her enforcing them.

My job as parent is to teach my kids how to go about enforcing boundaries appropriately. Therese did it perfectly. She knew when something not ok started to happen, reacted with appropriate vigor, and, the important bit,

the other kid heard her

. She expected to be heard and she was. The issue rested with the adult who expected her to take whatever happened and deal with it silently.

Big Fat No to that. Every time.

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Everything I'm Not: Responsible Parenthood [at Sweeping Up Joy]

Jim Gaffigan’s answer to the question, “Why so many?” seems to be a good way to kick off a post about responsible parenthood for NFP Awareness Week:

“Well, why not? I guess the reasons against having more children always seem uninspiring and superficial. What exactly am I missing out on? Money? A few more hours of sleep? A more peaceful meal? More hair? These are nothing compared to what I get from these five monsters who rule my life. I believe each of my five children has made me a better man. So I figure I only need another thirty-four kids to be a pretty decent guy.”

I hear you, Jim.  Having kids shines a light in all the cobwebby corners of my life.  I can’t hide from my faults.  I am impatient, lose my temper, and say dumb things.  Four pairs of innocent little eyes record my mistakes and replicate them.

“Just go away!” I hear Cee tell Elle, “Can’t I be alone for five minutes?”  

Oh, Lordy.  There have been some moments of frustration where I’ve said those exact words.  Usually it’s from the bathroom, but that’s irrelevant.  That impatience has roots in my own behavior.

I must practice kindness.

“Why do you *always* make me pick up the laundry.  You should take a turn!”  Elle shouts at Cee.

I was crabby about *always* having to clean up the toys the other day.  That resentment has roots in my own behavior.

I must practice cheerful service.

It was so much easier to gloss over my long list of flaws before having kids.  If I want my kids to be everything I’m not, then I have to model the ideal.  The journey has been exhausting and full of failures, but rewarding.

When Moe is frustrated but shows restraint – – my heart sings.
When Cee chooses to turn around a bad mood – – I do a happy dance.
When Elle consoles a sibling – – my guilt about permanently messing up my kids diminishes a tish.

We’re making each other better.

We have four children, and we’ve been asked if we’re going to have more.  (That’s the more polite way of saying, “Are you done yet?”)  I always answer that we’re open to more, but we’ll just see.

I wish I could come up with something that doesn’t sound so trite.  Something that encompasses the prayer, conversations, and tears that go into discernment.  The actual answer is more complicated.

A few months ago my sister brought over some baby clothes she didn’t need any more.  Bea was already too big for them, so I asked David if there was any point in keeping them.  “It’s more likely that we’ll have more kids than that we won’t,” he said casually.

My heart skipped a beat.  Tears came to my eyes.  The thought of another high-needs family member during that particular season of life was overwhelming.

Honestly, it took me a few days to get over the anxiety that that possibility stirred up.  (Now, had we discovered that we were expecting during that time, we would have welcomed that new little person with joy, even though I wasn’t sure how it would work out at the time.  But that’s beside the point.)

Health, finances, the issues facing the older children – – everything comes into play during discussions of family size.  For better or for worse, it’s not black and white when considering what issues are sufficiently grave or serious in discerning whether or not this is the time to welcome a child.

I’m going to say it, and it might hurt.  The default in relationships is to choose love.  To choose sacrifice.  To choose to die to self.  Every vocation in the world falls under this umbrella.

Natural Family Planning is less about “how many kids we want to have” and more about “how we’re being called to love.”

Choosing love does not necessarily mean another child.  Sacrifice does not necessarily mean another child.  It is not necessarily selfish to postpone pregnancy.  Simcha Fisher does an excellent job describing some of these situations in her book, The Sinner’s Guide to Natural Family Planning.  There are occasions where prudent abstinence in order to postpone pregnancy is the loving choice.

Serious physical, emotional, or financial issues aside, children are a beautiful fruit of marriage.  That means that David is right about welcoming more children.  Children are good.  They are messy, needy, expensive, irrational – – yes.  But they are good.

As a society we need to stop treating children as a good and start treating them as good.

If we’re honest and truly act on well-formed consciences, if we strive to love, we will grow into the best versions of ourselves, regardless of the number of our children.

I’m not sure that I’d agree with Jim Gaffigan about needing 30-some more kids in order to be a decent person.   The kids I have now are already doing a good job helping me increase in decent-ness.  But I do agree with Mother Teresa’s words on this lovely print from Hatch Prints.

When we’re fumbling around trying to herd the cats kids into the car, or when getting the kids to bed is a 23 step process, it probably looks like 4 is already too many for us to handle.  The truth is, in considering the immeasurable gift each child is, it’s hard to say any number is “too many.”

We won’t know until far into the future whether or not our garden is complete.  In the mean time we’ll strive to choose love month by month, day by day, and cultivate the little flowers we’ve already been given.

More stories from the interwebs about NFP:
If NFP works, why does she have ten kids? @ Simcha Fisher
NFP Post Extravaganza @ Carrots for Michaelmas
Women Speak on NFP @ Carrots for Michaelmas
Never Say Never @ Conversion Diary

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Those Darn Catholic Politicians [at Quiet Consecration]

The Catholic Church teaches:

2104

"All men are bound to seek the truth, especially in what concerns God and his Church, and to embrace it and hold on to it as they come to know it." This duty derives from "the very dignity of the human person." It does not contradict a "sincere respect" for different religions which frequently "reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men," nor the requirement of charity, which urges Christians "to treat with love, prudence and patience those who are in error or ignorance with regard to the faith."

Treating those who are in error, whether grave or otherwise, with regard to the Truth of The Catholic Faith with love, prudence and patience can be a monumental undertaking.  It is difficult for me because I hold those Catholics in the public eye to a higher standard than those of us who muddle through our days with little notice from the 'Powers-that-Be".  Let's face it, I may write a brilliant piece today but the chances that the Associated Press or even the National Catholic Register is going to notice and give me any play are slim to none.  For many I am a lone voice shouting into the wind.  For most I am just one more little old Catholic Lady with a Blog.

Whether anyone reads this or not is not the point for me, anyway, because I believe it is my duty as a member of the Order of Preachers to do my best to support Truth.  That is my purpose and my calling.  Whether I am doing that as a writer or a Catechist for RCIA or as another lady in the pew is not nearly as important as actually doing it - supporting Truth, giving my readers my take on a situation and then being willing to listen, open up my heart and 'treat with love, prudence and patience' those who are either in error or ignorant.

It was recently reported that Joe Biden officiated at a same-sex marriage.

Joe Biden calls himself a Catholic.

What he did is against Catholic teaching, though I am certain it was politically expedient and made him feel warm and fuzzy inside. 

Tim Kaine, Vice Presidential Candidate keeps stating over and over that he personally is anti Abortion and pro Life (like any Faithful Catholic, he reminds us) but that as a government official he is bound to uphold the law.   He says he finds abortion abhorrent. 

I would believe him if he made a statement that he thinks it is stupid and morally reprehensible that there are more laws in place that protect the embryo of the California Condor than there are laws in place that insure the clinics that women go to in order to end the baby's life are clean and sterile.  I would believe him if he stated that caring about women means offering them a viable alternative to abortion and that is why he is supporting a drive to make sure the government financially supports Pregnancy Centers that do offer those alternatives with the same zeal in which it supports Planned Parenthood.  In other words, I would believe him if he was more vocal about either changing unjust laws or trying to provide equitable alternatives to those laws.

As a Catholic it is not my place to make any kind of moral judgment on the state of the souls of either of these men.  That is up to The Church and both of these guys know exactly where the nearest Catholic Church is and can look up what time that Church provides the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Both of them know priests and bishops and cardinals and probably could even get through to the Vatican if they wanted to use their political juice.  If they want to discuss their actions and their beliefs with someone in Authority within the Catholic Church they can do so. 

What I can tell you is this:  when people who want to hold themselves out before the world as Catholic either take actions that spit in the face of The Bride of Christ or make statements that beg the general public to forgive them for having to be Catholic when the secular world hates what their religion teaches, they are letting the rest of us down with a thud. 

When I take an action or make a statement that does the same, I too am letting down the Body of Christ.  I have done that very thing in the past and have done so in a spectacular fashion - the difference is no one notices unless I offer to let you all in on my dirty little secret.

The secret?

I am a sinner.  I am not worthy that He should enter under my roof.

Joe and Tim are too.

Good thing the Catholic Church is a hospital for people like us...or we would be in big, big trouble.

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Ascent [at With Us Still]

It matters a lot, the direction from which you approach Mamore Gap on the Inishowen Peninsula in Ireland.

Drive up from the west, and there’s a tangled series of switchbacks to negotiate—pretty much traditional road design for ascending a steep grade.

Looking west at Mamore…

Advance from the east, and it’s essentially a ramrod-straight shot—taking you right up to the top of the 700-foot pass situated between a pair of 1,400-foot summits.

…providing a far different perspective than the eastern approach.

Mamore Gap is the heart of “Amazing Grace” country, so named because it overlooks Lough Swilly, the bay famed for providing John Newton and his shipmates safe harbor after a dreadful storm at sea in 1748.

Spared from the winds and crashing waves, Newton experienced a deep personal conversion. He gave up his profession as a slave trader, all the while marveling at the unmerited mercy he had received…his heart moved to praise God for the “amazing grace”…that “saved a wretch like me.”

Mary Magdalene, the early Christian saint whose feast we celebrate today, no doubt would have appreciated Newton’s lyrical turn of the phrase. Scripture tells us that Mary was among the most faithful of Jesus’ disciples. Like Newton, her life had been changed by a close encounter with the Lord: Indeed, from her “seven demons had gone out.”

The lives of these two holy people, Magdalene and Newton, help me to understand the value in encountering a few switchbacks along the way. Their stories remind me that the only necessary response to grace—indeed, the only possible one—is gratitude.

But there’s another lesson in spirituality available to us at Mamore Gap, I believe. And that lesson is this: We need not always take the circuitous route. Jesus also offers us a straight shot, right up the hill.

As we grow in our knowledge of the Lord…as I deepen my relationship with Jesus… it becomes easier to perceive how God’s grace is at work in my life.

I can make my ascent…simply by offering my assent.

And with my “yes”, I become like Mary Magdalene on that first Easter morning. My heart still, I am at last ready to recognize the Holy One’s loving and merciful voice.

St. Egney’s Well at Mamore Gap…

…and other shrines of pilgrimage there.

Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.

IHS

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When God Says Wait

When I was a child, the saying “slow as Christmas” actually meant something to me. For someone with a single digit age, the twelve months passing from Christmas to Christmas might as well be twelve years. I remember how slowly each day passed as I mentally counted down to the blessed holiday from New Year’s Day, spring break, summer vacation, and Thanksgiving.

Even during the month of December, I found it difficult not to squirm. Moving our little stuffed mouse from one day to the next on the cloth Advent calendar hanging on the door was physically agonizing. I couldn’t wait for Christmas and all the joy that day symbolizes, which in that season of my life meant lots of baked goodies, family get-togethers, and more gifts than I knew what to do with.

As I age, “slow as Christmas” means less and less to me. My life is so busy and filled with activity that by the time I pause to check the date, I am astounded by how much time has passed me by. I’m more likely to say, “Christmas again, already?”

But today I feel a kinship with my younger self, a precocious child who thought she knew much more than she actually did. In the middle of what feels like the hottest summer my native Alabama has experienced in years, there is inside me a groaning, a yearning, an unresolved anticipation for the hope that Christmas brings. Once more, I wait for a child.

Motherhood has not always been my dream. I’ve always found babies adorable and I loved my little brother and sister, but as the quintessential older child I much preferred the company of my books in the quiet solitude of my room to a room filled with younger children. In high school and college, I went through a period of time when I decidedly did not want children. But when I met the man who is now my beloved husband of three and a half years, I almost immediately changed my mind.

We were eager for children right away, but our financial and living situations were not conducive to bringing new lives into the world. When we bought our first home last November, it was with joy that we officially began what we hoped would be a quick season of trying to conceive. We dreamily imagined spending the Christmas season of 2016 with a brand new baby of our own.

But eight months have now passed. The hope of watching our little son or daughter gaze in wide-eyed wonder at the hope and joy that is Christmas lights this year has long since died out. The time between that rather naïve moment of daydreaming and today is filled with empty plastic jars of prenatal vitamins, worn-out lists of possible baby names, and entirely too much money spent on plastic sticks that spelled out what my heart already knew to be true: not pregnant.

Patience is a virtue, and it is not one I naturally possess. I am the one who will volunteer to do a group project by myself if I feel my group members will slow me down. When I have a great birthday gift for my husband, I can’t wait so I can give it to him on the allotted day—I have to give it to him now. How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop? Ask someone else. So you can imagine how I have reacted to this relatively short period of waiting and uncertainty.

I will admit, God’s silence on this matter has brought me to anger. It has brought me to tears. And yesterday, when I received yet another confirmation that my womb remains empty, I descended into both. After my husband left for work, I collapsed on my bed and, sobbing, I cried out in despair.

“Do you hear me?” I asked silently, unable even to speak. “Are you listening?”

And—perhaps since this was the first time I have asked Him a direct question—He finally answered me.

It was not an answer I wanted.

It was not yes. It was not no. It was what I least wanted to hear.

“Are you listening to me?” He whispered in my heart, still gentle despite my rage. “I would not have given you a mother’s heart only to deny you the chance to be a mother. Hold on. Trust me. You, like all of my people, simply have to wait.”

Growing up, Lent and Advent were foreign to me. I didn’t participate in either until my family joined a United Methodist congregation when I was in the tenth grade. As a teenager, even more impatient than I am now, I didn’t understand these seasons. Why were we expected to go through these periods of fasting and quiet mourning for the promise that has already been fulfilled?

But now, as I think back over the blessings I’ve received in my twenty-five years of life, I am beginning to understand.

After puberty, I waited seven years for my first boyfriend and my first kiss. Both were fulfilled with the man I married. At the time, it seemed like forever. Now, it seems like nothing.

After I graduated college, I waited six months to find a job that would provide good benefits for myself and my new husband. At the time, it seemed like forever. Now, it seems like nothing.

After we married, we waited two and a half years to save up and buy a house. At the time, it seemed like forever. Now, it seems like nothing.

Sarah was an elderly woman before her promised son was born. Noah and his family waited out on the ark for forty days and forty nights. Jacob waited (and worked) for his beloved wife Rachel for fourteen years. The Israelites waited for freedom from slavery for four hundred years, and freedom from the desert for forty more. Caleb waited forty-five years to claim the land God had promised him. Humanity waited for thousands of years for the appearance of our Savior. And now, we spend thousands more as we await His second return.

To our God, waiting is important. I don’t pretend to know why. But what I do know is that I’m in good company, and that the evidence shows that our God is faithful. He upholds His promises when His people are faithful in return. So I will rejoice in this period of waiting, and to paraphrase one of my characters, when I am tempted to fear, I will instead rush headlong into His love. Because no matter how slowly Christmas approaches, it always comes on time.

Olivia Folmar Ard is a secretary, grad student, loving wife, and devoted Christian. Her new adult women’s fiction trilogy The Bennett Series addresses issues facing today’s generation while adhering to timeless moral principles. She and her husband live in central Alabama, where they attend Valleydale Baptist Church.

Connect with Olivia

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This contribution is available at http://www.carolynastfalk.com/2016/07/25/when-god-says-wait/
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Two Watershed Moments [at A Spiritual Journey]

        There are two important moments in one's spiritual journey. The first moment is when you reconcile yourself to God. The next one is when you surrender yourself to him completely. By the grace of God, many reach the first moment and become Christians. Reaching the second moment is not easy, for it involves truly letting God be your Lord. But the reward for those who have reached it is great, for they now have the easiest life, receiving full support from God in all things. 

This contribution is available at http://journeyofimperfectsaint.blogspot.com/2016/07/two-watershed-moments.html
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Alito: "Those who value religious freedom have cause for great concern." [at Leaven for the Loaf]

In declining to hear a case about conscience rights, a decision coinciding with Fortnight for Freedom, the U. S. Supreme Court just underscored the vulnerability of professionals who refuse in the course of their work to participate in ending human life.

The case involved pharmacists in Washington state who challenged a rule by the Washington Board of Pharmacy. Americans United for Life issued a recent statement summarizing the case.

The U.S. Supreme Court [on June 28, 2016] declined an opportunity to hear Stormans v. Wiesman, a challenge to a 2007 Washington Board of Pharmacy rule that punishes pharmacists and pharmacy owners with religious objections to stocking drugs with known life-ending effects. “Despite this missed opportunity to correct an unconstitutional abuse of power, the Washington State rule that punishes pharmacists and pharmacy owners who respect unborn life can and should be immediately repealed,” said Clarke Forsythe, AUL Acting President and Senior Counsel.

“The rule at issue in the Stormans case is unfortunately one of many examples where abortion advocates are pushing an extreme agenda of coercion under the faulty guise of ‘choice.’  As AUL has written about extensively, Planned Parenthood’s fingerprints are all over the unnecessary and unconstitutional rule,” continued Forsythe.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito disagreed with their colleagues who voted not to hear the Stormans appeal. As this year’s Fortnight for Freedom comes to a close, the words of Alito’s dissent are timely.

I would [hear the case] to ensure that Washington’s novel and concededly unnecessary burden on religious objectors does not trample on fundamental rights….

This case is an ominous sign. At issue are Washington State regulations that are likely to make a pharmacist unemployable if he or she objects on religious grounds to dispensing certain prescription medications. There are strong reasons to doubt whether the regulations were adopted for—or that they actually serve—any legitimate purpose. And there is much evidence that the impetus for the adoption of the regulations was hostility to pharmacists whose religious beliefs regarding abortion and contraception are out of step with prevailing opinion in the State. Yet the Ninth Circuit held that the regulations do not violate the First Amendment, and this Court does not deem the case worthy of our time. If this is a sign of how religious liberty claims will be treated in the years ahead, those who value religious freedom have cause for great concern.

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When God Dies [at Renew The Church Blog]

A profound crisis has come upon our country and now is settled into the depths of the very core of the nation – a crisis that continues to degrade us, bringing us to the point of spiritual and moral bankruptcy. I have a short one-word solution to the crisis: God. We need to return to God. As a country we have abandoned God. Remember the Pledge of Allegiance? It includes the phrase, “One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” It is only under God that a nation can be indivisible! The only secure basis for unity, for peace and concord, for liberty, for justice, is God! And God is systematically revoked, “repealed and replaced,” throughout the nation. Replaced with what? Replaced with man – replaced with the thoughts, opinions, ambitions, judgements, political correctness of men separated from God. In such darkness, justice is no more firm than a vapor, no more certain than the fluttering path of a butterfly, no more true than the slurring ramblings of a drunkard.

God is not welcomed here, anymore. Certainly He is welcomed among some! But among so many of our leaders, God is set off on the margins, and the margins are moved, and God is far distant, outside. Lost in the past, for so many people, is the sense that God is present – and relevant – to daily life. Does God “exist”? That question is now as irrelevant as God Himself, for so many it does not matter. God does not matter. God is irrelevant – as irrelevant as any other passing opinion, idea, or fantasy dreamed up by people who also don’t matter. God is irrelevant; the people who believe in Him are irrelevant. What is relevant, in this “culture of death,” is power. Political power, financial power, military power: power is relevant. Stalin is said to have discounted the relevance of the Catholic Church to his ambitions, with the rhetorical question, “How many Divisions does the Pope have?”

In America, we seem to have now reached a tipping point. My very rough “statistics” lead me to this conclusion: we are on the tipping point, and we will fall one way or the other, perhaps irreversibly, perhaps very soon. The Supreme Court, for example is about 50-50 on major, radically important issues of fundamental national moral values. The major political divide in the country – conservatives on the one hand and “progressives” on the other – is typically 40-40-20: 40% lean conservative, 40% lean progressive, and 20% might lean one way or the other. America, the flutterings of a butterfly might cause us to fall one way or the other.

When God dies, man becomes an animal – a savage – a beast. Such men care for no one; they are left to long for nothing but pleasure. They care for no one but themselves, and even that, wrongly. Such a man has lost himself, in running away from God, in hiding from God, in denying God, in refusing to acknowledge in his own heart that there is a God over all.

When God dies, man fills the chasm in his soul with anything, with everything, with ever more things, lest the empty chasm consume him too. The music must be louder, and louder still. The noise must never stop, silence must never seize a space in him, quiet and solitude must never be allowed in. Man must not pause, he must not seek rest, he must not stop lest God find him and he comes face to face with His eternal truth.

When God dies, man must erase all remnants of truth, he must silence the echoes of the Word still streaming through all that has being, he must forge his own poor stamp on all his thin fabrications and fictions, lest the authentic ring of truth condemn him. Man must not listen; man must not let himself listen again, not ever again, lest he hear and learn what he cannot bear to know.

Therefore – therefore, Church, listen to your call! – Therefore Church, you must speak. Therefore, Church, you must speak what man must hear, lest he destroy himself. You must bear witness, you must be the one you are called to be: His witness, His voice, His Bride. Awaken! Give what He has given you to give.

Pope St. John Paul II included this prophetic word for the Church of our time:

“The hour is coming, in fact has come, when the vocation of women is being acknowledged in its fullness, the hour in which women acquire in the world an influence, an effect and a power never hitherto achieved. That is why, at this moment when the human race is undergoing so deep a transformation, women imbued with a spirit of the Gospel can do so much to aid humanity in not falling”. (Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem of Pope [St.] John Paul II)

This was written especially to women, knowing the gifts and abilities given them particularly, for humanity. But Church, hear this for you as well – men and women – to live this vocation as Bride of Christ! Church, become imbued with the spirit of the Gospel! Church, live your vocation! Church, act – and do much to help and aid humanity in not falling!

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His Eyes on Us [at bukas palad]

Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 18/ Sunday /Solemnity of St Ignatius of Loyola

Readings: Jeremiah 20.7-9 / Ps 34.2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9, 10-11(R/v 9a) / 1 Corinthians 10.31-11.1 / Luke 14.25-33

He says so much by saying so little. I think of this line whenever my four-year old nephew Daniel bids the family “good night” after our Sunday dinners with a cheeky smile and a hug.

Don’t we know others whose actions say more than their words? One’s deep embrace or another’s about-turn speaks volumes without words. And we sure know what their action means deep down in our guts.

Deep down in our guts. Isn’t this how we also come to know another’s love for us? Genuine love never lies, nor dies. We know it when we feel it or see it. We know when it is fake. We know words cannot fully express it. Yet, when love is true, we experience its depth and breadth and height, and we soar on its wings.

Ignatius of Loyola reminds us “love is shown more in deeds than in words”. In many ways and at many times, we work to make it real in our Christian lives and in this Jesuit parish. 

For Ignatius, to love more in deeds than in words is to enflesh what Jesus teaches in the gospel: to lay down one’s life for another through self-sacrifice. No words can bring this act to life; only a total self-giving of one’s life. Jesus loved by living like this. His way of loving others for God leads to living assuredly in God: Jesus’ resurrection witnesses to this. 

For Christians, love cannot be simply spoken about; it has to be lived by selfless sharing. Only then is love Christ-like. Such love “shows its fruitfulness” by doing good, Pope Francis writes, “and allows us to experience the happiness of giving, the nobility and grandeur of spending ourselves unstintingly, without asking to be repaid, purely for the pleasure of giving and serving” (Amoris Laetitia, §94)

This morning we hear Jesus inviting us to take up the cross and to follow him. It is good and right that our gospel reading on our parish feast day focuses us on these words Jesus says: they are his challenge to us to center our community and today’s celebrations on Christ-like loving.

The saints responded to Jesus’ same invitation. James Alberione dared to follow God’s call to proclaim the Good News using modern technology, and so founded the Daughters of St Paul. Thérèse Couderc understood the importance of surrendering oneself in prayer, and so gathered the first Cenacle Sisters. Every saint imitated Jesus; they took up the cross and follow God’s will. 

Paul dares the Corinthians in our second reading to be imitators of Jesus. His dare must challenge us too. Are we seizing God’s many opportunities to imitate Jesus and become saints? Or, are we turning our backs on God and on ourselves?

As a parish, we have Ignatius to help us reflect on how we are taking up the cross and following Jesus. Ignatius. The worldly solider. The convert through life’s circumstance. The pilgrim seeking God. The mystic drawing others to God. The spiritual seeker discerning God’s will. The leader of a company of men following Jesus. Can you and I see ourselves in Ignatius? 

There are two facets of Ignatius’ life that can also help us consider the quality of our imitation of Jesus. They are Ignatius’ joy and peace. 

Ignatius’ contemporaries spoke about the extraordinary inner peace and joy he radiated: he was “a tiny little Spaniard, a bit lame, with joyful eyes”. They wondered who this man was? And who was this God who made this man so joyful? 

Ignatius’ prayer life gives us the beginnings of possible answers. His prayer life imitates Jesus’ prayerful relationship with God. “Intimate friendship” best describes it. 

True peace and true joy are gifts from a providential, loving God who labors intimately in Ignatius’ life for his wellbeing and freedom. This is who God is.

Ignatius’ courage imitates Jesus’ generous response to God’s love by serving others. It rightly opens him to receive such peace and joy, and to share them with many. This is who the man is.

“Take Lord, and Receive”, the opening words of the Suscipe Prayer, reveal how Jesus’ self-giving love forms Ignatius’ prayer life with God. These same words can inform our prayer life with God. Do we want to pray like Ignatius who prayed like Jesus? 

For Ignatius, like Jesus, each of us must cultivate intimate friendship with God first. This relationship must come before imitating Jesus with words to proclaim God’s love, and even before enacting deeds like him to make God’s love real, in the world. 

Friendship with God is how we will experience the true joy and true peace of knowing we can rely on God. Grace working in Ignatius helped him realized that this joy and this peace are “valuable guides to sensing God’s actions in our lives”. They can help us to make  “sensible decisions, and – when the going gets tough – to keep to these decisions” (Thomas G. Casey, SJ). 

Isn’t this how Ignatius teaches us to pray? To bring our life in the world into prayer and to find God in it; and then to bring the fruits of our prayer back into the world to live better for God? To taste and see the goodness of the Lord in his gifts of joy and peace in our lives? And where and when we didn’t live in God’s ways, to call on the Lord to rescue us? 

As parishioners, we want to imitate Ignatius who imitated Jesus to live better Christian lives. But we often judge ourselves unworthy to do this because our lives are sometimes messy, complicated and sad. Each morning however we wake up believing we will get through a better day. 

Like us, Ignatius had the same struggles. Like Ignatius, we want to hand our lives more and more to God. There will always be resistance within ourselves and from others to do this. Ignatius was no different. And yet, the desire to love God and serve neighbor remains alive in us, no matter our state of grace.

What will give us hope to love God and neighbor? Give us faith to take up our cross, follow Jesus and become a saint like Ignatius? 

Just this: that God’s eyes are always on us, loving us as we are, and believing in the saints we can become. 

I’d like to imagine that Ignatius gleaned this insight from his nightly ritual in Rome. He would go up on the roof of the house. He would sit there quietly, absolutely quietly.  With his hat off, he would look up for a long time at the sky, its wide, starry heavenly expanse above him. Then, he would fall on his knees, bowing profoundly to God.

I can think of no other reason for Ignatius bowing down than that grateful realization dawning in him that he was not looking up to God, as it was really God who was looking down at him, loving him, believing he would become the saint we celebrate today.

Isn’t this is how God is also looking at us, so as to look out for us always in Jesus? 

Doesn’t God’s gaze on us say so much in deed by saying so little in word?  How blessed we are that God loves us so. 

Preached at St Ignatius Parish, Singapore

Photo by mark gee at theartofnight.com

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A 'Chance' Meeting at a Local Store Makes a Huge Impression [at Catholic Conundrum]

SO, earlier this week, I was venturing into different thrift stores looking for costume pieces for our next Teen Take video. I decided to stop into an adorable little store called "Special Hands Shoppe" which donates its proceeds to the Metzenbaum Center for people with special needs.  Sure, donating proceeds is great, but it gets even cooler.  Many of the objects sold are created by those that attend Metzenbaum.  These great people also work at the store and under loving supervision do an incredible job keeping up the shoppe's very enticing displays and unique ambiance.  

I had visited the shoppe before, but this day I was the met with a joyful, "Hello, can I help you find anything today?" from a young man I had never met before. Looking around, I realized that he was actually running the store by himself.  I was impressed with his lively display of salesmanship, and my mouth widened into a grin despite myself as I explained that I was "just looking."

The young man got up from behind the sales counter, showed me around the store and explained the great work that was being done at the Shoppe.  It became quickly clear that his disabilities did not include his mental status; he was extremely witty and charming. And, despite his slight struggle with speech and right hand and arm, he appeared more than capable of fulfilling the requirements of his position.  

He conversed easily, and I found my fondness and delight growing at this handsome young man who was choosing a life full of productivity and contribution rather than one of wallowing in limitation.  

"Come!  Look at this table," he said with a sense of excited urgency.  It was obvious that this particular table of bookmarks, bracelets, and other created knick-knacks was extra special.  "I am 28 years old and am married to a beautiful wife.  We have been working hard to start our own business and hope to someday make it on our own."

If my heart hadn't already been won over, it certainly was then.  He went on to share beautiful stories of his wife's hard work at making bookmarks, beaded bracelets, and other products.  He also expressed his intense patriotism brought on by the service of his two brothers who had been in the military, one of which is now 'retired' from duty due to a run-in with a bomb in Afghanistan.  

As I listened intently, I found myself swept away with feelings of awe and gratitude that God had ordained this moment in my life.  As our younger generations are being raised with the "entitlement" mentality, made even more obvious by the last political convention this past week, my heart glowed with hope at the words of this young man.

Our "entitlement  process" - a blessing to those truly in need - was created for those such as he and his wife, and yet he has no desire to let it define and control him.  Instead, he plans to work hard to be set free from such a system.  In other words, he is truly pursuing the "American Dream" - to earn his independence by hard work and perseverance. All this mixed together with an incredible joy of living life, to boot!

To say he impressed me would be an gross understatement.  In reality, this brief meeting in time has affected my outlook on life, liberty, and our country's future.  In fact, had I been carrying more in my wallet, I would have come home with a table-full of trinkets to hand out as gifts!  Posted in the image above is an example of one of the bookmarks.  

God bless that incredible young young man with so much to give, and God bless our country that it might adopt a mindset such as his!

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Friday, August 5, 2016 [at Daily Reflections]

Matthew 16: 24-28

Jesus said to his disciples,
“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world
and forfeit his life?
Or what can one give in exchange for his life?
For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory,
and then he will repay each according to his conduct.
Amen, I say to you, there are some standing here
who will not taste death
until they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom.”

The journey of life has two destinations, heaven or hell. God is longing to accept everyone into heaven and sends no one to hell. Where we spend eternity is a choice given to each and every person. Ultimately, it comes down to one question; whom do you love more, God or yourself?

The root of every sin is a selfish desire. We sin when we take more than what God wants to give. Adam and Eve were given everything they could ever want except the knowledge of good and evil. They took this from God in the form of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, something God had forbidden them to take. Sin is always a choice. They took what God was not willing to give and in doing so they broke fidelity in their relationship with God and were separated from him. The same thing happens to us every time we choose to take that which is not offered.

Jesus tells us what we must do if we want to inherit God’s royal nature. We have to conform our wills to that of the Father. We have to deny our selfish desire and accept only that which God is willing to give. We have to live sacrificial lives in service to others.

How do I lose my life for the sake of God? Jesus demonstrates how to do this in the Garden of Gethsemane.  His personal desire was not to be tortured and die. His desire was to stay with those he loved and continue to teach them the ways of the Father. Yet, he put the Father’s desire ahead of his own and willfully took on the task that was presented to him. Likewise, we are tasked with carrying on his ministry in the modern world, a world that teaches that ultimate happiness comes from loving and serving the self above all else. To live for Christ today means to live a life contrary to the culture. That means I have to give up the rewards the culture has to offer.

What profit is there for me to gain everything this culture has to offer ad lose my life for all eternity? That is the lie of the current age, that the self is the center of all that is important. How I define the self is up to me alone and no one has a say in it. If I don’t like my gender I can choose to be something I am not. If I don’t like the ethnicity I am born with I can opt for another. If I don’t like what God has given me I can take what he wasn’t willing to give. I am the center of my world. I am number one. I AM.

And when I choose to save my own life I will lose it in the end.

My cross is who I am. My cross is what God has called me to be. I must embrace my cross and become the best version of myself as I can be. I must follow Christ, the perfect human, and love sacrificially. I must be Simon the Cyrene and help another to bear their cross the best they can.

We get to hell all on our own. We get to heaven by helping and being helped by one another.

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HTTP/1.1 200 OK Server: nginx Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2016 16:09:15 GMT Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Transfer-Encoding: chunked Connection: keep-alive Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=86400 Vary: Accept-Encoding Vary: Cookie X-hacker: If you're reading this, you should visit automattic.com/jobs and apply to join the fun, mention this header. X-Pingback: https://shiftingmyperspective.com/xmlrpc.php Link: ; rel=shortlink X-ac: 3.atl _dfw Pervasive Weeds [at Shifting My Perspective]

Pervasive Weeds [at Shifting My Perspective]

“The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was asleep, his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and went off.”   Matthew 13:24-25

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURESSeptember to June was so insanely busy, I burnt myself out in every area of my life. Being the extremist I am, I’ve swung the pendulum in the complete opposite direction this summer. In fact, I’ve swung it so far, I don’t even recognize myself.

I used to be so organized and efficient; now I barely answer emails. I used to be a neat freak with plenty of OCD tendencies; now my house is such a disaster, my husband even commented the other morning, “This place is a mess!” (You need to have seen how disgusting his apartment was when we were dating to get the enormity of this statement.) I used to be so busy I never sat down; now I am at risk for roots growing out my backside, and some serious weight gain from all the inactivity. The thing that amazes me most is – I don’t care about any of it: my slacker attitude, my messy house, or my new couch potato status. It all feels like  a gift that is quenching the fires of burn out.

I am also learning so much about the error of my ways.

I am a different person when I am not busy or stressed. I am more patient with my kids, kinder to others, and far more connected to God. In my new rested and relaxed state, I actually feel I’m getting closer to becoming who God is calling me to be.

I can also see more objectively the havoc that busyness and stress wreak on my life. When there is any kind of deadline, I become a terrible mother. I yell at my kids, I don’t give them options, and I certainly don’t concern myself with gently teaching them anything. That takes time. When I’m running short on it, I just bark out orders instead. Anything the Scriptures have taught me about being a good person and mom go right out the window.

The line that hits me the hardest in Matthew 13:24-25 is, “While everyone was asleep, his enemy came and sowed seeds all through the wheat, and went off.” I used to read “asleep” in the literal sense. Now I’m realizing that “asleep” is any negative state we work ourselves into. It could be fear of bad health or finances, anger at a spouse, insecurity or vanity, or stress and busyness from our employer and motherhood. When we let that negativity lull us into a state that is all consuming, we fall asleep to all the good that God is doing in our lives.

Furthermore, we expose our Achilles heel to the enemy. The devil is so smart, creative and sophisticated, he will use any doorway into our psyche that he can. He plants his “weeds” by further feeding our vulnerabilities. He’ll convince us that we are justified in our worry about our health or finances, that our husband is a schmuck and we deserve better, that we aren’t good enough or we’re better than others, or that we aren’t doing enough and should add more to our “to do” lists. (And if your Achilles heel is not on this list, trust me, he’ll find it and capitalize on it for sure). He is a master gardener who will fertilize, water and nurture those weeds so they grow so pervasive, they choke out any and all joy and grace God is offering us to get us out of our dark places.

It seems when I need to learn a lesson, God sends His message in all different ways. Recently watching the movie The War Room, and now reading Allie Worthington’s book Breaking Busy have planted this good seed of awareness in me. But it wasn’t until I read Matthew 13:24-25 that it all clicked into place in my head, like a combination lock finally opening. The enemy has been having his way with me through my busyness and stress.

I am so grateful that summer break exists. I have a strong feeling that if it didn’t, I’d still be in my “asleep” state. Instead, I have had the downtime to spend with God, soaking in His Word and learning where I went wrong.

Now that I know the true source of my stress and busyness, I can spend the rest of my summer fortifying my soul with prayer. Come September, when school begins, hopefully I’ll have swung the pendulum to middle. Once there, I hope to focus on only the things that truly need to get done, use better time management, and be who God is calling me to be for more than just two months out of the year.

Questions For Reflection:

     * What is my weakness, my Achilles heel?

     * Have I allowed that weakness to lull me “asleep” so the enemy can plant weeds in my soul?

     * What can I do to pull those weeds before they choke out the joy and grace God is offering me?

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Has Pascal's Wager Really Been "Debunked"? [at Nisi Dominus]

     Is it true that Pascal’s Wager has been “debunked”? Most informed Catholics will be familiar with Pascal’s Wager, which is an argument 17th century Catholic philosopher and scientist Blaise Pascal developed in his Pensees.  Pascal says that we all have to make the choice to believe in God or not.  There are four possible outcomes to our choice: if we choose to believe and we are right, we experience endless bliss after death, but if we are wrong we experience nothing at all, we simply cease to exist.  If we choose disbelief and we are right, we likewise experience nothing after this world, but if we are wrong we suffer eternal damnation.  Belief is clearly the best bet, because we risk nothing and stand to gain infinite joy, whereas disbelief gains us nothing even if we’re right, and costs us absolutely everything if we’re wrong.

     It’s a simple and straightforward argument, and it seems pretty obvious.  You wouldn’t think that there was room for much “bunk” in it.  And yet the New Atheism’s evangelists of nothingness claim to have shown it to be an empty shell.  You can find websites created by self-proclaimed debunkers which present the main anti-Wager arguments (along with a fair amount of neo-atheist snark).  One such site, for instance, takes three main lines of attack:

1)      “It assumes that there is only one religion”, thus we are presented, not with two clear choices, but with a myriad of choices. This objection, which has been around since Pascal’s time, is traditionally known as the argument from inconsistent revelations.

2)      The second, as we shall see, is not so much an argument as an unsupported opinion: ‘Also, the second problem is that it assumes that the possibility that the Christian doctrine that “everyone is going to hell unless they become a Christian and accept Jesus as their Savior” is a realistic and significant possibility.  Perhaps they think it is even as probable as the possibility that there is no God.  However, based on the arguments in this book and in others linked, it should be clear that that probability is pretty much zero by now.’

3)      ‘Finally, few, if any, disbelievers disbelieve out of choice . . . Most disbelievers disbelieve simply because they know of no compelling evidence or reasons to believe . . .’ and  ‘Even if you said all the  right prayers and attended church regularly, that would still not be the same thing as believing from the heart, and any real God would obviously see straight through that.’

    Let’s get the second out of the way first because, as I observed above, it is not a serious argument.  Our unbelieving friends make a sweeping assertion and offer no proof other than inviting us to read their book.  Sorry guys, your opinion isn’t proof of anything.  And if the quality of their argument here is any indication, I doubt that I’ll find the rest of their book any more persuasive (and I’m willing to bet I’ve heard all those “arguments” before, too).  This is no more than an attempt to dismiss the case before it can be litigated.

    Number one at least has the virtue of being an actual argument, one that was first raised, in fact, in Pascal’s lifetime (just as an aside, if Pascal’s Wager is “old and outdated”, as the debunkers assert, isn’t their counter-argument as well?).  Pascal himself dismissed it as an attempt to derail the argument, rather than an attempt to get at the truth, adding “But if you desire with all your heart to know it, it is not enough; look at it in detail.”   What he says next points up the main weakness with this objection: “That would be sufficient in philosophy; but not here, where everything is at stake.”  His wager is not an exercise in formal logic, nor is a metaphysical proof, nor is it an attempt to offer a comprehensive answer to all the possible possibilities raised by religious belief. He is offering it as a guide to making a real decision of which path to set out on, confident that a seeker who is sincerely looking for the truth will, ultimately, find it.

    Consider the following analogy: suppose you’re driving down the road and you come to a T intersection.  A sign pointing to the right says “Jerusalem”, the sign pointing to the left says “Danger: Bridge Out.”  If you take the left road, you might find yourself driving into a river, or maybe the bridge will have been repaired, or there could be ferry service, who knows? If you take the right, there might be an unexpected landslide, or you might miss another turn and get lost, or you might get eaten by a lion; there are an endless variety of things that might happen.  Nevertheless, you can be reasonably sure that if you want to get to Jerusalem, the right hand turn is your best bet, while the left  will, at best, take you somewhere else, or at worst get you killed.  That’s what Pascal’s Wager is about, it’s about that initial decision to commit yourself to finding God, or to turn away.  If you choose God, you will still have an endless series of further choices and decisions ahead of you, even if you are sure that the Catholic Church is the True Church.  And remember, Pascal doesn’t promise that you will find salvation if you choose God, only that you might, whereas if you choose to reject the possibility of God you definitely won’t.  The argument from inconsistent revelations does nothing to change that.

     The third argument is a variant of the argument from inauthentic belief (briefly, that Pascal’s Wager is arguing for the outward appearance of belief, as opposed to actual belief).  Like the first, it misrepresents what the Wager is really saying, and misunderstands what Catholics have traditionally understood by “belief”.  It starts out, as does the debunkers' second argument, with an unsupported assertion: "few, if any, disbelievers disbelieve out of choice", followed by another, “Most disbelievers disbelieve simply because they know of no compelling evidence or reasons to believe.”  Not only do they provide no proof whatsoever for either of them, the two statements are, in fact, contradictory: if nobody chooses to disbelieve, then what does evidence have to do with it? In any case, they don’t say reasons and evidence don’t exist, but “they know of no compelling evidence or reasons to believe”.  The word “compelling” means persuasive, and implies that they do have a choice either to accept or reject the evidence on offer. And as it happens, according to polling data, 8 out of every 10 Americans do find the same evidence “compelling” enough to believe, so it would seem that whether or not it is "compelling" is in the eye of the beholder, in which case we all do have a choice; or maybe believers don’t have really choose either, in which case, why try to “debunk” anything, since none of us, apparently, have any control over our beliefs?  I have no choice but to believe this argument is simply incoherent.

    That leaves us with the argument that following the outward form of religious observance without “believing from the heart” would not count as real belief, and “any real God would obviously see straight through” it.  Like many fallacies, this point contains enough truth to make it appear plausible at first glance, because insincere belief is, of course, false belief.  

     Part of the problem here is that this objection misrepresents what a Christian means by belief, in the same way that the secular world misunderstands what is meant by “love”.  The modern secularist sees love as primarily an emotional effect, or even as pure emotion, and therefore something that happens to you, not something you do.  In the Christian view, Love is a decision of the will, informed by the intellect, and ideally supported by the emotions, but the emotional part is the least essential.  It is therefore possible to love, truly love, someone whom you heartily dislike if you sincerely desire what is best for them, without regard for your own self-interest. Genuine belief is likewise a conscious choice and a movement of the will.  Emotions are a very unreliable guide to actions, but often serve to support and reinforce the will.  Very often we find that our emotions change (sometimes slowly) following a firm decision on our part, especially if we change our habits or practices to go along with it. Countless people have experienced such emotional changes after switching political parties, for instance, or changing some other allegiance.  In fact, it is very often the emotional attachments that keep people from switching long after they see solid reasons to do so, and it’s only after they decide to act that the emotions follow.  

    Pascal believed (as Catholics and many other people traditionally have) that reason, not emotion, should govern the will, but that emotions were the main obstacle for most people, certainly for those who claimed that they wanted to believe but could not. Accordingly, this is his advice to such people:

Learn from those who were bound like you . . . Follow the way by which they began: that is by doing everything as if they believed, by taking holy water, by having masses said, etc. Naturally, even this will make you believe and will dull you. -’But this is what I am afraid of.’ - And why? What have you to lose?

    Of course, Pascal was depending not only on the natural tendency of emotions to follow a firm will, but also the working of God’s grace on those who are sincerely seeking Him, even if they are not yet sure that they have found him.

    Now, our atheist friends might point out that they don’t believe in God’s Grace, and our emotions don’t always do what we want them to do.  True enough.  But it also doesn’t matter.  Notice that Pascal isn’t offering a counter argument above so much as advice to those might be hesitating, because the argument from inauthentic belief isn’t really an objection to Pascal’s Wager at all.  As I indicate in the“T intersection” analogy above, the Wager is solely concerned with whether it is wiser to choose a road that leads toward God, or one that leads away.  The choice itself is just a beginning, and is the same whether or not there might be difficulties or further choices along the way (as, in fact, we should expect there will be).

    The simplicity of the choice is what gives Pascal’s Wager its persuasive power. You can find critics who present much more formal and complicated discussions than the self-proclaimed debunkers cited above, but they are all variations of the same old arguments presented here, all of which have been around since Pascal’s day, and all of which rely on making his Wager something it is not.  They all have to do with raising questions about the certainty of Eternal Salvation, but that is, of course, why it is a wager in the first place, because there is no certainty in this world.  But what’s the worst that can happen if you gamble on God?  What’s the worst if you take the other path?

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Remember Who The Enemy Is [at Only A Mere Woman]

     As Christisns, our worldview boils down to God vs Satan, Good vs Evil (lack of goodness). But, I think, we lose sight of that, and that's the way the Devil likes it. He gains power by separating, sowing discord, dividing, cutting off. He worms his way into our lives in the form of comparison, self-doubt, critique. He destroys our ability to see other people as people like ourselves, delighting when we can only see the "other", the not like us part. He wins, when we no longer see him as our common enemy, but think the other person is instead. And we tear each other down, rip each other apart, in an attempt to build ourselves and our side up, and he laughs, because we can't see how it destroys us in the process. 

     I've been noticing a trend, lately, that focuses around building each other up. The Girls Gone Strong community, focusing on strengthening the whole person, and not just the body. The Momastery community, full of Love Warriors. Others, too many to name, looking to find common ground amidst the division being sown among us. Loudly proclaiming that the only way to end the cycle of violence is to project love and peace, starting with those closest to you. What's more, these are overwhelmingly secular voices. The Gospel is gaining ground, even though many in religious circles might beg to differ, and many non-believers as well. "Love your enemy. Do good to those who persecute you." (Matthew 5-ish, paraphrased). The hearts of the secular world are stirring; it is no wonder that unrest and violence are growing. Satan sees it, and he is afraid. Why do you think there is such confusion and discord amongst the Church? He is losing his grip on the secular world, so it makes sense that efforts against the Bride of Christ would be redoubled. 

     But what of us? What do we do, when it seems that our only recourse is to draw the line in the sand of us vs them, and stick to our guns? When it seems that the only sure way to win is by completely obliterating the other? Stop. Breathe. Pray. Remember that this "other" is not the real enemy - Satan is. This "other" is a person, just like you, who Satan is using as a weapon, a human sword as it were. In battle, the fight is never with the sword, though it may seem like it. Once the weapon is out of the enemies grasp, the good warrior ceases to fight it, for it no longer has the power to harm. Instead, efforts are focused on defeating the living enemy. Don't lose sight of who the real enemy is. The Devil is using God's Children to do his dirty work. People Christ poured out His Lifeblood for, who He loves with an infinite and intense Love. In everything that happens, don't forget that. These people are not the enemy - Satan is.

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How My Grandmom shrunk her world is a lesson for Us All! [at A Moment From De Sales]

Often, glaring TV “breaking news” or “horrendous morning headlines” overwhelm us.  We don’t know how to go about fixing the problems, remedying the volatile situations, or simply making a difference that will change these situations.

Then I think about how my Grandmother fixed her problems when they seemed too big to handle.  Grandma humbly “shrunk her world” and made it manageable.  She stretched paychecks when food became scarce, or clothes for school had to be bought and  mortgage payments paid.  She shrunk her world to be proactive–instead of waiting for life to happen around her.  Grandmom made it work!

One tender memory stands out.  My grandfather was extremely ill, and the doctors decided to stop all treatment.  My grandmother took over.  She decided to walk barefoot in the upcoming Saints procession through our parish streets.  Now this was no easy task, as it was June and the summer sun was just beginning to bake the streets of the procession’s route.

Yet, Grandmom choose to do what she was able to do.  Shrinking her world, she turned to faith, and her trust in God.  She reduced her sad situation to a realistic size capable of her handling.  She walked the two hour route in her barefeet,  praying her rosary, telling God of her love for Him, and asking God for His mercy for her husband.

What I admire about this story is how my Grand mom didn’t sit wringing her hands and crying “poor me.”  Instead she reached for what she knew–her confidence in God and prayed.  Now Grandpop later died, but a satisfied wife knew she gave this situation all she had. My Grandmother literally shrunk her “world” and acted.

This great life lesson still remains with me today.  Instead of asking why this is happening, our faith teaches us to ask–“Now that this is happening.  How can I manage it in the best way possible?”  And like Grandmom–with God’s help we can, and we will feel better–no matter the outcome.

This was Grandmom’s approach to life, an immigrant who never quite learned the language, but still managed her family quite well.  She simply made her life a size she was able to handle–and then lived it by acting.

Like Grandmom, we can’t let life overwhelm us, rather we have to reshape it into a “doable” size and act.  For instance, we realize that we can’t feed all the hungry in our world, but we can start with those we see around us.  We also know that we can’t shelter all the homeless, but again we can try with those who “live” near us.  Finally, we know that we can’t erase all the intolerance and bigotry in this world today, but we can remove the strands of small-mindedness that linger in our lives.

In these ways “shrinking the world” becomes a practical way of tackling the bigger picture.  In the future, remember when life’s difficulties swamp us, reach for my Grandmother’s approach–and “shrink your world”–and it will work!

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Distributism vs. Globalism [at Practical Distributism]

There has been a tendency over the last several decades toward globalism. This goes beyond the so-called "

global economy

,” with its free trade deals favoring international banks and corporations. This trend has resulted in the formation of international bureaucracies imposing standards, if not laws, on otherwise sovereign states. While there was always some resistance to this tendency, it has nevertheless progressed to the point that there is now a growing movement of outright rejection. What was initially presented as a path toward peace and harmony is increasingly viewed by common citizens as a growing threat to their freedom and way of life. What is the position of distributism in relation to the idea of globalism?

Globalism is the idea of those who believe they should help direct the development of social, cultural, technological, or economic networks around the world through political influence, and who desire the establishment of international political bodies to govern on an international level. The idea is that, by having multiple people of various cultural and economic backgrounds come together to discuss issues, problems can be resolved effectively and peacefully. Since the resolutions of these bodies can only be effective if they are actually binding, these organizations have to acquire legally recognized legislative authority. This is gladly accepted by the promoters of these organizations who seem to assume that those who run these international legislatures will always see things the same way they do. They hardly ever seem to consider what happens if they don't. They also don't seem to care if the policies and laws they desire to establish are actually wanted by the people who will end up being subject to them.

The problem with placing such a wide-ranging authority in the hands of a political body with no political or cultural attachment to the people is that people from different countries have different cultures and customs. They are rightfully proud of them and reject efforts by "those who know better" to toss them aside in the wake of the globalist view of how things should be. They want their own way of doing business, of farming and manufacture, of protecting public health and the environment, of securing civil liberties, of running their schools, of deciding what should be taught in those schools and of deciding how to integrate immigrants into their society. They do not want people who do not share their views of culture and custom to make such decisions for them, and this is precisely what the globalists want to do.

The globalists “negotiate” a one-size-fits-all agreement which actually only appeals to those whose views have a majority representation in the international political organization. In other words, only the globalists really get to decide. This was a significant part of the movement in Great Britain to leave the European Union. The European Union started as a "common market" to work together to help the economies of the separate European countries. It has evolved into an international authority with its own flag, its own anthem, and its legislature makes laws that override the national and local laws of its member states. Even when the decisions of globalist organizations are not legislatively binding, their existence creates a great political pressure for states to comply even if the citizens of the state oppose them. For example, the United Nations not only

told Ireland

, a sovereign state, that it should change its abortion laws. The politicians in Ireland's government, led by the U.N. instead of their own people, put it up for a vote. It was resoundingly defeated because the people of Ireland don't want it. The United Nations even told the Catholic Church to

change its religious doctrines

according to its view of “child welfare.” There have been cases where globalist organizations have used economic pressure, like denying aide, to try and coerce countries to adopt unwanted policies. By moving the decision-making power further and further away from the people, the political process ultimately becomes

less democratic

as individual voices become less able to influence decisions that impact their daily lives.

Distributists, on the other hand, would not only promote a country's sovereign right to direct its own affairs, we also promote that right for political regions and local communities within a country in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity.

"A community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view of the common good."

This view provides a foundation for people to preserve their culture and customs and to direct their own lives, and does so while still making room for national assistance when and where needed. It is not an “isolationist” position. It is a view that does not exclude the idea of international cooperation in addressing wider issues, but it does not include relinquishing of sovereignty to permanent international organizations as part of the process.

The world is filled with various cultures and customs, and the people from those cultures who share those customs either love them or will change them on their own. There isn't a one-size-fits-all way of life and of doing things. The purveyors of globalism, even if they don't start out to do so, ultimately trample on the rights of the people they claim to be helping. The people who say we should "celebrate diversity” are the ones who end up trying to force everyone to be the same. The people who shout the loudest about tolerance end up being the most intolerant of all. They believe they are going to do good, but they end up establishing the very kind of repressive government they claim to hate, using the very tactics they villify. In the end, even though they want peace, they will cause rebellion because the people they claim to be helping will resent them for being oppressive overlords.

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Jesus (blue background... finished) [at Grace to Paint]

8×8″ oil paint on artist board; use ‘comment’ below to inquire.

I have been trying for some more modern and engaging versions of the Lord. Perhaps this is another.

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Why I Don't Use Contraception: A Man's Perspective [at A Couple of Catholics]

The Catholic belief on birth control is a tough pill to swallow (pun intended). Since I’m a man I often get a look of disbelief when people learn that my wife and I don’t use contraception.

“You really believe in no birth control?”, they say. “Are you planning to have 20 kids?”  “I have a friend who’s Catholic and his wife is on the pill.”

Unfortunately, these reactions are the norm (the last one kills me). This is probably in part because according to a study in 2014, 78% of Catholics disagree with the Church’s teaching on contraception.

Despite being in the minority, Nicole and I don’t use contraception. Per the guidance of the Church we have chosen to be open to all that God has to offer, including however many children He wants to bless us with. We want our marriage to match the kind of love God has for us–a love that is free, total, faithful, fruitful (a.k.a., the four components of God’s love for us).

So what do we do, just roll the dice every time we want to get down?

Nope.

Nicole and I use Natural Family Planning, something we have written about here before. So why not contraception? Beyond the Church’s wisdom on this teaching, I thought I should summarize a few reasons why I don’t use contraception and instead choose to use NFP as our method of family planning.

We actually talk about our sex life.

NFP inherently promotes an ongoing dialog about sex between spouses. We talk regularly about our sex life and NFP helps us to stay on the same page. Some may say that contraception couples talk about their sexuality regularly, but with NFP there are natural checkpoints monthly.

During these moments we talk about our current state as a family, how our kids are doing and how we are doing as a couple. This is our time to discern whether God has called us to expand our family or stay where we’re at. And since we are charting every month we are constantly evaluating our family’s size and if we would like to have more children.

When we are in a period of abstinence NFP challenges me to find other ways to love my wife beyond the physical aspect of our relationship. And my wife appreciates me striving to be a better husband.

I think it is stupid to pay to have sex with my wife.

Now some of you may say, “my contraceptive is free because of Obamacare”, well this is technically true, but there are unforeseen costs. Someone has to pay the company that produces the pill and at some point we all are now paying for these services by our taxes.

With NFP there are no trips to CVS to fill a prescription or pick up any condoms. Depending on the method, NFP is basically free once you’ve learned how to chart. The only costs associated with it are the occasional visits to a counselor, charts/stickers, and/or ovulation tests if you choose to use them. Because Nicole and I have decided to use the Creighton model, our costs typically run less than $100 a year.

Sex is better.

Yes, I think this is a legitimate reason.

Everyone knows sex is better without a condom. But I don’t think we’re supposed to talk about it because this would somehow support “unsafe sex.” I don’t promote unsafe sex, of course. I actually promote the safest sex of all, the sex that takes place within a monogamous relationship.

Also, sex is better when you’re not on the pill.

Why?

The pill affects your hormones. And hormones are paramount to good loving! Hormonal contraceptives have possible side effects such as sexual and romantic dysfunction.

UGH, no thank you!

And researchers studying the broader effects of contraceptives have also noticed an apparent interference with women’s taste in men.

Couples using NFP report having more sex than couples that use contraception. No lie. A study done by Family of the Americas proves this fact.

Lastly, from a broader perspective, sex without contraceptives involves a complete view of sex that is more satisfying and unifying.

We don’t have any health risks.

NFP has no side effects to worry about and is equally effective at avoiding pregnancy. Don’t BS me by saying, “what about STDs”, see my answer above (I’m talking about sex that takes place as part of a monogamous relationship).

I don’t like chemicals and it’s better for the environment.

I don’t like the idea of my wife being on medicine when she’s not sick. This seems unnecessary. Her femininity and gift of motherhood is something that should be celebrated, not diminished.

By using NFP, I’m loving my wife and our planet. Natural Family Planning is the greenest form of family planning available today. There are no excess chemicals polluting the water, no plastic containers being pitched into landfills every month, and no latex condoms going in the trash.

How’s that for being green?

I get to know what is going on and can anticipate when and when not to have sex.

A married couple can engage in intercourse during the naturally infertile times in a woman’s cycle, or after childbearing years, without violating the meaning of marital intercourse. This is the basic principle behind natural family planning.

For me, I like knowing what is going on with my wife’s body. Something as simple as checking her temperature every morning can give her insight into how stressed she is, if she’s been keeping your diet in check, or even, God forbid, an early clue to a potentially devastating disease.

One of the great things about NFP is that it’s not just for avoiding pregnancy. For those struggling to conceive, NFP can help indicate the times of highest fertility. Worked for us…twice. (Baby J & Baby M)

It makes my wife happier.

Lastly, I get to support my wife in this big part of our relationship. Plus, happy wife, happy life… enough said.

Did I miss some benefits of using NFP? Let me know in the comments below.

I wrote this post in honor of National NFP Awareness Week. 

Photo credit: JaredEarle

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A Plea for Healing (but only if you want it) [at Mere Observations]

Rather than rush in with my very fallible, fallen human voice in order to comment on the tragic and alarming events of the past 48 hours I have decided to place here instead the words I read from this morning’s Divine Office.

The psalm for the Office of Readings was Psalm 38. As I read it I found myself quickly reading it in the voice of our collective nation.

Our fractured, frayed, hanging by a thread nation.

Do so for yourself and see if you “hear” it the same way I did.

Psalm 38: A Penitent Sufferer’s Plea for Healing

O Lord, rebuke me not in thy anger,
nor chasten me in thy wrath!
For thy arrows have sunk into me,
and thy hand has come down on me.

There is no soundness in my flesh
because of thy indignation;
there is no health in my bones
because of my sin.
For my iniquities have gone over my head;
they weigh like a burden too heavy for me.

My wounds grow foul and fester
because of my foolishness,
I am utterly bowed down and prostrate;
all the day I go about mourning.
For my loins are filled with burning,
and there is no soundness in my flesh. I
am utterly spent and crushed;
I groan because of the tumult of my heart.

Lord, all my longing is known to thee,
my sighing is not hidden from thee.
My heart throbs, my strength fails me;
and the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me.
My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague,
and my kinsmen stand afar off.

Those who seek my life lay their snares,
those who seek my hurt speak of ruin,
and meditate treachery all the day long.

But I am like a deaf man, I do not hear,
like a dumb man who does not open his mouth.
Yea, I am like a man who does not hear,
and in whose mouth are no rebukes.

But for thee, O Lord, do I wait;
it is thou, O Lord my God, who wilt answer.
For I pray, “Only let them not rejoice over me,
who boast against me when my foot slips!”

For I am ready to fall,
and my pain is ever with me.
I confess my iniquity,
I am sorry for my sin.
Those who are my foes without cause are mighty,
and many are those who hate me wrongfully.
Those who render me evil for good
are my adversaries because I follow after good.

Do not forsake me, O Lord!
O my God, be not far from me!

Make haste to help me,
O Lord, my salvation!

Had I the time I’d do a commentary on the verses in particular that stand out and how I see them in relation to our nation today. But I am instead going to leave that up to each individual reader.

The second reading this morning was from a letter to the Corinthians by Pope St. Clement. One sentence in particular stood out in context with the events fresh on my mind:

“For it is better for a man to confess his sins than to harden his heart.”

Agreed. It is better that he or she do so (or in my example for our nation to do so), but it certainly is not easy. It seems that the majority of us have chosen the path of the hardened heart. Because it is easier to do so. I get it.

And finally, as if in answer to the nation’s admission in Psalm 38, the first psalm in Morning Prayer was Psalm 51. If America, and we as individuals, could only admit our guilt and confess our sins, two things made all the more difficult by our hardened and stubborn pride, we would go a long ways towards healing ourselves and our nation. The trouble is that based upon the comments I see in social media, and not just in regards to the events in Louisiana, Minnesota and Dallas but in relation to pretty much anything in people’s lives, we have a long ways to go.

Me too.

Psalm 51: Prayer for Cleansing and Pardon

Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy steadfast love;
according to thy abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!

For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
Against thee, thee only, have I sinned,
and done that which is evil in thy sight,
so that thou art justified in thy sentence
and blameless in thy judgment.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Fill me with joy and gladness;
let the bones which thou hast broken rejoice.
Hide thy face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from thy presence,
and take not thy holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of thy salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.

Then I will teach transgressors thy ways,
and sinners will return to thee.
Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
thou God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of thy deliverance.

O Lord, open thou my lips,
and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. F
or thou hast no delight in sacrifice;
were I to give a burnt offering, thou wouldst not be pleased.
The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

Do good to Zion in thy good pleasure;
rebuild the walls of Jerusalem,
then wilt thou delight in right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on thy altar.

This contribution is available at http://jeffwalker.wordpress.com/2016/07/08/a-plea-for-healing-but-only-if-you-want-it/
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Wednesday, 27 July 2016

Fear and Trembling [at The Accidental Organist]

I don't often do "serious". I don't generally feel qualified to talk about current affairs (ok, with the exception of the EU referendum), since I live in a little bubble of child-herding/preschool runs/cleaning/translating/church/repeat. The news in recent weeks has been so horrific that I can't even bring myself to look at it most days. The news about Fr. Jacques Hamel yesterday felt like a kick in the gut. It brought everything into very, very sharp focus, and I'm scared. There's nothing special about St Etienne du Rouvray. It's a French town, like any other. With a parish church, like any other.  With a weekday mass, like any other. With a priest, like any other. And a congregation, like any other.  This isn't just an attack on a single community, on a single priest. It's an attack on all of us. Another village, another time, another mass... any of us could have been in that congregation. I could so easily have been there. My children could so easily have been there. So yes, I'm scared. I'm not ashamed to admit it. But I'm not going to give in to fear. "Be not afraid": there's a verb in there. It's an action. We're allowed to be scared, but we must let ourselves be comforted. We must stand up and be counted - in love, not in hatred. We must stand by the people of St Etienne du Rouvray, of Nice, of Paris. Of Turkey. Of Syria. Of Iraq. We must keep praying, keep attending mass, keep loving. We must not let hatred win.   

This contribution is available at http://accidentalorganist.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/fear-and-trembling.html
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Our Lady of America

Since today is Independence Day and the 240th anniversary of Our Declaration of Independence from England here in the United States of America, I thought it would be the perfect day to write about one of the Marian apparitions that has occurred on our nations soil – Our Lady of America.

Now some of you might be thinking to yourself that Our Lady of Guadalupe has been given this title, but that would be incorrect. Our Lady of America refers to the Blessed Virgin Mary in her patronage over the particular country of the United States of America and is distinctly different from Our Lady of Guadalupe, who is known by her title, “Empress of The Americas”, which refers to her patronage over all the nations that compose the Americas. Blessed Pope Pius XII declared the title in reference to Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1945.

In a 2007 letter to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, then Archbishop Raymond Burke of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, said the following at the conclusion of his letter regarding to the two patronages I mentioned above,

“As one deeply devoted to fostering the devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe in our nation, I have wondered about the relationship of the devotion to Our Lady of America to the devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe. Archbishop Leibold, in fact, raised the question with Sister Mary Ephrem. Sister Mary Ephrem responded that Our Lady of Guadalupe is Empress of all the Americas, whereas “Our Lady of America, The Immaculate Virgin,” is the patroness of our nation, the United States of America. The two devotions are, in fact, completely harmonious. As our late and most beloved Pope John Paul II reminded us, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother of America and Star of the New Evangelization, draws all of the nations of America into unity in carrying out the new evangelization. Our Lady of America calls the people of our nation to the new evangelization through a renewed dedication to purity in love.”

On the night of September 25, 1956, Our Lady first appeared to Sr. Mary Ephrem, although she had mystical experiences since 1938. She didn’t think anything of them since she thought all religious had experiences such as these. Realizing that these experiences particularly focused around the Blessed Virgin Mary, which Sister was asked to circulate, she asked Monsignor Paul F. Leibold to be her spiritual director. Even as the Archbishop of Cincinnati he served her in this role until 1972, when he suddenly passed away do to aneurysm.

The Archbishop believed so heartedly that the messages to Sister from Our Lady were real; he authenticated her writings, gave them his Imprimatur as well as authenticated the design of the medal. During one of the apparitions, Our Lady asked Sister Mary to have a medal struck, which would bear the image of Our Lady of America on the front, and on the back, would be the symbol of the Christian Family and the Blessed Trinity.

During the apparitions, the Blessed Virgin pledged that if the United States did what was asked by her, the miracles in the country would be greater than those gifted at both Fatima and Lourdes. Because the Blessed Virgin Mary had a love for the children of America, Sister Mary said Our Lady called herself – Our Lady of America. She would often give affirmations in the apparitions regarding the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., and since so many had a devotion to Mary in America, the title confirms her response to those individuals.

Appearing again to Sr. Mary Ephrem, this time on October 13, 1956, she held in both hands a small replica of the finished Immaculate Conception shrine in Washington, D.C., which was referenced many times by Our Lady in the apparitions. She hoped that once it was built it would become a place for pilgrimages and a place to honor her under the title of “Our Lady of America, the Immaculate Virgin.” During the consecration of the United States to Our Lady, which happened in 1959 at the National Shrine, and then again on November 11, 2006, by Bishop David Ricken, the Blessed Mother was addressed as the “Immaculate Virgin.”

In the years of 1957 and 1958, Our Lady gave very strong warnings of the things that were growing and potentially coming to the United States of America. In the late summer of 1957, Our Lady said that although consecration to the Immaculate Heart had occurred, more needed to happen. All must seek after inner holiness and reform their lives. Those that cling to sin were unable to receive the treasure of grace that was awaiting them.

The Blessed Virgin promised that if her statue as Our Lady of America were given a place of honor in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, she would then protect the country. If a picture or a statue of Our Lady of America were placed in the homes, she would then protect the family. Anyone that wore the medal with great faith and devotion would be protected from evil.

As many of you know, our country, and our world, the culture in which we live, has become very hostile to Christianity, but even more so, Catholicism. It attacks the family in ways we have never seen before in the history of the Church. It seems to me that we as a country must rededicate ourselves to Our Lady, not only through the apparitions of Fatima and Lourdes, but also to Our Lady of America.

So today, as we celebrate the 240th anniversary of our Independence, let us turn back towards Our Lady of America and recommit ourselves to learning more about her (much more than what’s in this article) and doing what she asked of us in the apparitions to Sr. Mary Ephrem.

To print up a high-resolution photo of Our Lady of America and place it in your home, as well as prayer cards and the message book, please visit this page. For the benefit of our families here in the USA, please do this as soon as possible!

Our Lady of America…Pray for our Country and for all of us 

Update: Here is the high resolution 8×10 picture of Our Lady of America in my home now. It cost me $15.07 at Walgreens – $3.99 for the print, $9.99 for the frame, plus the tax.

To continue reading more about this Marian apparition, check out “Mondays with Mary” – Our Lady of America, Part II.

Sources:

“The Story of Our Lady of America.” The Story of Our Lady of America. Langsenkamp Family Apostolate of Indianapolis Indiana, n.d. Web. 04 July 2016.

“Regarding Our Lady of America.” Regarding Our Lady of America. Eternal Word Television Network, n.d. Web. 04 July 2016.

This contribution is available at http://tomperna.org/2016/07/04/mondays-with-mary-our-lady-of-america/
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Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta [at The Koala Mom]

Just over one hundred years ago, a young girl named Agnes was born on August 26th in Yugoslavia. She would someday become known as Mother Teresa of Calcutta. I didn’t join the Catholic Church until ten years after her death, but I still remember hearing about her. This little Catholic nun caught the attention of the entire world for her work in India’s slums.

Mother Teresa’s Early Years

Agnes was born into a well-to-do family. Her father was a partner in a successful construction business and involved in politics. However, his death when Agnes was only 7 changed their family. Her mother had to work to support her three children. Despite this, she often took in others who were worse off than they were, teaching Agnes compassion and generosity.

In her childhood, Agnes heard about missionaries to other countries and was fascinated. At age 18, she joined the Sisters of Loreto. She left home to begin her religious life in Ireland. I can only imagine the courage and faith it took to leave the comforts of home and family for a new life so far away.

She was in Ireland for only a year before being sent on another long journey to another new country—India. Here, Agnes finished her novitiate. At age 21, made her vows as a Sister of Loreto. She took the name Teresa to honour Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint Therese of Lisieux.

Mother Teresa’s Work in India

For the next fifteen years, Sister Teresa worked as a teacher at St. Mary’s School for Girls in Calcutta. She made her final vows in 1937. From then on, her students and the other sisters called her Mother Teresa. In 1944, she became the principal of St. Mary’s. She was known as a woman of profound prayer, with a deep lover for her sisters and students.

In 1946, Mother Teresa went to Darjeeling for her annual retreat. This began her famous call. On the train, she felt deeply Jesus’ thirst for love. Over the next few months, Jesus revealed more fully to her what He was calling her to do. He wanted Mother Teresa to be His light to the poorest of poor, those who lived in ignorance of Him and His love.

Mother Teresa spent the next two years in testing and discernment. Finally, in 1948, she founded the Missionaries of Charity, as Jesus had asked her. Putting on her white and blue habit (modeled on an Indian sari), she left her comfortable life at St. Mary’s for the slums of India. Perhaps each of her earlier moves—from Yugoslavia to Ireland and then from Ireland to India—had helped prepare her for this move, which surely required all of her faith and courage.

Living in a tiny hut, Mother Teresa began each day with prayer and the Eucharist. Then she went out to serve as she was needed. She taught the children of the slums and offered basic medical care, for which she’d done some training with another group of nuns.

The Missionaries of Charity

Word of Mother Teresa’s work spread quickly and she soon had help. Some of her former students joined her as sisters. Others offered food, clothing, medical supplies, money, and buildings to use.

In 1950, only two years after Mother Teresa began her work, the Missionaries of Charity were officially established in the Diocese of Calcutta. Within a decade, she began sending nuns to other parts of India. In 1965, she opened a house in Venezuela, then Rome, then Tanzania, and even in almost every communist country.

She founded other branches of the Missionaries of Charity, including opportunities for lay people to get involved. She also received numerous awards for her work, most notably the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. One little woman began taking care of the people nobody else wanted to notice, and the world noticed.

Mother Teresa’s Death and Legacy

Mother Teresa remained active in the Missionaries of Charity up until her death. She continued to serve as the head of the Missionaries of Charity until March, 1997, when she blessed her successor. She made a final trip abroad and  visited Pope John Paul II. Then in September, she died.

Mother Teresa was given a state funeral before her burial at the Missionaries of Charity Mother House. Her tomb has become a place of pilgrimage and prayer. Pope John Paul II opened her cause for canonization just two years after her death. She was beatified in October, 2003 and will be canonized on September 4 this year in Rome.

After Mother Teresa’s death, the media exploded with news that, for much of her ministry, she had felt very alone. While she was doing God’s work in the slums of India, she felt rejected and abandoned by Him. Despite this, she never questioned the vision and calling God had given her. Instead, she remained faithful to her work, accepting this feeling of abandonment as a taste of the rejection Jesus feels from us.

For more about Mother Teresa, including quotes, photos and prayers, visit MotherTeresa.org.

To teach children about Mother Teresa, check out the Holy Heroes Glory Story “The Gospel on Five Fingers.”

August Birthdays list at iHNFor more about famous people born in August, like Mother Teresa, check out Birthdays Lessons in August at the iHomeschool Network.

This contribution is available at http://thekoalamom.com/2016/08/mother-teresa-calcutta/
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How do we, as people of faith, respond to such relentless evil? [at Brutally Honest]

A man is overcome with emotion at a memorial on the Promenade des Anglais on July 15, 2016, in Nice, France. (Photo: David Ramos, Getty Images)

We are engaged in a war, one that has been declared against us long before 9/11 – whether we want to acknowledge that fact or not. We face an enemy that may hide its face but not its ugly motives, that talks with bravado but is nothing short of cowardly.

France seems to have taken the brunt of the most recent attacks, an onslaught that has also hit us hard here in the US and scores of other places around the world.

And France is, again, aggressively responding with military threats and actions.

So righteous anger has risen up. Fire is being fought with fire.

Are theses actions legitimate – that is, moral – for people of faith?

The obvious answer is yes. The preservation of innocent human life must take precedence.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church can help instruct us. And, while we must resist the urge to take things out of context in order to advance a particular agenda or a political point of view, the Church’s teachings are, I believe, clear when the threat to innocent human life is immediate, substantial, real, and on-going:

2265: Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility [emphasis added].

2266: The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people’s rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense.

So pray, yes. Most definitely pray.

But we can and should urge those who legitimately hold authority over us to use all arms necessary to quickly defeat this global and growing threat.

The stakes have never been higher or more real.

This contribution is available at http://www.brutallyhonest.org/brutally_honest/2016/07/how-do-we-as-people-of-faith-respond-to-such-relentless-evil.html
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When we tribalize conflict, we create a tribalized society. It's that simple. [at Brutally Honest]

David French at the NRO with a piece I think ought to go viral in the wake of the horror that took place last night in Dallas:

We are faced with choices today. At a time when all the short-term incentives point toward unreason, our leaders, political and cultural, must choose reason. At a time when group solidarity is trumping individual accountability, we must choose individual accountability. At a time when the loudest voices don’t wait for evidence to make sweeping judgments, we must wait for the evidence.

...

When we tribalize conflict, we create a tribalized society. It’s that simple. Stop lying and distorting facts for your own short-term political gain. It has been extraordinary to watch so many on the left and the right disregard the truth for the sake of “larger purposes.” A known lie such as “hands-up, don’t shoot” became the slogan of an entire movement. Scaremongers refused to deal with actual statistics and instead perpetuated the claim that police officers had declared “open season” on black men. Comprehensive reporting shows that police overwhelmingly use force when they are “under attack or defending someone who [is].” Despite the millions of interactions between police and citizens (including black citizens), the number of controversial or contentious shootings is low. It’s so low that in a nation of more than 300 million citizens, we can rattle off individual names – Laquan McDonald, Walter Scott, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner – rather than consider the horror of mass death, of a true “open season.”

At the same time, it’s just as dishonest to pretend that police abuse is a fiction or that official racism has been vanquished. It is a simple fact that some police departments have covered up police misconduct (McDonald’s case comes immediately to mind) or, typically at the behest of their political masters, systematically abused the citizens they’re sworn to protect, turning them into ATMs for the state through excessive and burdensome fines and citations. While the Department of Justice’s investigation of the police shooting of Michael Brown exonerated officer Darren Wilson, for example, it painted an extraordinarily disturbing portrait of the use and abuse of official power in Ferguson, Missouri. Police made Ferguson a hell for its residents, a place where, as I wrote at the time, “a small class of the local power brokers creat[ed] two sets of rules, one for the connected and another for the mass of people who are forced – often at gunpoint – to pay for the ‘privilege’ of being governed.” No American man, woman, or child should have to live under such a regime. But the problem will never be solved if we refuse to acknowledge its complexities. No debate that so reflexively distorts reality will ever be productive.

...

Condemning the evil men and women who affiliate themselves with Black Lives Matter – people who tweet out applause for cop-killings – should not stop us from acknowledging that movement’s many more protesters who abhor violence and weep sincerely for the police lives lost last night. Condemning those cops who are bigoted should not stop us from acknowledging the many more cops who willingly lay down their lives for all citizens every single day. People of good faith can and should disagree about how best to prevent more lives from being lost in the future. But nothing will get better until everyone first recognizes that those with whom they disagree are people of good faith.

French's entire piece should be read and passed around for effect.

I've seen some of this tribalization in my own social media newsfeed today. People pouring gasoline on the flames. It's sickening, depressing, disgusting.  And though I agree completely with Mr. French, I go a step further.

What ails this once great country will take divine healing. There's no way to get around this. It's factual. It's obvious. It's real.

We should all cry out for that healing, and there's no better way in my view for that to take place than to petition those who've been recognized by the Church as dispensers of that healing.

Saints of God, pray for us.

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On Moral Dilemmas and Not Giving Up the Ship [at Backs of People's Heads and Baby Faces]

A friend of mine put this quote up on my Facebook page today:

"You must not abandon the ship in a storm because you cannot control the winds… What you cannot turn to good, you must at least make as little bad as you can."

This is SO apropos for our current political situation; don't you think? What do we do when there are no good options?

There are really two parts to this quote and while they are not completely unrelated, I want to address them separately. Let's start with the back piece first: "What you cannot turn to good, you must at least make as little bad as possible," and that will lead us to the Ship.

Having recently spent a semester pondering the question of moral dilemmas*, this quote struck me as an endorsement of

Gratian's

 exhortation in the

Decretum

 that when hemmed in by two obviously bad choices, one must always choose the lesser of two evils because it leads you closer to virtue in the end. That would seem to be in line with St. Thomas More’s quote.

But, in later centuries, as Gratian's writings were used to train future generations, there were later thinkers who argued with Gratian. They are called the

Glossators

 because they wrote "glosses" (or notes, or marginalia) on the original text.

The Glossators hold that "The Master (that's Gratian) errs gravely" when he counsels taking the lesser of two evils. They hold, instead, that God would never put us into a situation where there would ever be no good option. To hold that there are moral dilemmas in which there are no good choices, is to hold that God is not merciful. The Glossators go on to say that since we know that God is all-good and all-loving, he would never put us into a situation where we would have to jeopardize our immortal souls.

Gratian: Moral dilemmas exist and if you encounter one, you should choose the lesser of two evils.
Glossators: Moral dilemmas do not exist, so if you encounter one, it's not really a moral dilemma, there is another choice you haven't come up with.

Aquinas does some thinking about this idea of moral dilemmas, too. In De Malo (On Evil,) he suggests that there are moral dilemmas, but he breaks them down into two types: simpliciter and secundum quid.

Dilemmas Simpliciter

are stiuations where an agent, through no fault of their own, must choose between two equally bad options. Aquinas thinks that

if

these exist, they are very rare.

Secundum Quid Dilemmas

are moral dilemmas that come about because of the agent's past actions. These actions can be decisions that were made years previous, but still come back to bite you in the end. Aquinas thinks that these are much more common.

Aquinas believes that there are moral dilemmas—situations where there is no good choice –but these are dilemmas of our own making (secundum quid). In line with Aquinas' very Aristotelian thought, there is, in fact, a cause for everything!

“Don’t give up the Ship!”

Many of my friends and relatives have chosen to support Mr. Trump.

They see him as the lesser of two evils. My friends and relatives insist that I should not “give up the ship just because I cannot control the winds.” But I say that there must be a way to reset the sails and capture those winds for the benefit of all.

For 30 years, I have been a committed and active Republican. I even convinced my husband, a committed and active Democrat, to vote for Republican candidates because I believed that they were the better option. They said, and did, the right things where the question of abortion was concerned. Given this framework, the problems with supporting Hillary Clinton as a candidate are obvious. Donald Trump says all the right things - of course he does; he's a salesman - but I see no real evidence of his commitment to the Truth. What has he done to back these claims of pro-life commitment?

Sure, he says that he has accepted Christ and is now a committed Christian. A friend even likened him to Saul of Tarsus at one point, but even Saul had to prove his commitment to Peter. Saul had been wounded and had to be healed, and in order to do that, he had to be humble before Peter and the other apostles. I see no evidence in Donald Trump’s swaggering braggadocio that he has been knocked to the ground by his wounds. In addition, the rhetoric he employs in terms of who can be in America, who can move about freely – essentially determinations of personhood –are so far beyond the scope of Catholic Teaching as to be terrifying.

I do not believe that he is pro-life.

So what do we have here between Ms. Clinton and Mr. Trump?  In our two-party system, there seems to be an overall sense that this is an either/or choice. Even if we broaden our choices our to include Mr. Johnson (the Libertarian candidate) and Ms. Klein (the Green candidate), we still find no support for a pro-life stance.

If, as Catholics of good conscience, we are bound not to vote for someone who has stated that they support abortion rights, in that sense, I believe that we have a moral dilemma. But, I think that what we have here is a

Secundum Quid

dilemma. We, as a society, have allowed this to happen with our choices.

Rather than Catholics standing together and saying, “there must be another way,” we have acquiesced to the two-party argument that to choose a third way is to throw our votes away. By always choosing the lesser of two evils, as Gratian suggests, we have not moved toward virtue, we have moved further away from it.

We believed that the Republicans would change the federal laws governing abortion, but when they had control of the House, Senate, White House and Supreme Court, they did nothing. Nothing.

We have allowed the political powers-that-be to steal our voices and use them to bring forth ideas and laws that we, as Catholics, do not support. Since when does a stranger in a strange land get told, “Sorry, no room in the inn”? This is a reaction born out of Fear. Aquinas addresses this in another spot: “Fear is such a powerful emotion for humans that when we allow it to take over, it drives compassion right out of our hearts.”

We have allowed Fear to rule us, not Love and not Wisdom, and it has led us to this moral dilemma.

In a democratic republic, it is true, not every single vote counts, but a large enough groundswell can change the course of the river. We must stand against that tide as Catholics. We must stand up for our principles and we must vote with our consciences. My conscience tells me that Donald Trump, and the Republicans who support him are erring gravely and are leading us to worse places in the very near future.

I read a book during my Junior year of college that changed my life: Plato's

Republic

. In it, Plato lays out all of the different types of people and political systems we have in the world. He details the decay of civilization and predicts with stunning accuracy how we will get to each stage – from Monarchy to Aristocracy to Oligarchy to Democracy to Tyranny.

As I read, I realized that we have passed through all of them in human history and we are just a breath away from Tyranny in this country. Plato actually names Tolerance as one of the forerunners of Tyranny. To put it succinctly, he predicts that we will be so open-minded that our brains will fall out. But Tolerance is meant in many senses here. We buck against toleration of ideas that go against our own, especially when we see that they are damaging to the society at large. And that is as it should be. We should stand up for wise governance.

But, if we are willing to tolerate someone who admires leaders and people who lie and kill to get what they want (or who actually are leaders who lie and kill to get what they want), and who are so hungry for power that they will say or do anything to get it, then we are just as bad as those who tolerate other sins against the Father.

I cannot in good conscience vote for a person who has no record of being a decent and wise human being in the name of "winning". If we Catholics, as a group, do not rise up and say "no more!" this situation will continue to degrade and we will find ourselves prisoners of our own choices.

In fact, Plato addresses that, too. One of the hallmarks of tyranny is the lack of freedom --not just for the governed, but for the individual tyrant. He is a prisoner of his own desires, always wanting more. He constantly worries about how he will keep his power and who is coming to take it from him. He fears for his life. 

We might already be there. When you have to ask what is the lesser of two evils, that means you are trapped.

There are those who have advocated standing back and letting it all play out --the so-called Amish-Option. Even if we choose to exercise that option this time, we should never stand quietly. Moving forward, we should choose our champions wisely. It is, perhaps, time to consider that the two-party system does not serve us well. The either/or fallacy that this system sets up can be broken by a significant enough shock --but we MUST find the third way.

Fortunately, Aquinas gives us one more piece of advice for dealing with secundum quid dilemmas: he tells us that the only way out is through confession, penance and amendment. I don't think it's any accident that Jesus tells us, quite plainly, that He is the Way and the place that we can find him is in the Sacraments.

*Apologies to Michael V. Dougherty, PhD (my excellent professor at Ohio Dominican University, who wrote an excellent book on the subject of moral dilemmas) - I'm doing this from memory because my notes are in storage.

Just a note: the idea of moral dilemmas is not a settled question. The debate is still going on today. This is just the information I am working with and what I hold to be true. You may disagree. You may believe Gratian. I believe Aquinas.

This contribution is available at http://peoplesheadsandbabyfaces.blogspot.com/2016/07/on-moral-dilemmas-and-not-giving-up-ship.html
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Maria Goretti I noticed a profound difference in myself since venerating the relics of Saint Maria Goretti last October (2015). Her relics visited my parish in Charlotte, NC as part of a national tour. As part of the veneration process, I took the time to learn more about this saint, of whose Feast Day we celebrate today. She is the saint associated with the virtues of forgiveness and mercy.

As a result of my visit with her relics, Saint Maria Goretti left a lasting impact on me. Since last October, I seem to more easily identify my sins of omission; for example, when I fail to put God first in my life; or when I fail to be patient with my husband, or when I fail to be merciful towards others. I feel a strong connection to the spirit of this girl who died at such a young age from violence.

Although she was only a pre-teen when she died, she has taught me so much about what it truly means to forgive and be merciful. Her spirit touches my heart, making me want to be more like Maria. I now find myself wanting to put God first more often. I make stronger attempts to be more patient with my husband. I look for ways to be more merciful, and I more easily forgive when wronged. I attribute these changes in my life to Saint Maria Goretti.

Be More Like Maria Goretti

The saints are our role models for embracing virtue, and Saint Maria Goretti easily leads us toward embracing both forgiveness and mercy, especially in this Jubilee Year of Mercy. If you would like to learn more about this beloved saint, I encourage you to visit Catholic.org. They have a short four-minute video worth watching.

If you want to learn more about the virtues of forgiveness and mercy, then I encourage you to visit my posts on the subjects, easily accessible via the side bar on your right.

This contribution is available at http://virginialieto.com/saint-maria-goretti-influence/
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Prayer Hacks: Turn your day job into a prayer [at The Salt Stories]

Each time I read Ephesians, my mind gets hung up on this verse about prayer.

“Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints.”-Ephesians 6:18

My prayer life has looked different in every season, and I am now beginning to understand that this is okay. I don’t have endless hours to journal as I once did; I have new wonderful people in my life to share my mornings, and prayer with. I need to be open to some new techniques.

So what does praying at all times mean for me in this stage of my life? It is clear I am not called to a cloistered life, even if there are days I wish I was. Single mined, silent, set aside time is valuable and worth pursuing, but with the right position of our hearts, prayer can be anything. A dance party, painting, basketball, raising a child, cooking, any task through which we communicate with God can be prayer. But what about my day job?

I spend 40-55 hours a week at my office job, behind my desk, running programs, or in meetings. I am still learning how to do this whole job thing, and how to transform these hours into part of my prayer. Below are seven quick takes I use to turn my job into a prayer. The first few are triggers to keep my mind on prayer, and the last few are actions to take. But know that I do not do them all every day or every week. Each of our day jobs looks different, some are working full time, some part time, others are in school, and still others work inside the home. If you, like me, want to squeeze a little more prayer into your work, I encourage you to pick one or two or develop your own hacks and get started today.

1 . Lamp

Place a lamp on your desk and each morning when you get in to the office, lift up your work and toil for someone or something in particular. Turn on your lamp to signify this prayer intention and throughout the day as you see it’s light, say a quick prayer for the intention of the day.

2. Password

Turn your password into a prayer. This way each time you log in to your computer or email  you can send a prayer up for another. You can do this many ways, but a good place to start is to use the persons’ initials and a one word intention. Of course, with the required capitalization, numbers, and symbols.

3. The walk in

Each day park your car (or bike) far enough away from the building so that you can say a prayer on your way in and out of the office. Sometimes I say a prayer for a specific intention, but often it is a decade of the rosary. My usual parking spot seems to be the perfect length for a decade.

I have to fight the temptation to look at my phone during the walk in, and instead use this time to focus my heart and mind on what matters most, acknowledging my dependence and my purpose as a worker in this building.

While you are at it, turn your commute into a purposeful time. Listen to something that teaches or encourages you, or forgo the noise to spend time in quiet or prayer.

4. Email

Before you push send on an email, say a quick prayer for the receiver. Often I use the same one line prayer, unless something more specific comes to mind.

Lord, fill ______ with your love.

5. One line prayers

Find times throughout your day to throw up a one line prayer. Choose a line or verse that you can say for an entire day, week, or month. It helps if you choose a prayer that matches your season, or encourages growth in a new area. Here are a few options.

Jesus, I trust in you.

Less of me and more of you.

Open my eyes to the bigger picture here.

Show me how to love other people like you love them.

Grant me patience and compassion with my coworkers.

Help me to rise above my circumstances.

Help me to prioritize this task list

Thank you for the gift of my job.

Light in me a passion for work.

I’m choosing your ways over my own, even though I don’t really feel like it.

Let me give to others freely, compassionately, and without judgment.

6. Kindness, be available.

Know your coworkers. Ask them about the things that matter in their life. Build time into your schedule to be available to chat about things. And choose to assume the best in others.

In Paul’s letter to Timothy he reminds us that it will not always be easy to live our vocations, but to “be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching…be self-possessed in all circumstances; put up with hardship; perform the work of an evangelist; fulfill your ministry.”

Try and remember, especially on the hard days, to celebrate others’ success and lead with patience and kindness.

7. For God’s glory

In everything you do, choose to do it for the glory of God. As a teenager, I remember a wise man asking me, “do you want to know the purpose of life?”  I, on the edge of my seat, nodded an affirmative. The question I had been asking myself for years, I was finally going to know the answer. He said, it was simple, we, like all of God’s creation, are made for his glory. It wasn’t quite the answer I was looking for, because it was so open ended, but in time this answer has become music to my ears. It confirms that I could, and was made to, be glorifying, and that this purpose could take any form.

While in high school, I would write the letters G2G on the top of my papers or tests to remind myself that the work at my hand was for the glory of God. In my work now, there are many days when I forget what my ultimate purpose in life and work is. I let my days slip by focusing on the busyness of my tasks, and forgetting to lift it up and walk in his ways or according to my creation.

We are made as an extension of God’s love. Made to reflect the goodness of the creator and model the sacrifice of his son. If I go to work and begin each task, reminding myself that this work right in front of me is for the glory of God, then I can do anything with purpose and joy.

In whatever season, job, or days you find yourself, I would love to hear the way you incorporate prayer into your day. St. Joseph, the patron of workers, pray for us.

Enjoy the graphic images below.

“Prayer is an aspiration of the heart, it is a simple glance directed to heaven, it is a cry of gratitude and love in the midst of trail as well as joy; finally, it is something great, supernatural, which expands my soul and unites me to Jesus.”–St.Therese of Lisieux

“We must pray without ceasing, in every occurrence and employment of our lives – that prayer which is rather a habit of lifting up the heart to God as in a constant communication with Him.”–Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton

“My little children, your hearts, are small, but prayer stretches them and makes them capable of loving God. Through prayer we receive a foretaste of heaven and something of paradise comes down upon us. Prayer never leaves us without sweetness. It is honey that flows into the souls and makes all things sweet. When we pray properly, sorrows disappear like snow before the sun.” –Saint John Vianney

“Don’t imagine that, if you had a great deal of time, you would spend more of it in prayer. Get rid of that idea; it is no hindrance to prayer to spend your time well. Jacob did not cease to be a Saint because he had to attend to his flocks.” –St. Teresa of Avila

“We must meditate before, during and after everything we do. The prophet says: “I will pray, and then I will understand.”  This is the way we can easily overcome the countless difficulties we have to face day after day, which, after all, are part of our work. In meditation we find the strength to bring Christ to birth in ourselves and in others.” –Saint Charles Borromeo

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Novena for Our Priests and Deacons [at Veils and Vocations]

There are so many things I have wanted to share but with the still persistent pregnancy fatigue and a nasty head/chest cold that just won't go away, my waiting one more day to blog has turned into weeks.  However, I have been having a feeling that I should host another pray along on the blog.  I just wanted a specific request to begin.  There is so much to pray for, it gets very overwhelming.

In the past day, my mission to pray has been clarified.  I wanted to lead this prayer for the LORD, and He has finally shown me what it is I must request.  The martydom of Father Hamel in France has broken my heart.  France is a country I love so dearly.  It also made it quite plain that these types of attacks can happen anywhere.  The persecuted church is not just in the marginal nations, it is in our own backyard.

So I am hosting this pray along of a novena of novenas for the protection of our priests and deacons, as well as the conversion of our enemies--not only for our sake, but the sake of their souls. Please pray along with me and share this with your friends and family, our clergy needs our prayers and petitions more than they ever have!

Day 1:

Litany of Our Lady of Fatima

Our Lady of Fatima, Pray for our beloved country

Our Lady of Fatima, Sanctify our clergy

Our Lady of Fatima, Make our Catholics more feverent

Our Lady of Fatima, Guide and inspire those who govern us

Our Lady of Fatima, Cure the sick who confide in thee

Our Lady of Fatima, Console the sorrowful who trust in thee

Our Lady of Fatima, Help those who invoke thine aid

Our Lady of Fatima, Deliver us from all dangers

Our Lady of Fatima, Help us resist temptation

Our Lady of Fatima, Obtain for us all that we lovingly ask of thee

Our Lady of Fatima, Help those who are dear to us

Our Lady of Fatima, Bring to the Holy Catholic Church those who are in error

Our Lady of Fatima, Give us back our ancient fervor

Our Lady of Fatima, Obtain for us pardon of our manifold sins and offenses

Our Lady of Fatima, Bring all men to the feet of thy Divine Child

Our Lady of Fatima, Obtain peace for the world

O Mary conceived without sin,

Pray for us who have recourse to thee

Immaculate Heart of Mary, Pray for us now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Let us pray: O God of infinite goodness and mercy, fill our hearts with a great confidence in Thy dear Mother, whom we invoke under the title of Our Lady of the Rosary and Our Lady of Fatima, and grant us by her powerful intercession all the graces, spiritual and temporal, which we need. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen (courtesy of Keepsakes by Carrie)

 Pray nine times:

REMEMBER, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly to thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother; to thee do I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen.

Dear Lady, lover of Christ and His Church, please intercede for her clergy.  Protect and fortify our priests and deacons.  Call down legions of angels to fight off the evil that seeks to destroy these holy men who want nothing but to serve your Son in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  Please grant them strength in these difficult times and peace despite all that happens around them.

Bring the hearts of our enemies to the one, true God.  Bend their knees to the LORD and Savior, that they may not persecute your children, but serve the Kingdom now and forever.

Original - Prayer to St. Michael

“O Glorious Prince of the heavenly host, St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in the battle and in the terrible warfare that we are waging against the principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, against the evil spirits. Come to the aid of man, whom Almighty God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of Satan.

“Fight this day the battle of the Lord, together with the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in Heaven. That cruel, ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels. Behold, this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage. Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay and cast into eternal perdition souls destined for the crown of eternal glory. This wicked dragon pours out, as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity.

“These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where the See of Holy Peter and the Chair of Truth has been set up as the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety, with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck, the sheep may be.

“Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory. They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious power of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude. Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church. Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly find mercy in the sight of the Lord; and vanquishing the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations. Amen.

V. Behold the Cross of the Lord; be scattered ye hostile powers.
R. The Lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered the root of David.
V. Let Thy mercies be upon us, O Lord.
R. As we have hoped in Thee.
V. O Lord, hear my prayer.
R. And let my cry come unto Thee.

Let us pray.

O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon Thy holy Name, and as supplicants, we implore Thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin Immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious St. Michael the Archangel, Thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all the other unclean spirits who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of souls. Amen.”

Roman Raccolta, July 23, 1898, supplement approved July 31, 1902,
London: Burnes, Oates & Washbourne Ltd., 1935, 12th edition.

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Starmus v. Festival of Creation [at Justin's Corner]

This month, a bevy of prominent astronomers, former astronauts, and other noted scientists from around the world joined up with rock musicians to collectively present the Starmus conference-festival in the Canary Islands, which was attended by hundreds of wealthy science and music enthusiasts from the United States and other countries. This interesting two-week event, which has been held in the same location every two or three years since 2011, was co-founded by Armenian astrophysicist Garik Israelian and his British friend, Queen guitarist Brian May, who conceived it as an attractive blend of science and music (the name, Starmus, is short for "stars and music"). During the last few years, this exclusive summertime conference-festival--which was initially considered a bit eccentric--has grown increasingly popular, drawing an ever-larger number of touristy attendees. It features talks by individual astronomers and scientists, roundtable discussions on specific issues related to science, and meet-and-greet sessions with participants during the daytime hours, and ear-splitting rock concerts by May and company in the evening hours. The genius behind the concept of putting scientific presentations and musical entertainment together in a single event, held at a popular tourist destination to boot, is evident from the fact that this festival is resonating with a rapidly growing audience. People want to take a break to travel and enjoy God's creation during the summer; they want to learn something about the latest science and astronomy discoveries from the leaders in those fields; and they want to listen to music. And these wants are not just whims or preferences, but fundamental human needs for relaxation, education, and entertainment. There is a basic hunger for these things, and Starmus is out to fill it. The question is whether this particular scientific gathering and rock festival, which is now an accepted part of twenty-first century Western popular culture, really satisfies these basic human needs.

For me, the major problem with Starmus lies in the ideological and philosophical thrust of the event, which is decidedly Darwinist, materialistic, and atheistic. One of the best-known keynote speakers at multiple events has been Richard Dawkins, the infamous evolutionary biologist, religious bigot, and spokesman for the Darwinist worldview, which is the opposite of the Christian worldview. By contrast, no devoutly Christian astronomers and scientists--not even award-winning and world-famous ones--are ever invited to speak at the conference-festival. There has been very little talk about God or the relationship between science and religion at Starmus thus far, and when such discussions do occur, God is treated mainly as a curiosity, as an aside, and religion is generally viewed as a private, subjective matter subordinate to science, which is hailed as the real and only source of accurate information about the world we live in. Basically, there is no real room for God on the stage at Starmus, where the organizers and VIPs dismiss God the Creator as unnecessary and irrelevant and thus dare to exalt themselves above their Maker. This essentially atheistic guiding philosophy also dictates the type of music offered at the event, which--as then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger once wrote--is "the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship" (

The Spirit of the Liturgy,

Ignatius Press, 2000, p. 148). And then there is the relatively minor issue of the exclusive nature of this event; only those who can afford to travel to the Canary Islands can participate in it.

Yes, unfortunately, Starmus is a highly secularist and elitist event that accurately reflects the  ideological drift of our contemporary Western culture. It denies God, the Creator of the universe and of humanity, the acknowledgement and glory that rightly belong to Him, replacing rational faith in God with irrational faith in blind evolutionary forces that supposedly shape all of reality with no ultimate meaning or purpose whatsoever. Whatever nuggets of good may be found in the Starmus festival, as a whole it is an event profoundly steeped in the darkness of error, a product of human arrogance and foolishness.

A few years ago, as I was reflecting about this, an inspiration came to me: Why not start a different kind of scientific conference and music festival based on the Starmus model, but shaped by Christian faith and traditional values? Such a conference-festival could be called the Festival of Creation, and unlike Starmus, which lasts two weeks and is held every two years on the same remote island, this event would be a few days to a week long and would be held annually each summer right here in the United States, in a different city and state each year, to give people all over this country the opportunity to attend at some point in their lives without having to spend a fortune on travel. Ideally, this event would not be held in a major metropolis, but rather in a medium-sized city surrounded by the natural beauty of God's creation, with the necessary facilities to accommodate up to about 10,000  participants in the first few years. Opening with a prayer, the conference would feature talks and presentations by believing scientists and theologians from across the denominational spectrum, all of whom would be free to speak openly about their faith in God and Jesus Christ. It would also feature informal roundtable discussions that would examine such topics as  science and religion, faith and reason, weather and climate change, environmental issues, good stewardship of creation, the development of sustainable energy resources, and space exploration. The roster of invited speakers would include creationists and Intelligent Design proponents as well as theistic evolutionists (those who believe God used evolutionary processes to develop his creation gradually over time). Some great keynote speakers to invite would include planetary scientist and Carl Sagan Medal winner Brother Guy Consolmagno; renowned DNA geneticist Dr. Francis Collins; well-known creation theologian Cardinal Christoph Schonborn; and noted creationist Ken Ham, founder of the Answers in Genesis theme park in Kentucky. On the basis of their shared faith in the Creator, these speakers would hopefully engage in respectful and charitable dialogue with one another both on and off the stage concerning their different perspectives on how God created everything. This conference would also feature religious testimonies by former atheistic and agnostic scientists who have since come to belief in the Creator (hint hint: former Starmus stars who see the light would be most welcome!). And in the evenings, uplifting and entertaining concerts would feature praise and worship music offered by popular Christian soft rock and pop bands as well as classical music performances with creation-inspired themes by talented artists, all for the glory of God.

While the Festival of Creation would be primarily a Christian event organized by Christians and for Christians, other people of good will who share our faith in God the Creator would also be welcome to attend. Unlike the expensive, exclusive, and worldly shindig in the Canary Islands, this event would be a wholesome, accessible, family-friendly gathering of like-minded believers to celebrate God's creation and enjoy some good fellowship and inspirational music, all while giving the Creator the worship and honor and glory He deserves. And unlike Starmus, which wallows in the darkness of human error, the Festival of Creation would bask in the bright light of revealed truth. Finally, in contrast to Starmus, which discourages and weakens faith in God the Creator, the Festival of Creation would encourage and strengthen such faith while offering an attractive and needed witness to the growing ranks of nonbelievers of the true origin and purpose of their existence. People need a good vacation, they need to relax and enjoy God's creation, and they need to be entertained; but above all, amid this ever more radically secularist culture, people are starving for the truth, and that is the most important thing the Festival of Creation would deliver: the truth that all the goodness and beauty of the cosmos is the handiwork of a great, wise, infinitely powerful and loving and awesome God, who created everything through his Son Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit, and who holds everything in existence, ceaselessly guarding and mysteriously guiding creation at every moment with His providential care.

Is anybody with me on this? What do you think? Please let me know by leaving your comments and suggestions below.

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Discernment and the Spark of Conviction

“Every time you decide, there is loss, no matter how you decide. It’s always a question of what you cannot afford to lose. I’m not the one playing the piano here. You’re the one that needs to decide what the next note will be.”
“But how do I know the next note is the right one?”
“The right note sounds right and the wrong note sounds wrong.” – Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork

Nearly 20 years ago, in the middle of a conversation about meat, I realized that the idea of eating meat made me uncomfortable. The truth of this flashed so strongly inside of me that I couldn’t ignore it. So I stopped eating meat. And for these last 20 years, when people have asked for (or sometimes demanded) reasons why I’m vegetarian, I have told them the simplest, truest thing: I don’t want to eat meat.

Once, someone heard that response and sputtered, “Well that’s not good enough for me!” as if I owed her an explanation. A lot of people resist such simple explanations as “I knew it was the right choice for me”, or “I just had the sense it was the right thing to do”, so I have a list of reasons which are not untrue, but which carried less weight in my decision making than listening to my gut did.

My decision making process was similar when deciding to keep my birth name when I got married. Keeping it felt right, my husband had no qualms about it, so I stayed a Felice. Simple as that.

These decisions call to mind the Ignatian concept of discernment, or how we use feelings of consolation and desolation to determine what course we should take in life. Discernment is about recognizing feelings such as courage and joy, or despair and anxiety and informing our decisions with them.

Discernment is often associated with lengthy processes rather than the spontaneous spark of conviction that I described above, so here is another example: when my now-husband and I started dating, all signs pointed toward things not working out. The most glaring sign was that we lived 3 hours apart. We were both hesitant to get involved and I was uncertain and frustrated. But every time I prayed about it I was convinced that this was part of God teaching me how to love, and I would decide again not to bail on the whole messy enterprise. Thank goodness I stuck it out.

We don’t make big decisions every day, but we make plenty of small ones, and we make choices that help form consciences that can be trusted. By listening to others, critiquing my reactions to experiences, consuming positive words and images, and praying regularly I do my best to stave off self-deception and the evil spirit.

Developing a gut that can be trusted is the work of a lifetime. Sometimes reading the spirits of consolation and desolation must be supplemented with lists of pros and cons, or extensive consultation and consideration of a decision’s effect on others. For most of my life listening for that right note, the one that sounds right, has led me to a joyful life, with few regrets.

How do you practice discernment?

31days-with-saint-ignatius-sidebar This post is inspired by Loyola Press’s 31 Days with Ignatius, which focuses on Ignatian themes throughout the month of July leading up to the Feast of St Ignatius Loyola on July 31. I failed to give Ignatius his due for most of the month, but hope this post makes up for it. Have a blessed Feast!

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St. Ignatius and His First Principle and Foundation

July 31, 2016 by Susan Stabile

Today the Catholic Church celebrates the feast of the saint who has had the greatest influence on my spiritual growth – St. Ignatius of Loyola.  As I have shared before many times, doing the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius was one of my most life-changing experiences.

The first consideration Ignatius invites those doing the Spiritual Exercises to spent time with is titled the First Principle and Foundation.   Ignatius viewed the Principle and Foundation as the key to the spiritual life, a statement of human meaning and purpose that could be accepted by people of any faith.   I have come more and more to believe he is right.

I encourage both those who I have directed in the Exercises and anyone formed by Ignatian spirituality to go back to the Principle and Foundation from time to time.   And I would encourage you to make today’s feast of Ignatius by doing the same.

There are many translations and interpretations of the Exercises.  Let me share two here.  First, is  David Fleming’s rendition of the Principle and Foundation:

The Goal of our life is to live with God forever.
God, who loves us, gave us life.
Our own response of love allows God’s life
to flow into us without limit.

All the things in this world are gifts from God,
Presented to us so that we can know God more easily
and make a return of love more readily.
As a result, we appreciate and use all these gifts of God
Insofar as they help us to develop as loving persons.
But if any of these gifts become the center of our lives,
They displace God
And so hinder our growth toward our goal.

In everyday life, then, we must hold ourselves in balance
Before all of these created gifts insofar as we have a choice
And are not bound by some obligation.
We should not fix our desires on health or sickness,
Wealth or poverty, success or failure, a long life or a short one.
For everything has the potential of calling forth in us
A deeper response to our life in God.

Our only desire and our one choice should be this:
I want and I choose what better leads
To God’s deepening his life in me.

Here is another, this one by Sister Marie Schwan, CSJ, who ministered for many years at the Jesuit Retreat House in OshKosh, a place I now call home.

Lord my God, when your love spilled over into creation You thought of me.
I am from love, of love, for love.
Let my heart, O God, always recognize, cherish, and enjoy Your goodness in all of creation.
Direct all that is me toward Your praise. Teach me reverence for every person, all things. Energize me in your service.
Lord God may nothing ever distract me from your love…neither health nor sickness, wealth nor poverty, honor nor dishonor, long life nor short life.
May I never seek nor choose to be other than You intend or wish. Amen.

As you sit with the Principle and Foundation, you might ask yourself:

What difference does it make in my day-to-day life when I remember that the goal of my life is the praise and service of God?

In what ways do I tend to control my life and treat it as my possession rather than to embrace it freely as God’s gift to me?

Who or what do I need to surrender in order to entrust my life freely and completely to God?

Happy Feast Day to all of my Jesuit friends and all of us formed by Ignatius’ vision.

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Scripture says that we are saved by... [at Catholic365]

Scripture says we are saved by....

By grace:
Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

By faith:
Luke 7:50 And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.

By works:
James 2:24 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.

By hope:
Romans 8:24 For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?

by keeping the Commandments:
Matthew 19:17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.

By doing the Father's will:
Matthew 7:21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

By patient continuance in well doing:Romans 2:7 To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life:

By feeding the hungry:
Matt 24:34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: 36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

But not by faith alone:
1 Corinthians 13:2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

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