[Coffee with the Saints]: The First Among the Saints

This coffee with the saints is a series that I am doing to reflect on the lives of the saints; if you want to read more about it or see other saint posts, you can click the tab on the top of this page or click this link Saints. 

Mother of God. Virgin of virgins. Mother of Christ. Mother of the Church. Blessed Mother. Our Lady. Madonna. Blessed Virgin. The Sorrowful Mother. Our Lady of Peace. Queen Mother. The Immaculate Conception. 

Mary

Tomorrow, the last day of May, is the feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Mother to her cousin Elizabeth (shown in a painting in that image above) and the last day of the month of May, a month dedicated to Mary. In my somewhat regular posts on saints so far we have talked about a couple of different saints, but I think it is about time that we stop and talk about the first and greatest among the saints, our Mother Mary. 

Now if I happen to have anyone who isn't Catholic reading this: welcome. This post is not, however, intended to be a defense of our devotion to her. I believe firmly that our devotion to her is what the Lord desires from us, which I think is firmly rooted in Scripture [Luke Chapter 1, John 19:26-27] as well as Tradition. Taking the fact that we can/should venerate her for granted, I want to briefly look to why she is so vital to the life of a Catholic. 

The feast of the Visitation is about Mary, who had newly found out that she was pregnant, running ("went with haste," more literally) off to the hill country to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who was also pregnant. Elizabeth was much older than her, and Mary went to be with and to help her. In a way that broke every single tradition which was common at the time, Elizabeth was the one who greeted Mary with a song of exaltation and praise (if you want to know where Marian devotion comes from, read that part in Luke 1:39-56 and you'll have a good idea). What I want to focus here is on what happened right before Elizabeth, in verse 42, proclaims her song of excitement towards Mary: her son (John) leaps in her womb (cf. Luke 1:41). 

Why is this so important to us? I think it reminds us of the most important truth of Mary: when we are with Mary, we are in the presence of her Son, Jesus. John leaped within the womb of his mother because of his great joy at recognizing the presence of God within her womb; when we are the presence of Mary, the first tabernacle, we are very specifically brought into the presence of our God. Through Mary's 'yes,' the God of the Universe took on human flesh, and through this act He redeemed each of us and gave us our ability to achieve eternal life. 

(Meme credit: Catholic Memes)

Mary's choice to say 'yes' to God, Mary's choice to be a Mother who loved and cared for her Son, Mary's choice to give her life completely to God, Mary's continued prayer and reliance on God, and Mary's whole life are integral parts of Christ coming to earth and redeeming us. Is it true that without Mary, God could still have saved us? Of course. But that's NOT what He chose. God chose to come to earth and save all of humanity by relying on the 'yes' of a young girl when she was scared and unprepared, but still willing to trust in Him. 

So, if her 'yes' was good enough for Him to choose to honor her as His mother, then we should do the same. We should pray the rosary, we should ask for her intercession, and we should trust in her motherly care, all the time knowing that when we rely on her presence He is made present to us in a unique and special way. 

Blessed Mother Mary...Pray for us!

"It is Mary's obedience that opens the door to God. God's word, His Spirit, creates the child in her. He does so through the door of her obedience. In this way, Jesus is the new Adam, the new beginning 'ab integro'--from the Virgin, who places herself entirely at the disposal of God's will So a new creation comes about, which is nevertheless tied to the free 'yes' of the human creature, Mary." -Pope Benedict XVI 

"Mary is the sure path to our meeting with Christ. Devotion to the Mother of the Lord, when it is genuine, is always an impetus to a life guided by the Spirit and values of the Gospel." -Pope John Paul II   

A Love which Knew no Bounds-the Story of Jay Gatsby

As you probably are tired of me saying, I am a die hard fan of the Great Gatsby. I wrote about the book here-now I want to comment on the movie because I'm obsessed. Since I'm in no way a movie critic, I won't even bother with the explanation of why I think Luhrmann actually did a good job for what he was attempting, but ultimately fell short of the brilliance of the book (impossible not to, in my opinion). Instead, I want to analyze the character Jay Gatsby, because, well, that's what it's all about.

Note: Spoiler Alert. There are many. If you haven't read the book and therefore are scared to go on, do yourself a favor and read the book. If you have, then it won't matter if I tell you about the movie because it is unbelievably faithful to the book's plot line. 

Jay Gatsby is the great anomaly of American literature in many ways. He is the bad guy, the sinner, the self-centered rich guy and simultaneously one of the most beloved men in literature, a sort of tragic figure who you can hardly help but root for. And so, when Leonardo DiCaprio was cast for this part, I remember thinking one thing: it couldn't be any other way.

No, seriously. Think about it; everyone knows of Leo, and everyone has an opinion. Most people dislike him for one reason or another, and yet it seems that in most of his movies you can't help but like him. You try and say that he's not a good actor, and then he pulls an Inception and you realize he's actually pretty darn good. Just like Gatsby, you want to have a horrible rumor about him be true (and I'm sure they're out there), but for the most part he's just a pretty loveable guy who isn't great but isn't quite bad enough at anything for you to hate him (my opinions on Leo may be debated, feel free).

And so, a little ways into this movie, we finally see the face of DiCaprio as Gatsby. What we see is the young, boyish face of a man who has enough money to own a mansion on the water and throw parties where the biggest gluttons in New York (and the whole country, for that matter) can come and leave satisfied (ish). Gatsby, though, isn't your average character; the entire story tries to show you who he is, and yet in the end you feel like you still might not have understood him at all, like you know no more than when you saw that smile, the kind of smile which you only see 4 or 5 times in a lifetime (Fitzgerald's words, I'm not that good).

I specifically want to point to one thing about Gatsby's character in the movie (and book, but movie shows it quite well) that I found most interesting: his complete and total dependence on the acceptance of others. Specifically, of course, this is based on the acceptance of Miss Daisy Buchanan, but it also carries over into his whole life and every relationship.

Gatsby is, it seems, living the American dream; he's the personification of the wild and "wonderful" life of the 1920s. He is rich, coming into his money by his own accord (albeit in some shadiness). He is a celebrity by all means of the word, with stories about his past being as broad and well-known as any character of the Jersey Shore today. He is good-looking, with girls from all over the city just trying to get a glimpse of him at a party (if only because he is so mysterious). His smile is perfect. His clothes are perfect. He throws wonderful parties (of particular interest to many people today). The list could go on and on.

Why, then, we might ask, would Gatsby still be desiring something? It seems that no matter what he has, he can't possibly risk not having the approval and acceptance of those around him. When people see his house, he wants it to be perfect. When people see him, he must be presentable. When, later in the movie, he loses his temper, he immediately apologizes, ashamed for being seen in such a light.

All of this, of course, is a ploy for one woman to see him, to notice him, to desire him, and most of all to love him. This, it seems, is the crux of Gatsby's character; he has everything, and yet his insecurities will not cease until he has the affection of the one woman who means so much to him, the one woman for whom he did all of this. Gatsby shows us something profound: wealth, success, connections, influence, possessions, reputation, etc. are all nothing in the grand scheme of things. Human beings were not made to be well-known, human beings were made to give and receive love.

For Gatsby, this was first with Dan Cody, the man who took him in and taught him how to be respectable and successful, but mostly taught him what it looked like to care for another person. After this, he met Daisy Buchanan, and she became all that mattered for the rest of his entire life (quite literally, as we know his life ended quite tragically and quite early).

At the end of the book, we understand his character in a way that the movie could have benefited from showing: Gatsby's dad (father of James Gatz, that is, Gatsby's real name) is one of the few that shows up for the funeral. What his dad has to say is profound; he shows Nick a journal entry of Gatsby from when he was young which detailed a daily schedule for him to improve himself. Gatsby, his dad explains, was driven from an early age to aspire to greatness, to step outside of the limits set for him, to better himself and to do something great with his life.

In the end, many would say that he failed; Jay Gatsby was killed, he was a criminal, and he was involved in adultery. While these things are never to be condoned, and in that sense he did fail, what is obvious to me is this: Jay Gatsby would not have said that he failed for any of those reasons, but simply because he did not end up with Daisy. While his quest for her was often misguided and inappropriate, Gatsby showed that he had found a simple truth in life: when you find love, you should do everything to cling to it. While my moral compass tells me that there are things which should stop you from seeking that thing you love, and I believe that is a truth which I should hold onto, there is something I admire greatly about Jay Gatsby and the way that nothing could possibly deter him from seeking his love, from finding her and being with her as he knew he was meant to be.

The sadness of Gatsby's story is that he didn't end up with his love, for she had moved on and chose not to think about him but live her new life (I do like that she stayed married to her husband, but find it sad that she married him when she loved another more). His story is sad because he died too early. His story is sad because the love disappeared in many ways when Daisy was brought into his life and she wasn't just the light in the distance any more. Jay Gatsby's story, in many ways, is nothing short of tragedy.

And yet, as I started with saying, I can't help but wish things had worked out for Gatsby. I wish Daisy had waited for him. I wish Tom would've been good for Daisy, maybe allowing Gatsby to be happy. I wish Wilson hadn't killed Gatsby. I wish that the story had a happy ending. And maybe there's something for me to learn from the fact that Gatsby's selfish, no-holds-barred pursuit of Daisy outside of any moral code didn't end well; in fact I'm sure there is. But there will always be a part of me that respects Gatsby; not for doing things that were wrong, but for knowing that he would never be complete without giving and receiving love, and for trying to seek that love.

So I rambled a little about Gatsby and didn't get anywhere except to see that I can't wrap my mind around this character. Maybe that's the point, or maybe I'm just too caught up in comparing the morals of the story with the heartfelt love of the story. Whatever the case, I know that I can't help but love the guy, and I know that I thoroughly enjoyed watching DiCaprio take a stab at presenting him to us (in 3-D for like $127 a ticket, because they can), even if there is no way he could've captured all that was meant by Jay Gatsby.

"The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God—a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about His Father's business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end."

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

A Glass Half Full

There has been a recent confusion and dare I say uproar about certain comments made by our Holy Father about the fact that God cares about and died for all people, not just good and Holy Christians. You can find a translation of the Pope's comments here at the Vatican Radio website, and you can read an opinion about what he said from Scott Hahn here: The Sacred Page. In response to this, words have been written and opinions have been thrown around, basically asserting that either the Pope is a heretic or all people go to heaven now. The most recent article I've read about these comments came on the Huffington Post from an atheist named Staks Rosch in an article called Dear Pope, Atheists Don't Need Redemption.

Here is some of what he says:

"I'm not interested in being "redeemed" by Jesus. Contrary to the Catholic and even the broader Christian belief, I don't believe humans are evil sinners in need of redemption. I don't see the glass as half empty. The way I see it, the glass is full. Half the glass is filled with water and the other half filled with air. In other words, I don't think people are inherently evil; I think people are more nuanced than that. We do good things and we do bad things....Everything Christianity is about hinges on the belief that we are all wretched human beings and that no one is righteous, not one."

There are a lot of things that I would disagree with in his writing, but specifically this is the part he is totally wrong about: Christianity, and not Atheism, is the worldview which has the glass half full.

You see here's what he doesn't understand about Christian teaching: it is not about our wretchedness, it's about God's love. Christianity is ALL about God's love. As my dear priest-friend always told us: "It's all about love, baby."

You see Rosch operates under this worldview which says that Atheism is happy because it lets us be free and Christianity restricts us. While this is fun and good to say, the reality is that it could not be more wrong. Christianity allows us to have freedom, the sort of freedom which allows us to realize who we are in the depths of our being and to live in freedom out of that knowledge--that is to say, true freedom. You see the teaching of Christianity is that we have sinned, yes, and we have in fact fallen away from God, but our story doesn't end there; if it did, then there would be no point to it.

Thank God (because He's real and He lives and loves us and is worth thanking) that our story doesn't end in our wretchedness, but ends in God. The God who created the world in an ordered and beautiful way and created each person to be unique and in His image doesn't let us live in our wretchedness, nor does He ask us to dwell on it, nor does He even see us as wretched. And that, I think, is where this article goes wrong; it sees our sinfulness as we see it, as wretched, instead of how God sees it, as His children needing to return to Him.  When Rosch says that he is not interested in being redeemed by Jesus, he is simply pointing out what Pope Francis was saying in his comments: people want to find goodness, and no matter how far off they are, this is still a search for God's truth, even if it denies His very existence.

When the Pope stated that redemption is possible for atheists he wasn't attacking atheists, but instead pointing out this truth: we are inherently good. People are not wretched, people are not evil, but people do need redemption; we are all created in the image and likeness of a God who died to give new life to all of His children, and the Pope wants to remind us that whether we realize it or not we are seeking him.

And so while Rosch might be mistaken in his understanding of morality, he is close to the truth when he seeks the glass half-full approach to life, since this is what Christianity is about. Christianity is about seeing truth, beauty and goodness in the face of suffering; Christianity is about the fact that no matter how down you might feel on yourself, no matter how much you might struggle, no matter what mistakes you might make, there is ALWAYS redemption. There is a man named Jesus Christ, and He died for the sins of humanity, so wretchedness and sin never need to be a worry anymore.

So yeah, maybe Christians believe that we're sinners and need redemption, Rosch was right about that. What he was wrong about, though, was how that feels for the Christian. For the Christian, sin is not a downer, glass half empty kind of thing; our sin is a reminder that in Christ redemption is always near to us, and we never have a reason to lose hope.

[Book Review]: "Yours is the Church"-What Modern Man Forgets

This post is a Book Review on "Yours is the Church: How Catholicism Shapes Our World" by Mike Aquilina. You can read more book reviews that I have done My Library. If you want to learn more about the Author of this book, Mike Aquilina, you can visit his website: http://mikeaquilina.com/. You can see more of his books here, and you can find this particular book on Amazon here. 

"Yours is the Church: How Catholicism Shapes our World"

Mike Aquilina

Servant Books, 2012

134 Pages

I have read one previous book by Mike Aquilina, and I heard him speak recently on the persecutions of the early Church, and so I was very excited to pick up this book (this is the other book I read of his). Mike is a devout Catholic man who is also a very honest intellectual, a man with a breadth of knowledge of Catholic teaching and most specifically the way that those teachings played out historically. Mike's love for the truth of the history of the Church comes out in a particular way in this book, where he examines the Church's impact on nearly every major aspect of modern culture in a thorough while also readable and brief way. His ability to tell a story in an interesting way, even if it is a story from a culture which we can hardly imagine, makes this book not read like a history lesson, but rather like a very enjoyable trip through 2,000 years of developments, highlighted by some of the more interesting ways that culture grew over that time. 

As you can tell, I was very pleased with this book. From the beginning, it has no problem being blunt and probably offensive to people who don't want to hear about the Church's important impact on culture: "Everything about our modern world we think is good is there because of the Church. The only reason we care about the poor is because Christianity has won. The only reason the rights of women and children are important is because the Church has made them important. The only reason we have science is because the Church taught us how to think" (Introduction, pp. vii-viii). After this opening claim, which to modern sensibilities seems ludicrous, the book jumps right into backing it up; from art to music to literature, science to the dignity of the person, and finally to peace and the future of the world, the argument that the Church is the basis of modern culture is defended in a skillful and brilliant way. I will be honest: his bluntness took me back at first, I am sure mostly because I have been trained to subconsciously think that the Church couldn't possibly be behind all of this. When reading, though, I was convinced of this fact: the historical evidence clearly shows that the world would not look the same had the Church not been a part of it. 

If the idea that the Catholic Church is responsible for the intelligence of modern science, the beauty of music and art, and the dignity of women and children sounds wrong to you, you owe it to yourself to read this book. This book does not shy away from some of the mistakes that people in the Church made throughout history, but it points out something which is often ignored: all people were making the mistakes (and still are), both inside and outside of the Church, but it was only within the Church that people were seeing them as mistakes and fighting back against them. Even in the Dark Ages (I had a professor in college who would take offense at them being called that, so I apologize to Dr. G, but I think she would agree with what he says about the time), a time when it is assumed that no learning or advancement took place, the Church still held a light. As Aquilina says in this book, this was a time when "it goes without saying that all those [speaking of the people who took the ideas of Aristotle that the Muslims brought in his works to Spain and applied them in a way we still look to today] great thinkers were in the Church. There simply wasn't anywhere else where thinking was done" (p. 16).  In the times that people see as dark, the Church held a light; in the times that people see light blazing forth, the Church was the one carrying the torch. In Ancient Rome, the darkest of times for women and children (and most people, for that matter), it was the Church that changed sensibilities to see all people, regardless of age, sex, or color, as people worthy of dignity. 

What Aquilina does here is tackle the breadth of culture, explaining that it all owes a debt to the Church. The things that we see as being wrong in modern culture, often asserted against the Church, we can only see are wrong because the Church taught us values of right and wrong. If we are to truly evaluate culture, then, we have to look to the basis of it, the Church, and see the way that the Church holds us to what culture should look like. 

I could talk all day about some of the points in this book, but instead I will encourage you to read it and find out for yourself why the culture owes a debt of gratitude to the Church. Until you have the chance to read it, I will leave you with his conclusion about what the Church might look like going forward, based on what it has looked like for the last 2,000 years: 

"It will look like the human race--colorful, infinitely diverse, but all one family of God's children. It will be truly Catholic--a word that means 'universal.' It will be enriched by beautiful traditions from all over the planet. Like the living body that it is, the Catholic Church will continue to grow and learn. But it will always be the same Catholic Church, always true to itself, and always faithful to the teachings of the apostles. Yours is the Church." (p. 130)

Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this review, start by picking up his books (http://mikeaquilina.com/), and then please comment below and/or share this with your friends. God bless you. 

[Book Review]: On Heaven and Earth-A Dialogue in Unity of Truth

This book, On Heaven and Earth, by Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (now Pope Francis) and Rabbi Abraham Skorka, is released by Image Books and includes conversations by these men on Faith, Family, and the Church in the Twenty-First Century. You can find more info on the book and purchase it on ImageBooks' website here; you can also read Chapter One of the book to get a feel for it here, and you can find the book on Amazon here. You can also read more book reviews that I have done by going here: My Library. 

"On Heaven and Earth"
Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Abraham Skorka
ImageBooks 2013

Like many others, I am sure, I was most interested to pick up this book because it was our new Pope in his own words. When I heard that this book was out there, I was intrigued; rarely do we get an insight into a Pope's mind like this, where it is not teaching but rather simply discussion. From the outset of this book, you get a good idea of what the the book will be like: friendly, intriguing dialogue which is not about debate but rather about finding common ground and looking at life from one's own perspective. As the Pope says in his introduction to this book, "Dialogue is born from a respectful attitude toward the other person, from a conviction that the other person has something good to say" (p. XIV). With this in the introduction, one learns a lot about how the actual dialogue will play out: a dialogue which involves truly listening to the other and discussing the things which the other person has to say on the world. 

Due to the nature of this book as a personal conversation and not a theological analysis, it is quite readable for nearly any audience. While both of these men have deep convictions about their faith and the world, they do not allow their convictions to destroy conversation, but rather they are used to further dialogue. Whether the reader is Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Atheist, or of any other belief system, this book is one that would be an interesting read about the state of world affairs and two well-learned men's opinions on dealing with current issues. In reading this book you will learn a lot about what is happening and has happened in Argentina over the last half-century, as well as a lot about the way that a Catholic or Jewish worldview would go about dealing with these specific problems. On top of reading the opinions, what you will also experience in reading this book is a personal look at the man who is the new Pope; whether you are Catholic or not, he is an important man in the world, and it is good to know a little bit more about him. 

Dialogue in Respect and Love

Since the book has 29 unique chapters touching on subjects from God to guilt to fundamentalism to science to the family and including nearly everything in between, it will be impossible here to discuss any of their thoughts in a profound or really worthwhile way. What I want to look at, instead, is the way that the whole book is framed in conversation, and what we can learn from reading the way that these two men interact. One of the most fascinating encounters of the book, for me, was in the Chapter "On Death" (Chapter 10), in which the two men's views differ quite drastically. Often in this book, one will notice that the basis for viewing the world is very similar in Judaism and Christianity; here, however, we find that this is not the case. Cardinal Bergoglio's understanding of death and the afterlife comes from the Catholic understanding of original sin, which he explains is what leads to death (cf. p.77). Rabbi Skorka, in his response to the Cardinal, lays out the Jewish point of view when it comes to the Garden of Eden, heaven and hell, and sin and death, which are all very different from the Catholic perspective on these things. When it is time for the Cardinal to respond, he does not spend time laboring these points in debating theology, but immediately finds common ground by picking out the topic of "inheritance" which Rabbi Skorka had mentioned and discussing this point. For me, this was a perfect example of what the whole book was about: he didn't need to argue or debate here, as these are points of intricate theology which would be difficult to discuss in a cursory way as they do with many topics, but rather he wants to find common ground, and allow his point of view to come across in a way that the Rabbi can relate to. This, I believe, is something which is often missing in the dialogue which we experience today; today, we will argue our point of view vehemently, without finding common ground. What our new Pope does here has a profound point: if you ever want to get somewhere in argument, you can't start by trying to destroy their points, but rather you must start by showing an understanding of common ground and building from that point. 

Impressions

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. For someone who wants to understand the mind of Pope Francis, this is a great place to start. It is important to note, however, that more time in many parts of this book is definitely given to Rabbi Skorka's words as compared to the length of responses given by Pope Francis. If you are simply looking to read Pope Francis, then, this might catch you off guard; the Rabbi, though, is a brilliant man, and his insights are worth the time to read. I would encourage anyone, no matter where they are on their journey in life and in faith, to take the time to read this book. Whether or not you agree with the arguments, you will learn something; if nothing else, Americans can learn a lot from this book about recent history in Argentina and the way that it has affected those who are from there. 

Unity of Truth

As a final note, I would like to draw back to what I think is the most important and concrete thing I have taken from my reading of this conversation, the importance of dialogue based on respect and care for the other. In Chapter 27 of this book, which is on Israeli-Palestinian conflicts and other conflicts, Cardinal Bergoglio has a section where he talks about an idea presented by German theologian Oscar Cullman. Cullman's idea is that in dealing with conflicts we need to start by affirming the things which are the same between the two parties, and using that sameness to begin moving forward hand-in-hand instead of throwing rocks at one another (cf. p.217). I would like to close this review with a quote from Pope Francis which concludes his comments in this section, which to me wraps up the way that we see these two men interact. This interaction involves much respect for the other person as an individual worthy of love and respect, an individual who is seeking truth and needs to be respected before they can be encountered in dialogue. In this quote, Pope Francis tells us that when dealing with others who think differently, we always need to go forth with "(e)ach one, from their identity, in reconciliation, seeking the unity of truth" (p.218, emphasis added). 

"I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review as a part of their blogging for books program; you can learn more about this by visiting the program's website here Blogging for Books."

Doves and Fire

As I write this, we are on the verge of it being one of the most important days of the year. Pentecost, celebrated 50 days after Easter, is the Birthday of the Church, the day that the Holy Spirit came down upon the Apostles and they began to live out Christ's command to go out and baptize all nations.

My life at this point has me working at and living next door to a Church. As anyone who works for a Church or has spent any significant time around a Church can tell you, I witness a lot of different things. Today, what I witnessed was the life of the Church captured in a way so fitting for the day before Pentecost: in a span of 6 hours, the Church was host to daily Mass, a funeral, and a wedding.

For a priest like my Pastor and priests all over the world, this day was nothing new or different in its schedule. In the course of a day, one man is asked to walk people through the various stages of life all in one day: daily devotions, sorrow at the loss of a loved one, extreme joy at the celebration of Marriage or Baptism, and whatever else may come up. The Church, in Her wisdom and love for Her people, becomes within a matter of hours a place of seeking hope in the midst of despair as well as a place for celebration and great joy.

This is what Pentecost was about. The Holy Spirit came down upon the Apostles and Mary who were hiding in the upper room waiting for the promise that Jesus had given them before they went out and fulfilled their calling (read Acts 1-2 again, it's worth it). God, as He always does, came through for them; also as He usually does, He surprised them.

Gathered in the upper room, none of the apostles could have ever imagined the way that the Spirit would come; they wouldn't have thought of fire, and wouldn't have assumed that they'd be able to speak random languages that they'd never learned. Gathered in the upper room, they wouldn't have pictured us, 2,000 years later, having great joy at Baptisms and Weddings and great sorrow at funerals all in the same day here in the United States. Gathered in the upper room, they almost certainly wouldn't have been able to lay out the image of the Magisterium and the way the Church functions in the modern world (I mean come on, the Pope tweets).

And yet they listened, and then they acted. This is what we celebrate on Pentecost. This is what it's all about. The Church is about daily listening to the call of the Lord, taking His commands and His gifts, and giving them back to all people in love and in service. The Church is about being able to mourn with those who mourn and celebrate with those who celebrate (cf. Romans 12:15). The Church is about taking the powerful gift of the Holy Spirit and living in it, never giving in to doubt or despair but rather trusting in all that God calls His people to do, and doing it all with great joy.

May God bless each one of us with His Spirit in a new and profound way this Pentecost.

"Continue to walk in the faith and, faithful to the mandate that has been entrusted to you, go out with solicitude and joy toward all creatures and pass on to them the gifts of salvation...Let yourselves be guided by the Holy Spirit to be the leaven of new life, salt of the earth and light of the world."  -Pope Benedict XVI

[Coffee with the Saints]: Matthias the Apostle

This Saint story is part of the newly re-titled series I am doing called "Coffee with the Saints." Read more here: Coffee with the Saints

Tomorrow is May 14th, which, in the current Roman Calendar, is the feast of St. Matthias. Only a small amount is known about St. Matthias, but what is known is important and worth talking about. 

St. Matthias is mentioned for the first time in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, after Jesus' has died, been Resurrected, and has Ascended into heaven, but before Pentecost when the Holy Spirit would come down upon the Apostles. In this time, the Apostles realize (under Peter's leadership) that they need to choose a man to replace Judas Iscariot, and so they nominate two men. It was decided that the two men that they put forward to choose for election had to "have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us" (Acts 1:21-22). They chose one man whose name was "Joseph called Barsab'bas, who was surnamed Justus" and the other was Matthias. The Apostles pray that God would choose, and then they cast lots (seriously, that's how they did-Acts 1:26), and the lot falls upon Matthias, who is then enrolled with the eleven disciples (cf. Acts 1:25-26). 

Other than this story, not much is known factually about the life of Matthias (there are some sources, but is hard to know what is historically accurate since Scripture doesn't include any more about him). What we do know is this: Matthias was chosen to be an apostle, and he became part of the group which traveled out and spread the Gospel to all the nations. We also know that, like almost all of the Apostles, Matthias was martyred for the sake of the Gospel. 

What can we learn from the story of Matthias? 

One thing that we can see is a man who did not expect, most likely, to be chosen as an Apostle; he was one of a larger group of 70, and may have very much liked being part of the big group but not having to make any of the tough decisions. Maybe he knew he was called to be a leader and this was no surprise, or maybe he hated being in charge and this decision made him very sad. While we can't know how he really felt about this, we can know this: Matthias was chosen by casting lots, and yet he didn't doubt ("I swear I thought it landed on him; let's cast again"), but rather he simply went out, following this call, and helped to spread the Gospel to all nations while giving his life as a martyr. 

If we are ever thrust into a situation where we unexpectedly have to lead, or we are ever brought in to replace someone who messed up big time, we can look to Matthias for his intercession and his help. Matthias was brought into leadership under the unfortunate circumstances of Judas' betrayal of Jesus and his suicide, but he did not use the tough situation as an excuse to be ineffective in his ministry. Let us all follow that example and never see a situation as too difficult, but rather let the Lord work in our lives in whatever way He wants to. 

St. Matthias the Apostle, PRAY FOR US! 

[Book Review]: The Great Gatsby

This post is the first in hopefully a long series of book reviews. You can read more here: My Library

"The Great Gatsby does not proclaim the nobility of the human spirit; it is not politically correct; it does not reveal how to solve the problems of life; it delivers no fashionable or comforting messages. It is just a masterpiece." 

-Matthew J. Bruccoli, Preface to The Great Gatsby 

Click on image to get this book on Amazon; it's well worth it if you don't own a copy. 

I am quite unashamed to admit that this reading of The Great Gatsby was neither my first nor (hopefully) my last. This great novel, if you have never read it, is a work that is worth reading, if simply for the beautiful way in which F. Scott Fitzgerald writes. While this book was written in 1924/25, it is not one of those books that we find impossible to relate to; Fitzgerald allows the reader a window into the past while also creating a story  worthy of the time spent reading it. 

For me, as I'm sure is the experience of many of my generation and even previous generations, my first experience of this book was in a high school English class in which I probably read spark notes and never even thought about opening the book. Possibly, you could say, this was Fitzgerald's idea, as in 1920 he (quite famously, I might add) stated: "An author ought to write for the youth of his generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters ever afterward." It seems, however, that Fitzgerald crafted something in The Great Gatsby which does not fit this mold; not only do the schoolmasters of today love this book, but young and old alike can pick this book up and enjoy it simply for the masterpiece of storytelling that it is. Proof of the staying power of this book is that here in 2013, almost a century after Fitzgerald's writing took place, a major Hollywood movie will soon be released based on this novel.  

What is it, you might ask, that makes The Great Gatsby a masterpiece? What about this work of literature is so fascinating that we are still intently reading it today? You might say that it is simply a powerfully written story which captivates you because of the writing style, use of language, and fascinating characters. While these things are truly enticing aspects of the book, I believe that there is more to it than simply being fun to read. I believe that this story has something to offer to us in that it can teach us about the human condition, about the way that we live and seek after our goals in life, and this is what captivates us the most. 

In order to limit the scope of this analysis, I want to focus on two main quotes from The Great Gatsby, or at least set out with those as the framework. To begin the book, we meet our narrator and central figure Nick Carraway who has recently picked up his life and left the Middle-West to venture out East and make a career in selling bonds. Carraway, from whose voice and perspective Fitzgerald writes, has a difficult time adjusting to a new world at first, but when an encounter with a stranger changes his mood, he has this thought: "And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees--just as things grow fast in movies--I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer." 

With this, then, the story takes off. Carraway is now settled out East, and he is ready to begin his career selling bonds and his new life in this new place where he now feels at home. For many of us, this experience is something with which we can relate: Carraway is in a new place and experiencing a somewhat new reality, and yet he becomes aware of the beauty that this new thing has to offer and he quickly sees the newness as good instead of simply scary.

This statement from Carraway has long fascinated me; in this most recent reading, however, I was struck by a similar and yet somewhat contradictory statement from another character. Later in the summer, Nick is at his cousin Daisy's home, where she lives with her husband Tom Buchanan. At the house on this particular day is Nick's sort of girlfriend-professional golfer Jordan Baker-and the man whose name lends itself to the title of this book, Jay Gatsby. It is a very hot day outside, and all of the characters are taking turns complaining about the heat. Daisy Buchanan, Nick's cousin, complains that it is too hot, and in her dramatic way wonders what they will do that afternoon, "and the day after that, and the next thirty years?" Jordan, possibly the most intriguing character in the story outside of Gatsby, responds in a quite simple way by stating: "Don't be morbid. Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall." 

While these two statements from two different characters may simply be seen as statements about different experiences given at different times, Fitzgerald's inclusion of two characters speaking of life "starting/beginning all over again" was almost certainly not an accident. It seems to me that these characters' desire to have life begin again, or statement that it was already beginning, shows one of the central human conditions, that of rarely being satisfied with one's experience of life at that moment. At another point in the story, we see Gatsby's similar feelings in his "incredulous" response to Nick's statement that you can't repeat the past when he exclaims "Can't repeat the past? Why of course you can!"

For the characters of this story, it seems, there is never a moment which is 'good enough.' Gatsby and Daisy, at times, want to dwell in the past; Nick and Jordan both speak of new beginnings and life starting over; Tom repeatedly commits to being better in the future; Myrtle Wilson, a minor character in terms of appearance but major character in terms of plot development, has a similar experience to Gatsby in dwelling on the past and continually having regret. Whichever the character, the present is not enough, and the hope is simply that the future might be better, quite often meaning that the future would look a lot like the past had.

Fitzgerald, a masterful writer, worked diligently in this novel to capture the human condition of the 1920s, and it seems in his work he has captured the state of persons long beyond that time. In today's world, we can constantly see that people are unsatisfied which often leads to dwelling on the past or dreaming of the future. Fitzgerald sums up this existence, this day-to-day living of a life with which we are not satisfied, when he says in the final sentence of this novel what we "beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

The lesson of this theme in The Great Gatsby is one that it seems the characters of the novel may have missed, aside from possibly Nick. That theme seems to be that life is not enjoyed or lived well if we simply "beat on" and allow ourselves to be "borne back ceaselessly into the past." Rather, a life lived to the full is one where we don't "lead lives of quiet desperation," as Thoreau asserted that we do, but where we make the most of each moment and love all of the people we have in our lives.

For now, my analysis of this wonderful book will stop there. I may decide to write on another topic this novel caused me to think about, or to speak about the character of Jay Gatsby and the anomaly that he seems to be, or possibly to talk about the movie's interpretation of this masterpiece, but for now this will suffice. I look forward to the movie which will be out this Friday, and for your viewing pleasure I've put the preview for it below.

May our experience of reading a masterpiece of literature like this draw us closer to Truth, to Beauty, and to Goodness. May God bless each of us this day. 

[Coffee with the Saints]: Saints Philip and James

This post is a part of a new saint project I am doing. You can read more about that here: Coffee with the Saints

Although this post is a few days late, I want to take some time here to reflect on St. Philip and St. James, whose feast days we celebrated together this past Friday, May 3rd. 

St. Philip: We hear about his calling to be a follower of Jesus in the Gospel of John, right after Jesus' baptism by John. In this story, it says that he meets Philip as he was about to depart for Galilee, asks Philip to follow Him, and we know that he does because he immediately goes and calls Nathaniel (cf. John 1:43-46). It says there that Philip was from Bethsaida (as were Andrew and Peter). Other stories about Philip's life can also be found in John's Gospel: one is in John Chapter 6, one in John Chapter 12, and another in John Chapter 14. 

In Chapter 6 we see Jesus question Philip about how to feed all of the people; Philip answers without knowledge of what Jesus was going to do here, but that seems to be the point: Jesus was teaching them, and needed them to start thinking about how difficult the task of feeding all of these people would be before He showed them how He was going to do it. In Chapter 12, some Greek people come to him hoping to see Jesus. From this, and from his Greek name, it is inferred that Philip probably spoke Greek, and thus he was able to help introduce another part of the world to the Apostles and to Jesus. Finally, in Chapter 14, Philip asks Jesus during His Last Supper farewell discourse to show them the Father; this gives Jesus a way to teach them about His mission by Philip having a mind which questioned and sought truth from Jesus. 

Other than these stories, not a lot is known of Philip from Scripture; he is mentioned much more often in writings outside of the New Testament, and since I have no knowledge of those and for the most part they are usually unreliable, we will stop here with the story of Philip. 

St. James (the Less/the Just): James is a name which appears a few times in the Gospels, and since I am not in any way a Scripture scholar I won't spend much time here distinguishing the various people called James in the New Testament and how we know who they are. I will talk a bit about the person, but I will not attempt to explain how I know which one he is, but rather trust Catholic tradition which has handed down stories and traditions about this apostle. 

St. James is definitely one of the apostles, but we hear a lot more from him after Christ's death and resurrection. Tradition (very reliable tradition) holds that he was the first Bishop of Jerusalem after the apostles went out following Pentecost to spread the Gospel. This seems to hold true if one looks at the story of the Council of Jerusalem from Acts 15; the apostles are discussing the question of circumcision, or if Gentiles had to first become Jews to become Christians. The discussion happens, and Peter speaks, putting an end to debate; when the group is silent after Peter, the council ends with James speaking up and summarizing what they have now agreed upon. James was able to do this, it would seem, because he is the Bishop in the place where the council is taking place; Peter is the Pope, but James is the one hosting, and thus concluding, this council. 

Finally, one of the main ways we know of St. James is through the epistle (letter) which bears his name. This epistle, which is quite short and worth reading, was disliked by Martin Luther mainly because of its practical exhortation to action. In a famous way, James 2:14 calls faith without works 'dead', a teaching very important for the Church and difficult for Luther to reconcile, which led him to call the epistle of James straw and attempt to remove it from the Canon. For this reason, it would be good for Catholics to read this epistle, knowing that it is important to a Catholic understanding of the way that our faith is lived out in action. 

In summary, these two saints are very important because they were apostles, and thus were close to Jesus and were vital to the spreading of the faith in the early Church. Like all of the apostles, they were given the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and through that Spirit went out and proclaimed Christ to all peoples. Today, we must be very thankful for the apostles, and with this feast particularly thankful for these two saints and martyrs, for their dedicated witness to the faith the point of death, since without these men the faith would not have continued and spread throughout the world. 

Saints Philip and James, PRAY FOR US!

On Defending Truth and Doing it Well

Happy Feast of St. Athanasius (that guy --> ).  Okay so that's not a real photograph, but it's probably a lot like what he actually looked like. St. Athanasius was born between 296-298 AD (he had 2 years of birthdays; I'm not sure how you celebrate that) and died on May 2, 373 (that one is legit). He was bishop of Alexandria from 328 until his death in 373.

The time when Athanasius lived and ruled as Bishop was a crazy one for the Church. During his lifetime Christianity became legal and continued to grow (although, surprisingly, it grew faster before being legal, but that's another story for another time). With it growing at this rate, something became very important for the early Church--defining its theology. During his lifetime, the specific theology being discussed had a lot to do with who the person of Jesus was-was He God, was He man, was He both? Who created Him (if anyone)? When did He come into existence?

One of the biggest parts of this debate was a controversy known as the Arian controversy, which was started by a guy named Arius (you could've guessed, right?). Arius held to a popular theology in the East at the time: Jesus was the Logos (Word) which out of the will of the Father. Arius, and others like him (including great names like Origen and very important people like Eusebius of Ceasarea) held that the Son came in some way from the Father, believing that the Father was eternal but that there was a time when the Son did not exist.

To put it simply, the debate was this: was Jesus totally God, or somehow a little bit less? Athanasius played a major part in this battle; he was a major player in the Council of Nicea in 325 and a major theological figure for the rest of his life and long after.

If you want to read more about the personality of Athanasius as well as the controversies he faced, there is a good explanation of it at Fr. Robert Barron's Word on Fire Blog here: Athanasius Contra Mundi. That blog is called Athansius Contra Mundi, meaning Athanasius verse the world, because that is the way much of his life went: he was taken out of Alexandria at least 5 times, even having to hide in the desert at one point simply because he refused to budge on truth when so many others disagreed with him.

So why, you might ask, do we need to know all of this about a guy who lived in the 300s in Egypt?

Well, the example of his life is important for us in a world that so often wants us to ignore truth in favor what feels or sounds good at the time. Athanasius faced other bishops, emperors, and people who had a lot of support; he was taken off of his post, he was chased out of his city, and he was constantly attacked for his beliefs. Despite all this pressure, Athanasius refused to budge; he stood firm in the face of truth, teaching with an eloquence and intelligence that led to his teachings becoming the foundation for much of the Church's theology that we still hold today.

Besides standing strong in the face of difficulty, Athanasius is important to us for another reason: he shows us how important it is to know Scripture and to know our faith well. The Arians and others that he fought against knew the faith very well; if you read their writings today, you would have a hard time seeing what is incorrect many times even if you know that they were heretics. If Athanasius had only kind of known the Scripture, and had spoken without intelligence, he would have been silenced and the incorrect ideas of the time might have become even more mainstream.

Today, it is often the same way; we can't simply assume that a basic knowledge of the faith will be enough. We need to study it, to learn it, to be fluent in it, and to speak it with confidence and unwavering trust.

Take the example of St. Athanasius to prayer today: what ways is the Lord calling each of us to grow in our knowledge of the faith? How are giving in to the false teachings of those around us, and how can we do a better job of standing up for truth?

“For the Lord touched all parts of creation, and freed and undeceived them all from every deceit.”

-St.  Athanasius 

St. Joseph the Worker [Guest Post]

Hi! It’s a pleasure to be writing at jasonjtheobald.com. My name is Will Goggins and I’m Jason’s friend/thorn in his side; I live in Virginia where I am also a youth minister. Jason asked me to guest-post today¹ on the feast of St. Joseph the Worker.

St Joseph is the Patron of the Universal Church. What’s really great about St. Joseph is today May 1st is not his only feast day, and in my family on our Saints feast day we get to pick dessert. This is great because my Patron (my middle name)² is Saint Joseph, and so I get to do this twice.³ As the saying about Joseph goes: “The Saint so nice we feast him twice.” Along with picking dessert, I like to use these two days to remember something specific about Saint Joseph’s life.

March 19th is Saint Joseph’s first feast day, and this feast is to remember in particular the role we know best about Saint Joseph. This main role is the Husband of Mary, the role of Joseph taking Mary and Jesus into his home even though Jesus wasn’t his child, going to Egypt, and walking to Bethlehem⁴. Even with all those adventures, Saint Joseph still doesn’t have a speaking part in the Bible. As Bl. Pope John Paul II says, though, “even without words, he shows the depth of his faith, his greatness . . . He is great in faith, not because he speaks his own words, but above all because he listens to the words of the Living God.” That’s the model he is to all Christians: take Christ into your home, make him at home in your heart, and then listen to him and do as he asks of you. (Jason wrote a post on that back on that day: St. Joseph Husband of Mary).

But on May 1st, what’s left? You may feel like we've already covered everything there is to cover about Joseph, but not quite. One of my favorite parts of the Gospels is that there are parts of Jesus life that are hidden, where he didn’t have people asking for miracles or disciples following him. He was just hanging out with his family, working with Joseph as his handyman’s apprentice;⁵ picture Joseph and Jesus working side by side all of those hidden years.

This bonding of Jesus to work is remarkable if you think about it. If you were God ⁶, would you spend 30 of your 33 years on earth working in a blue-collar job? Christ did. I think He did that to show how all our work is important, and that every thing we do is an opportunity to be with Him and to follow Him. He showed that even our work can be transformed to worship because the ordinary can be transformed to the extraordinary, and today is the celebration of how Joseph points to this great truth.

The name Joseph in Hebrew means, “God will add.” St. Joseph’s example shows God will add to our life in the ways that we are called if we follow Joseph’s example and take Jesus to work with us.

---

1 Kind-of; really I just know his password.
2 Saint William was a writer, now that I think about it I should have asked for his intercession more.

3 I cannot tell you how badly my sister Mary enjoys this family ritual.

4 I left off loosing Jesus in the temple, because let's not ruin the mood.

5 A lot of times when the crowd would bring up St. Joseph in the Gospels it was a slight to Christ. In today’s speak it would be like teasing someone “your dad he fixes our plumbing”

6 Take a moment to be thankful you're not.