Exciting New Things

So I just wanted to let you know about a couple of new things that I've been writing, but I figured that I would come up with a new, easier way to do it! If you look up to the tabs up top, the one on the right now says "Other Writings." Here, you will find a link to things that I have written about on other blogs/websites/ministries/etc. I just posted a couple of new ones, so please go check it out and see some of the things I have written about not on here!

One of these new writings is for a website called Ignitum Today-this is my first post of hopefully many writings there. Ignitum Today is a social media of sorts, a place where young Catholic writers come together and write about various topics related to the Catholic Faith. I've loved reading things from Ignitum for a while now, and I am very excited to be writing there! Check out the website, and check out my new blog post up there called "Love Beyond Words." 

One Interview to Confuse them All

Image from America Magazine. 

If you have somehow been too busy to notice, the last couple of days have once again been a bit crazy for the Catholic world because Pope Francis has been up to his usual Shepherding of the people and the world has been up to its usual complete and utter misinterpretation of everything he said and did. First and foremost, take a moment and read the Pope's words: A Big Heart Open to God, words which come from America Magazine in a long interview which the pope recently gave. Seriously, read his words, they're worth it. Don't just read commentaries like this, read what he actually said. 

When I first read his words, I was uplifted and encouraged. The Pope challenged me to present the Gospel, the basic Gospel, first and foremost, without letting anything get in the way. From Francis, we see here a direct call back to St. Paul and the early Church, when St. Paul would preach that he had "resolved to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified (1 Corinthians 1:22). 

From the outset, this seems to be exactly what the Pope wants us to see: "I am a sinner who the Lord has looked upon," he says. Is this not the basic Gospel message? We are sinners; and yet while we are sinners, the Lord chose to come down and to rescue us from our sin, bringing us back to Him through His sacrifice on the cross (see Romans 5:8 and following). This is exactly the point that George Weigel makes in what I think is the best article since the interview: the Pope is Christ-centered, and that's making us uncomfortable--Christ-Centered Pope. 

What I think is the best part about this whole interview is Pope Francis' explanation of the Church as a field hospital. Read this excerpt from that article I linked to above: 

“I see clearly,” the pope continues, “that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds.... And you have to start from the ground up.

“The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules. The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you. And the ministers of the church must be ministers of mercy above all." 

The Church, the Pope reminds, is first and foremost a place of healing for sinners. In another place of the article, Pope Francis says that "We must not reduce the bosom of the universal church to a nest protecting our mediocrity." I think this is what he is getting at with the field hospital line: we spend too much time focusing on the things that others want to talk about, and too little time focusing on the Gospel, which people don't want to hear.

For me, at least, this seems to be the most important part of the Pope's words. The Church is a field hospital meant to bring the message of Christ, the message which proclaims liberty to captives and freedom for the oppressed. It is vital that we don't lose the moral and theological teachings, but those teachings must flow out of a genuine love of Christ and a love of neighbor, not simply out of a way to hide my own mediocrity by coming up with the best way of presenting one specific moral teaching. 

Too often, I think, the Gospel message itself is too hard for me. I want to have things which I can wrap my mind around, but how could I possibly wrap my mind around the beauty of the fact that the God of Universe descended to become man simply because He wanted to rescue me? I can't, and that's what the Pope wants me to realize. I must continue to come back to that, both in my life and in times when I am called upon to teach the Gospel, so that I never lose the heart of the teaching of Christ Himself. 

If you follow me on twitter, you are probably aware already that as time went on I didn't love some of the Pope's word choices as much as I did at first. This wasn't because I disagreed-it really wasn't-but rather because I felt a better word-choice might have stopped some of the freak out which caused us to lose some of the beauty of his message. The truth, though, is that his message is beautiful, because his message is the Gospel, and I hope that we can all see that message in this pope.   

"A beautiful homily, a genuine sermon must begin with the first proclamation, with the proclamation of salvation. There is nothing more solid, deep and sure than this proclamation. Then you have to do catechesis. Then you can draw even a moral consequence. But the proclamation of the saving love of God comes before moral and religious imperatives." 

All Quotes are from America Magazine, and are not my own-content all belongs to America Magazine, and you can again find the full text of the article here http://www.americamagazine.org/pope-interview 

Praying in Rome and Chilling with Colbert

That man above is Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the 10th Archbishop of the Archdiocese of New York and current president of the United States Council of Catholic Bishops.

Cardinal Dolan has risen among the ranks of "People we Catholics in America love beyond reason" very quickly, and it is largely because of his larger-than-life personality and the fact that he seems like a cross between a saint and a teddy bear. Everywhere he goes Cardinal Dolan shows us that joy truly is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, since even with jobs as difficult as being the Archbishop of a major Archdiocese, the president of all the Bishops in the US, electing a new Pope, delivering the closing prayer for the Democratic Convention (he did! Check it out), or whatever else life might throw at him, he refuses to be anything but joyful. 

When Timmy Cardinal Dolan (I should probably be more formal than Timmy, right?) returned from the conclave (that process by which the Cardinals of the Catholic Church meet to pray and choose a new person to be the vicar of Christ, the successor of Peter, the Pope), he set about writing an E-Book about the experience which is called "Praying in Rome: Reflections on the Conclave and Electing Pope Francis." Although I have not read the book yet (mainly because my only e-reader is an iPhone, which would be frustrating...anyone want to send me a kindle? ;] ), I am positive that it is worth every second. The reviews of this book say that it is Cardinal Dolan at his finest-witty, easy to read/listen to, and very insightful about our Church and what will happen going forward. If you want to pick up this book, go to Image Books website and get it...it's only $1.99--here's the link!: Praying in Rome

And then this happened. This past Tuesday, Stephen Colbert returned from some time off with a very special guest, our much loved Cardinal Dolan. If you don't know this already, Colbert is a weekly mass-attending Catholic (as he told Cardinal Dolan, he is the only American Catholic more famous than Dolan himself) and a political pundit with his own show on Comedy Central. For a while, he talked to Cardinal Dolan about the book, the Pope, and whatever other things he decided to ask ("If you're chosen as the next Pope, what name will you choose?"). 

This interview is worth watching for the entertainment value, as well as to see exactly what we've come to love Cardinal Dolan for: his hilarious ability to live the faith with a joy unsurpassed by almost anyone. Let him be an example of the same thing Pope Francis keeps telling us: those of us who live the Catholic faith MUST have joy while we do it; otherwise we don't make sense! 

Here's the videos; watch them! They're great: 

And once again, here's the link to the book!  Praying in Rome

[Book Review]; Walking Home with Henri J.M. Nouwen

Home Tonight: 

Further Reflections on the Parable of the Prodigal Son

Henri J.M. Nouwen

Doubleday, 2009

This book, the text of which is written by Henri J.M. Nouwen, is the follow up to what is commonly known as his masterpiece, "The Return of the Prodigal Son...A Story of a Homecoming. In both books, Nouwen is fascinatingly open about his journey with the Lord, and particularly about his coming to the Lord through the experience he had with Rembrant's depiction of the return of the prodigal son.

The reflections which are contained in this book are originally from a series of talks which he gave at a conference late in his life. The text of these talks was preserved through some not professional recordings as well as his notes, and some editors did their best to put it together as the best possible reflection of the heart of the man who shares his story of learning what it means to truly come home. All in all, I would say, these editors have done a fantastic job of putting together Nouwen's story in a way that is easy to read, convicting, and very much in line with profound wisdom with which he wrote and, I would venture to say, spoke.

In this particular book, Nouwen takes us on a three-part journey: "Leaving and Returning Home," "The Invisible Exile of Resentment," and "Home is Receiving Love and Giving Love." These three parts, as you might guess if you know the story of the Prodigal Son (found in Luke's Gospel, Chapter 15), follow the three main characters of the story: the son who left home and returned, the older son who stayed, and the father who loved them both. For Henri, these three characters are all typical of parts of his own spiritual journey, and he shows us how they are probably typical of ours as well. With this setup, the book is easy to read; each chapter (about 3 per section) contains his reflections as well as guidance on a time of listening, a time of journaling, and a time of 'communing.' Finally, each chapter ends with "A Wisdom Practice for those on a Spiritual Journey."

With this layout, the book reads much more like a prayer than anything else. You read one man's story, but always do so in the context of the story of the Prodigal Son and the way that the Lord might want to speak to you through that. You can fly through this book, but you would miss the chance to stop and to pray with the things he reflects on and says. While his language and way of talking about God might be different than many of ours (for me it absolutely was), what he has to say is worth taking the time to read and to pray through.

Throughout his book, I think Nouwen has a theme which is expressed in this quote from the book: "Coming home is claiming the truth. I am the beloved child of a loving Creator. We no longer have to beg for permission from the world to exist" (pp. 38-39). This, I think, is the central theme: despite what lies we may have believed, despite what pain we may have felt or may currently feel, despite whatever way we have physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually "left home" or turned away from our Creator, our journey is all about claiming the Truth that we are made out of Love by the One who loves with an infinite love. Whether, like the youngest son, we have "squandered our inheritance" through sin, or, like the older son, we've done so by thinking we can somehow earn our inheritance or comparing ourselves to others, the whole journey is learning how to claim that identity as a Son of the Creator, and to give that love back to those we encounter just as the Father did in this story.

Whether we realize it or not, we can probably relate to the experience of at least one of the people in the Gospel story, as well as to the experience of Nouwen living out that story in his own life. If you are on the journey of reclaiming your identity as a Son or a Daughter, your journey of realizing that you are loved by One who will never forsake or abandon you, this book could be a great tool along that path. Like I said, some of Nouwen's language and understanding of God differ from the way that I would state things, and yet it was all easy enough to move past to allow him to help me understand a little better the truth of my sonship, allowing me to continue on my path of coming home.

If you want to find out more about this book, you can get more info at Image Books' website here, as well as follow these links for Chapter One or the Author's Bio.


"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."