A Quick Look Back

On January 1, 2013 I got into a car in the darkness at around 5 am in San Diego, California and began driving East to Denver, a journey that would end a few days later in Pennsylvania. On December 31, 2013, I will be getting in a car early in the morning (not quite 5am) in Pennsylvania and beginning a drive East to New Jersey. These make for some pretty good symmetry, some pretty natural book ends to my year. From one coast to another and one ocean to another, the course of twelve months has been quite a journey.

This year, I was able to spend a lot of time with friends and family, I was able to celebrate with loved ones at four friends' weddings and one family wedding, I journeyed throughout country and experienced many new things. To top it all off, this year I got engaged to a beautiful girl who I will marry next August.

Also this year, though, I faced trials and difficulties, I spent more time inside of a hospital than I ever would have liked to, and I had to learn a few tough lessons about myself.

From the highest of highs to the lowest of lows, the beauty and difficulty of this year for me largely came in an unpredictable fashion.

In the world around us, it was quite a year. Filled with natural disasters, incredible last-minute moments in sports, acts of terror and war, some great movies and unforgettable music, a Papal retirement, Miley Cyrus, a US government shut down, PED scandals in sports, and so much more, this year was a strong example of the rate at which things move in the modern world. Around the corner, at any moment, you never knew what would happen next.

In some ways, the pace at which life moves can be intimidating. The craziness around every corner can seem like there is no rhyme or reason, no way to be prepared for what happens next. In some ways, as Pope Benedict XVI once said, it can seem like Nietzsche's famous statement that "God is now dead" has come true. No matter how much we may desire for things to improve, for the difficulties to disappear, they often continue to come and we often feel alone in a sea of difficulty. When I look back at this year, it certainly seemed this way at moments for me.

In this same way, though, I often found that the most profound and wonderful moments of the year came in the same way. When I least expected it, and precisely when the pain and difficulty of life seemed most overwhelming, the beauty and goodness of love and of grace would most make themselves known in quiet and beautiful ways. Isn't this the reality of the Christian life, though? It is in the brokenness, the difficulty, the trouble of our lives that the great grace and love of the God of all creation can break into our lives and reveal His amazing Providence. For it is in our deepest suffering and at our lowest point that God most specifically speaks to us and reminds us that we are never without His love. This is true because of the cross, on which we can see the fullness of His great love, the love which knew no boundaries and which stopped at nothing to bring us back to Him.

"It is not pain as such [in the cross] that counts but the breadth of the love that spans existence so completely that it unites the distant and the near, bringing God-forsaken man into relation with God." -Pope Benedict XVI

For my year, this was the lesson I learned most profoundly. When I am suffering, when I feel like the trials and difficulties of this world are too much, it is precisely in that moment that the breadth of His love spans into my existence and makes the distance so near. When I feel as though I can get no farther from God and I am completely without what I need to deal with my difficulties, it is then that God is most present in relationship with me and making my distance from Him incredibly near, however murky my view of Him may be. For it is in those moments that I am reminded of Our Lord's words on the Cross, wherein He cried out "My God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46), and then I know the Lord is near to me in my human frailty, reminding me of His unending care and love.

In a time in the world when so much is happening - good, bad, and everywhere in between - I am in constant need of a reminder that the Word of God who took flesh and was born of a Virgin is never far from me. In this coming year, then, I will work to encounter the face of the Divine in the moments when I feel most alone, knowing that in His death He broke through all of my difficulty and conquered all pain and death once and for all.

So maybe I don't know exactly what this next year will bring. In fact, I certainly don't know exactly what next year will bring. And yet, I think, that's actually a good thing. In not knowing, I will be able to move forward in life knowing that whatever is around the corner - good or bad - it is an opportunity to grow, to learn, and to encounter the Lord in my experiences.

Some Christmas Thoughts [Updated 12.19]

I already wrote one blog on here about Christmas, but I wanted to take a moment to share a couple more things. The plan is to edit this as time goes on with any really good articles about Christmas that I come across; feel free to comment and share those with me!

One thing I really wanted to share is an interview done by La Stampa with Pope Francis in which he says some pretty wonderful things. The first few questions are all about Christmas, and I found them to be very beautiful and profound. After the talk of Christmas, the interview then shifts to clearing up some of the misunderstanding from his Papacy and writings so far, which is also worth reading. You can read that full interview here: Never be Afraid of Tenderness.

I have the privilege of writing at IgnitumToday.com, and I have to say I have been very uplifted by many of the things that I have read on there over the last couple of days. If you go to ignitumtoday.com and just check out the home page you'll find some good ones! I wrote one, too, which you can find here: Oh Silent Night.

Because if you read anything I write, you know I can't resist things written by Benedict XVI, here is a blog called "Jesus' Infancy through the Eyes of Benedict XVI". This is a bit more academic, but is still an easy to read explanation of how to view the Infancy Narratives in terms of the question of historical fact versus nice story.

If you have heard about the chaos behind the date December 25th and the traditional arguments that it was because of a Pagan holiday or something, there is a great article from Catholic Answers here which provides some pretty good evidence that the date was chosen not because of the Pagan's but actually because of Christ's cross. Check it out: Why December 25

What other Christmas articles/blogs/etc. have you read that would be helpful to share? Let me know!

Encountering the Divine

I was going to call this post "How I am learning why I gave up social media for Advent long after I decided to give up social media for Advent," but I thought it was a word or two too long, so I changed it. The reality, though, is that's what this is about; a few days into shutting down from social media for this beautiful season of Advent, I read something from Joseph Ratzinger (who else?) which re-focused me and showed me what I think the Lord was trying to show me, and now I am going to share that here.

In his wonderful work "Introduction to Christianity" (I'm 55 pages in and I can tell you that it needs to be read by all people, although it's quite dense), Ratzinger starts by wrestling with the question of belief and how we, in the modern world, can still be people who believe in God, when that belief is so radically difficult. In the midst of the difficulty of belief, though, we are presented with the answer to our questions as that of the person of Christ. Christianity, he says, has at its basis a claim to be the revelation of God since "it has, so to speak, introduced the eternal into our world." For us, then, in this Man, our reaching out to God has changed from a leap into the eternal to something profoundly more simple:

"The leap that previously led into the infinite seems to have been reduced to something on a human scale, in that we now need only take the few steps, as it were, to that person in Galilee in whom God himself comes to meet us." 

I could have stopped there and been happy, but it was important to continue, for Ratzinger continues and shows how we have misused the great gift of God becoming man, and how our humanity has taken what seemed like a few easy steps and made them impossibly difficult. The problem, he explains, is that: "God has come so near to us that we can kill him and that he, thereby, so it seems, ceases to be God for us." When God reveals Himself to us as man, He approaches us from a stance of humility, and in His profound humility we have the ability to kill Him and to make Him unimportant for us.

Without knowing it at the time, this must be why I needed to shut off social media for Advent. God wanted to show me that sometimes I need to remove the things which block me from seeing Him, because otherwise I'll do what is so very human to do and kill God by making other things more important than Him. Especially in this season of Advent, then, which is about preparation for the coming of the Messiah, who comes in the humblest way possible as a small infant laid in a feeding trough, I need to take every step to be sure that I won't miss Him.

God came to Earth 2,000 years ago as a little infant, and in a few weeks we will commemorate that great day with one of our two greatest feasts, one which begins our journey to salvation. The leap that man previously needed to make to God now has a bridge in Jesus Christ, yet even taking the steps to meet that little infant in Galilee is a profoundly difficult task. Hopefully this Christmas, I will quiet my heart and my mind, I will set aside the things that blur my sight and clutter my path, and I will find my way to the God of the universe Incarnate in that Baby born of the Virgin.

[Book Review]; Pray with the New Pope

Pray for Me:

The Life and Spiritual Vision of Pope Francis,

First Pope from the Americas

Robert Moynihan

Image Books 2013

On February 11, 2013, Pope Benedict XVI made an announcement which shocked the world, stating that on February 28th, he would resign as Pope. On March 12, 2013, a conclave began, where the cardinals of the Catholic Church gathered to elect a new Pope, and on March 13, 2013, they reached their decision. Although a shock to many of us following the Papal Election, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, at the time the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, was a well-loved Cardinal within the College of Cardinals, and was elected fairly quickly. This book, written by Robert Moynihan, the editor and founder of Inside the Vatican Magazine, is a book about who Cardinal Bergoglio is and what he did in his first few days as Pope. 

This book was fascinating to me for the insight that it gives to what happened in those first few days. In the way that only a high-ranking member of the Media like Moynihan, who was able to speak to many people and be very close to the Pope on many occasions, could do, he gives a very detailed report of the first days as the new Pope. From the things we heard a lot about, like going to St. Mary Major to pray in front of Mary, paying his own bill at the hotel he had been at, and the choice of clothes, to some of the smaller things like the car he drove and individuals whom he had close to him, Moynihan gives as many details as one could want about the first days of the new Pope. 

Most interesting to me, I think, about this book, is the backstory of Pope Francis and the extensive selection of quotes that Moynihan provides from Pope Francis before he became Pope. We learn about the influence of his grandmother on his prayer life, the formation Francis received from the nuns who taught at his elementary school, and the close-knit relationship he still has with his sister. We learn the backstory to the allegations of his failure to properly help priests who were persecuted in Argentina during the military dictatorship there in the 1970s, and we learn over and over again about his great devotion and love for the Blessed Mother, specifically as "Untier of Knots." Finally, in the last 40 or so pages of the book, we learn Bergoglio's thoughts on just about every topic in his own words, as there are pages of quotes. 

The only negative to me of this book was the interpretation of his actions, as I think that every person might interpret some of Francis' actions differently. While Moynihan didn't say anything controversial or that I would say was wrong, there were times when I felt he spent too much time interpreting what the Pope was doing instead of simply presenting it. Even with this, though, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and enjoyed learning more and more about Pope Francis and his early days as Pope as well as the life that made him the man that he is. I think that Moynihan does a superb job of compiling as much information about this man as anyone could desire to learn, and he gives it to us in a way that is supremely readable. 

Pope Francis, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, or, as many people in Buenos Aires knew him, Fr. Jorge, is a man who wants to reach out to the people and present to them the person of Jesus. We see in him a great Pastoral nature, a great love for the poor, and a warmth typical, you might say, of a loving grandfather; the root of it all, he tells us, is the love and mercy of Jesus. "The privileged locus of the encounter with the Lord," he says, "is the caress of the mercy of Jesus Christ on my sin." For Bergoglio, as Moynihan wonderfully presents in this book, the Christian life is all about letting the mercy and love of Jesus Christ embrace us in our most sinful state, and letting His love be enough for us. With this man as the Vicar of Christ, we are in good hands on earth, since he is all about letting Jesus love him and showing that love to others. This book is a wonderful resource in learning who Pope Francis is, what he is all about, and in learning how to hear and to let him lead us. I strongly recommend this book! 


If you want more information about this book, you can get it at the Image Books website by visiting this link: Pray for Me, and you can learn more about the author by visiting his profile page on Image Books website at this link: Robert Moynihan. I received this book for free from Blogging for Books for this review."