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

Dive In; Moving Forward

I texted a friend of mine the other day asking his advice to people getting ready for another school year. His response? “Jesus loves you. But, if you mess up this year, He’s going to love you a lot less.”

So there’s that. It’s completely false and in no way based in the reality of God, but you know that…

As we wrap up Dive In and as we wrap up this summer of trying to grow in our faith and of coming to know the truth of God’s love for us a little bit more, the question is: what now?

Read the rest: Moving Forward

I wrote this blog as part of a series for Lighthouse Catholic Media's Youth Program. The Blogs were called Dive In, and you can find all of the blogs that we wrote this summer here: Lighthouse Catholic Youth Blog

Go and Be Hypocrites....

...Or Something Like That.

Go ahead and read the comments on, say, any article you could find defending orthodox Christianity on Huffington Post. Well, on second though, maybe don't. All you're going to find is a lot of anger and hatred and resentment towards Christianity, or more precisely, as Fulton Sheen put it, what people think Christianity is. 

One of the choruses that you'll hear repeated over and over again by people who don't like Christianity is that Christians are a bunch of hypocrites. You preach a big game, they'll say, but then you don't back it up. You talk about all this morality and about love and about being perfect and living for Christ, and then you go and mess up. You're hypocrites!

As if we didn't know. 

I mean, it's not like this is something new. "For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want to do." (that's Saint Paul, in Romans 7:19, back in the 1st Century). 

You see, I think this is just part of signing up for Christianity. Christ tells us to be perfect, and yet we are all well aware that we aren't. We want to be better, we want to get rid of that sin, we want to be over it; and yet all too often we find ourselves in that same pit, that same despair, that same sin. 

The question, though, is what do we do about it? Do we let the com-box atheists win and stop defending the faith because we're not worthy of it? Do we grow weary, let fear win, and hide?

I, for one, certainly hope not. 

We're going to be hypocrites at times. Is that good? Of course not. We need to fight back from that, we need to pick ourselves up and return to the Father always, but we also cannot stop standing up for truth. Truth, we know, is not something we make up; it's not based on how well we live it, but it is based on the One outside of ourselves in whom we have life. 

So, you realize you're a hypocrite. St. Paul did the same-but he never stopped standing up for truth. Don't let your insecurities and faults stop you from standing up for what you believe in. In fact, if you and I stand up for Truth with courage despite our own faults, I think we'll all find that we become a little less hypocritical in the process. 

Dive In; Where My Feet Are

Note: I realize I haven't written on here in a while-for that I apologize. I have been doing some writing this summer over here at lighthouse catholic youth, and I love the project we've been working on. Check out the lighthouse blog: click here. This post is my most recent one there, released today. 

For the next two weeks, these are the events that I have planned: a barbecue, a bonfire, a game night, a trip to an amusement park, a Bible study, a softball tournament, a birthday party, another Bible study (I am a youth minister), a Pittsburgh Pirates’ game, another game night (like I said, I am a youth minister), an 8-hour drive, a round of golf, and a cross-country flight. Maybe your schedule in the summer looks like that: endless events, all of them fun, one after another. Maybe, like a friend I talked to recently, your summer looks a heck of a lot more open than that. Whatever our situation, one of the most difficult things for us modern day people seems to be pausing to be present wherever we are.  

The other day, for the first time in what seems like months, I had a day with literally no obligations....

Read the rest of this post on being present where we are by following this link: Where My Feet Are.

Dive In; Those Glorious Nuptials

Recently I was at a wonderful, beautiful wedding with some of the people I find most dear in the world. You, our dear readers, might recognize the groom as the one who writes some of these posts. This wedding week and weekend was filled with everything you'd want: sunshine, friends, good food, great conversations, classic jokes, reunions of people who'd been apart for far too long, and everything else you might think of when you think of a wedding. 

Read the rest of this post!

I am writing this summer for Lighthouse Catholic Media's Youth Department as a part of a Summer Project called Dive In, where we will be discussing various ways to actively grow in the faith over the summer instead of burning out or just going through the motions. Subscribe over at lighthousecatholicyouth.com to get updates everytime a new one of these posts goes up!

Note: This post originally went up on Lighthouse Catholic Media over 1 week ago, but I have been out of town and hadn't had a chance to link to it on here! 

Overflowing

This past week one of my very best friends got married. All of us groomsmen were staying at a house with him, and most of our evenings we eventually ended up sitting around the back porch talking about life. For us, these conversations will inevitably turn to our faith every time. We absolutely are the sort of guys who talk sports and tell funny stories, but we are also the kind of guys who then turn to theology and philosophy and try to make sense out of the things of this world through a little bit of arguing and a lot discussion.

On one particular night, we turned to a discussion of the ideas of St. Theresa of Avila (that picture to the right is a famous image of her experience with the Lord) and others like her, including Thomas Aquinas, where they like to talk about our disposition to receiving the Lord's grace in terms of us being vessels of various sizes. While this was a fun conversation that went in a bunch of different directions, there was one specific comment I've been reflecting on.

When talking about ourselves as thistles or steins (smaller or larger containers), one of my friends commented that sometimes he's happy that he's only a thistle, because then he gets the feeling of overflowing with the Lord's love, which he would have to work a lot harder to feel if he was converted enough to be like a stein. If this is confusing, let me lay it out a little bit more: many saints talk about how we all have a capacity to receive grace, and as we become more and more converted to the Lord our capacity grows and grows, mostly because we have undergone penance and converted ourselves more to the Lord. What that means, then, is that for someone who is still only a thistle in the spiritual life, they will experience God in an overwhelming sense more easily than someone who is now a stein or a large bucket, who has to work much harder because small consolations from God are not what they seek anymore.

With that explanation, then, you can see what my friend was saying: why would I want to stop being a thistle? I'd much rather just feel the Lord overflow very often out of my thistle. If I convert, if I step away from sin more, than I'm going to realize how much more I need to convert, and it's going to be much harder for me to be consoled and feel that overflow. It's great that the saints are so holy, we might say, but I really like just being happy in my faith as I am. Because I have often felt the very exact thing my friend was feeling at that moment, I probably responded quite harshly.

"That's garbage," I think I said.

You see, if we remain as a thistle when the Lord wants us to be a cup (or a stein or a bucket or an ocean), than we are not living the way we are supposed to. If God wants to give us abundant life (John 10:10--He does), then who are we to settle for just a small overflow of a small vessel? Abundance doesn't ever mean stopping with what is enough; abundance means stepping out to seek more.

Since my friend usually reads this blog, I find it important to state something really quickly here-this man is one of the holiest that I know, and this blog isn't about how he sucks and we all need to be better. This blog is about how each of us struggles with wanting to be comfortable with the Lord, and with not growing in our faith simply because the place we're at right now feels pretty good. Our God doesn't want us to be pretty good. Our God wants us to overflow with His love so much that we can't stop until live for Him more, until we know Him more, until we accept Him more, until we turn away from sin more, until we're converted more, and until we're able to give our entire lives to the Lord. When we have been more converted, we'll have to work harder to experience His love as overflowing, but the overflow will be a much more wonderful experience than when we overflowed from our small vessel.

All of this happened because some friends and I were sipping on some bourbon on a back porch and discussing our love for the Lord (I mean it when I say sipping-we're quite responsible, but also very much enjoy bourbon). I hope I don't settle for being a thistle, and I hope you don't either. Let's allow our God to convert us into the ocean of His love and mercy that we were made to be.

If you have any thoughts, leave a comment! If you liked this, hit one of those share buttons. 

Dive In; That One Moment

I spent the last week being involved with a Steubenville Youth Conference. If you haven’t heard of these, I’m sure you’ve heard of something similar: a whole bunch of people coming together for a time of fun and fellowship centered around the faith.

I am certain this isn’t true for everyone, but in many cases the conversion moment in life (that one moment when all of a sudden things clicked and the Lord became real and present) happens at an event just like this. Maybe this happened for you at a conference, maybe a mission trip, or maybe it was some other experience where everything not of God became less important and life started to make sense....

Read the rest of this post here!


I am writing this summer for Lighthouse Catholic Media's Youth Department as a part of a Summer Project called Dive In, where we will be discussing various ways to actively grow in the faith over the summer instead of burning out or just going through the motions. Subscribe over at lighthousecatholicyouth.com to get updates every time a new one of these posts goes up!

Love You Deserve

From the resounding choruses of popular music to the story lines of nearly every movie to the theme of basically every single post on Facebook or twitter (or Linkedin or Google+, if you're cool like that), we are surrounded in today's world by a fury of thoughts on love. Love, we are told, is what it's all about-and we are fools if we try to say otherwise.

No, but really, it is all about love. The world we live in is in seemingly constant chaos, and the only way to navigate through is to keep pushing on by giving and receiving love in whatever way we are able on a daily basis. This thought, which is so central to the thinking in today's world, is in many ways good. And in others it is the main thing keeping us from living the way that we should.

Here is the problem: we have taken love from the most wonderful thing in the world, a thing which is about sacrifice and giving completely of oneself in order to allow the beloved to reach their fullest potential and have joy for all of eternity and reduced it to seeking pleasure. Instead of love dying on a cross, we look for love which makes me happy. Instead of a love which says "not my will but Yours," we look for a love which says, "whatever common ground we can find to give us both immediate satisfaction, let's take that." Amid all of this, then, the Catholic Church and anyone who says that love is about self-sacrifice and not self-gratification are seen as the enemies, pointing us away from the here and now and towards eternity, which of course is scary and not to be talked about (read Bad Catholic's wonderful explanation of this here: Popular Music as a Nauseating, No Good, Very Bad Attempt at Propping Up a False Sense of Eternity (With Goats)).

Let me try and explain in a language we all understand a little bit more than my incoherent ramblings: movies.

Recently I watched the movie "The Perks of Being a Wallflower." The main theme of this story, I think, is one that the teacher played by Paul Rudd (who somehow has appeared in 97.9% (ish) of every movie made in the last 5 years (that number might be made up)) explains to the main character when he says that, as human beings, "we accept the love we think we deserve." I think that there is so much truth to this it is silly. We tend to have a hard time falling in love with or letting ourselves be loved by the God of the universe because we see ourselves as broken and sinful and can't imagine the All-Powerful God loving us; we don't want to accept a spouse who will love us unconditionally and sacrificially because we see ourselves as being conditional and selfish beings, and so on. In that sense, I think that the Perks of Being a Wallflower and author Stephen Chbosky are right on.

The problem I see, though, is with how the characters play out this search love. For Charlie, the main character, his experience of seeking after the love he deserves and the love those around him deserve is distorted in the way that early adolescence tends to distort things in our human minds. More than adolescence, though, his searching for love is distorted by the thing that seems so prominent in today's culture that it is almost unavoidable: love is about the satisfaction in the here and now. [There might be some spoilers here] For Charlie, this encounter and searching for love is about the here and now. From making new friends to taking drugs and ultimately to a "beautiful" one-night stand with the girl he loves (I put beautiful in quotes to make you realize that I don't think it is beautiful, I think the book and movie attempt to show it this way). This story, supposed to be the coming of age story of a generation, shows the major problem that we have with love (and that I think Marc at Bad Catholic pointed out in that article I linked to above), which is that in our search for something so eternal as love we settle on the temporal. We seek pleasure as our means to self-satisfaction, when really it is simply a mind-numbing technique to help us not think about the fact that we are seeking self-interest, which is actually contrary to love.

So, here is my point: when you really want to seek love, don't seek yourself. Don't seek pleasure. Don't seek momentary experiences. Seek the other. Seek self-sacrifice. Instead of trying to feel infinite for a moment, seek a relationship with Him who is infinite, Him who is eternal, Him who will never stop running after you.

It might be hard, but it'll be worth it. It will be worth it because when you seek after the eternal God, you will find yourself not wallowing in self-pity and a desire to make yourself happy, but a relationship with the God who will never leave you broken, but rather will always search for you in love, hoping to show you how to respond to Him and to be with Him for all of eternity.

When you seek yourself, that's what you'll get; when you seek true love by giving yourself away, you'll find the God of the universe, and He'll give you way more than some one-night stand can give you.

"Dear young people, the happiness you are seeking, the happiness you have a right to enjoy has a name and a face: it is Jesus of Nazareth, hidden in the Eucharist. Only he gives the fullness of life to humanity! With Mary, say your own "yes" to God, for he wishes to give himself to you." -Pope Benedict XVI

Please let me know what you think in the comments below, and if you like this post share it!  

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