[Coffee with the Saints]: Francis and True Joy

So today is October 4th, which you probably know is the feast of St. Francis of Assisi. If you want to know more about the basics of who Francis was and how his life played out, check out this link here: Who was St. Francis of Assisi? 12 Things to Know and Share. Inevitably, today will consist of the blessing of pets and lots of talk of Francis' love for all creation-and this is all well and good. In fact, Francis' Canticle of the Creatures (it's really beautiful), one of his most famous writings, is a long song of praise to God for the creation he saw around him, from the Sun to fire to flowers and herbs. Francis truly had a love for creation that is not to be forgotten (he was known to preach to the animals, some stories say), but what I want to reflect briefly on today is a different aspect of Francis' life. You see, the love of animals and of all creation is good and important, but we must remember that Francis' love for creation didn't happen simply because he thought creation was beautiful; he loved the creation because he was so in love with the Creator that he saw no way to ignore the beauty of creation.

What I specifically want to reflect on in Francis' love of the Creator is what he saw as perfect joy in the midst of our lives here on earth. Lest we forget the true depth of Francis' faith and level him out to simply be an animal-loving hippie (again: there is nothing wrong with loving animals), let me quote to you a passage which has been handed down since the time of Francis, the first record of it known to have been written in the 14th century, not too long after Francis' death. We don't have the actual account from during the time of Francis' life, but we can be pretty sure this is how it went, and it has been handed down like this:

True and Perfect Joy: [Brother Leonard] related in the same place that one day at Saint Mary's blessed Francis called Brother Leo and said: "Brother Leo, write." He responded: "Look, I'm ready!" "Write," he said, "what true joy is."

"A messenger arrives and says that all the Masters [theologians] of Paris have entered the Order. Write: this isn't true joy! Or, that all the prelates, archbishops, and bishops beyond the mountains, as well as the King of France and the King of England [have entered the Order.] Write: this isn't true joy! Again, that my brothers have gone to the non-believers and converted all of them to the faith; again, that I have so much grace from God that I heal the sick and perform many miracles. I tell you true joy doesn't consist in any of these things." "Then what is true joy?"

"I return from Perugia and arrive here in the dead of night. It's winter time, muddy, and so cold that icicles have formed on the edges of my habit and keep striking my legs and blood flows from such wounds. Freezing, covered with mud and ice, I come to the gate and, after I've knocked and called for some time, a brother comes and asks, 'Who are you?' 'Brother Francis,' I answer. 'Go away!' he says. This is not a decent hour to come wandering about! You may not come in.' When I insist, he replies: 'Go away! You are simple and stupid! Don't come back to us again! There are many of us here like you - we don't need you!' I stand again at the door and say: 'For the love of God, take me in tonight!' And he replies: 'I will not! Go to the Crosiers' place and ask there!'

"I tell you this: If I had patience and did not become upset, true joy, as well as true virtue and the salvation of my soul, would consist in this."

Isn't that an incredible story? Francis, in a certain sense, tells the future of his order: royalty, theologians, and people from all over would come to join his order, starting during his life and increasing exponentially afterwards. He knew, though, that if he ever came to appreciate these things more than he did the love of God, he would be giving in to the temptations which Jesus faced in Matthew 4, the temptations to love the world and the creation more than the Creator.

For us, then, this is something to reflect on for this great feast day. Do we love the Lord enough that even if we had everything we could possibly ever dream of, our joy would be more complete if we were to suffer for the Lord? When trials, temptations, and difficulties come our way, are we so caught up in love for Christ and Him crucified that we are able to take joy in our suffering? If everything were to be taken from us, every created good was no longer ours to appreciate and to love, would we still love the Creator?

Today we will celebrate this great saint, and celebrate him we should. We should celebrate his life and the way that he suffered on earth for the Lord. We should celebrate the beautiful work of the order he started. We should celebrate the beauty and the depth of the teachings he left behind. We should celebrate the fact that we have a wonderful saint in heaven praying for each one of us.

Along with celebrating, though, we should learn. From Francis, we can learn that whatever comes our way, it will be sanctified and make us more perfectly full of joy if we unite it to Christ's suffering. Francis literally left everything behind (he got naked in front of the bishop in the middle of town...), from his material things to his status in society, in order to follow the Lord; and he spent much of his life suffering in poverty for that decision. For him, though, this suffering was pure joy. May we learn to suffer for the Lord, that our suffering may be united to His and bring us true joy.

 St. Francis of Assisi...

Pray for us! 

[Book Review]; A Journey with Mary

Walking with Mary: 

A Biblical Journey from Nazareth to the Cross

Dr. Edward Sri

Image Books, 2013

Dr. Edward Sri is somewhat of a major name in the Church in the United States, and for very good reason. Sri, a well known author and speaker, is a professor of Theology and Scripture at the Augustine Institute in Denver, Co. in their Master's program. He is known for his vast Biblical knowledge as well as his writing style, which takes complex topics and makes them understandable through the language of Scripture. In this book, he does exactly that with the topic of Mary; he shows through this book the way that we see Mary in Scripture, and what it is that we can learn about her and from her.

As Sri himself expresses in the introduction to this book, Mary is a controversial topic in many ways for Christians. Catholics, it seems to many, love Mary too much; Protestants and other Christians, it seems to Catholics, do not give her the esteem which she is due. What Sri sets out to do is answer the question at the heart of all of this: who is the person of Mary, and what do we know about how the Lord felt about her? On top of this, Sri states that he is writing this book to help the average reader "walk in her footsteps as a faithful disciple of the Lord in [their] own pilgrimage of faith" (page 18). 

Focusing on the Gospels of Luke and John, Sri takes the reader on a journey through the life of Mary as it is revealed in Scripture. From the Annunciation and what we know about the girl to whom the Angel Gabriel appeared all the way through the cross and into the book of Revelation, this book breaks down what Scripture tells us about the Mother of our Lord. Combining a sound reading of Scripture with a wealth of background knowledge, Sri breaks open these texts to reveal the young, poor girl who accepted with faith the call that the Lord had for her. 

Overall, Sri spends much of this book breaking open a theme which he quotes from St. Augustine "Mary was more blessed because of her discipleship than her motherhood." Through the words of Scripture, Sri explains this very concretely: Mary was obviously blessed because she was God's mother, but more than anything the blessing came because she had faith and trusted everything that God was going to bring about in her life. From the moment of the Annunciation to the prophecy of Simeon at Jesus' presentation and to the cross, he shows the way that Mary's faith guided her actions, allowing her to trust in God even when His plans were unclear or very difficult. 

For each of us, this is the lesson that Mary teaches us for our lives. From her last words in the Gospel of John to today we can constantly hear Mary's voice in our hearts saying "Do whatever he tells you" (John 2:5). Throughout this book, Sri shows through Scripture the way that she followed this way of living, and the way that she models for each of us the life of a believer. Whether or not we always understand, if we follow Mary's example to always "Do whatever He tells us," we will be blessed for our faith. 

If you are someone with a devotion to Mary or not, I recommend this book. It is not fiction, but is about as easy to read as any non-fiction I have read. Sri's easy-to-read style combined with the brevity of the chapters makes this book something that you can pick up and quickly learn about the blessed Mother in Scripture.

In order to learn more about this book and buy it from Image Books, visit the website here. In order to learn more about the author, Dr. Edward Sri, visit the Image Books bio of him at this link.

"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."  

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