A Much Needed Change

I want to step back from my normal talk of theology and religion and just speak as a person for a little while. Here we go.

The internet is a fascinating place. I mean, the world is a fascinating place, but the internet is even more fascinating as a somewhat blown-up image of all of the craziness you might encounter not on the internet. It is on the internet that you can find an argument for any point of view--literally, any of them. It is on the internet that you can see memes, read articles, and listen to youtube videos stating completely opposite opinions as if they are fact, all in a matter of seconds.

On the internet, it is really easy to post an opinion and not have any responsibility for what you said. A blog is a scary thing (I know it's ironic for me to say that in a blog, but I'm going to anyways). On a blog, someone can post an opinion, touting themselves as an expert in just about anything. Most of the time, this is a really bad thing, and I try to avoid these articles because I leave frustrated with people's inability to think (maybe that's harsh? Oh well).

Then, on a blogging and sports supersite that I really enjoy called Grantland, I found an article with an opinion I thought was good. The article is called Man Up [NOTE: the language is really bad. Let me explain why I like it, first, before you go there, and you can decide if you want to read it].

I like the article because, although it's vulgar, it's on point; if you're familiar with this bullying/abuse case in the NFL right now, you'll find it interesting. If you're not familiar, it is a blown up case about one grown man treating another grown man like garbage and people accepting it because they're football players who should be able to handle it. If this amount of foul language is ever acceptable (note I said if), this has to be the case: he's really really mad, and pretty justifiably so. Read if you feel so inclined, but know he's intense.

And now to my point. I read that Grantland article above, and I loved it. I loved it because I thought it got to the heart of this whole issue--this is a person who needs to be treated as such. I read this article and thought: wow, that was a good point. I really liked that. I wish he didn't use the F word so much and I could share that article with everyone I know. Then I read the comments; seeing that there were so many, I figured I would read a couple of people who disagreed (this is the internet, after all), and a whole bunch of people saying how wonderful the article was. To my utter surprise, what I read most of all were people saying he was wrong, saying that this was a grown man playing a professional sport and he needed to figure out his things on his own, that he was hurt too easily and he needed to get over it.

And now to my real point: I think there is a problem when we think of people as problems we need to solve rather than individuals who need to be encountered and loved. The commenters on this article saw Jonathan Martin not as a man, but as a football who makes lots of money and needs to be tough and deal with his issues, regardless of what they are. In my line of work, I see the same thing; people see ministry, often, as something which should be done in a specific category and a specific way because that is the way that is effective and that is what people in our world need.

On blogs, you see this sort of thing all the time (and I may be guilty of myself): here is a problem, and here is how we need to solve it. Sure, the problem is on the other side of the world. Sure, I don't really know anyone affected by this. Sure, I haven't ever spoken with someone in this situation. All of that aside, us bloggers often say, here is the solution. Implement my plans. They work. I promise.

Maybe this will come off as doing exactly what I just said we shouldn't, but here is what I think: we, as human persons, need to start seeing others as people, not as problems to be solved (note, when I say we, I really mean I). Encounter people. Love people. Listen to people. Professional athletes, teachers, famous musicians, plumbers, waitresses, actors, and everyone in between--they're all just people.

No, actually, I take the "we" back all together. Here is my solution: I will stop seeing people as a category and a problem, and start encountering them all as people who deserve love, attention, and respect. No more categories. Just more love.

Basically, I want to start being like this guy: The Embrace that Went Viral.

[Book Review]; The Mass-It's What We Do

The Mass:

The Glory, the Mystery, the Tradition

Cardinal Donald Wuerl and Mike Aquilina

Image Books 2011

Mike Aquilina and Cardinal Donald Wuerl are two names that should be familiar to most Catholics in America. Cardinal Wuerl was the Bishop of Pittsburgh for 18 years before moving in 2006 to Washington D.C. where currently resides as the Archbishop of Washington. Aquilina is the Executive Vice President for the Saint Paul Center for Biblical Studies, and is a well-known author and speaker and a frequent guest on EWTN. 

Okay, so I pretty much took those descriptions from inside the book. What I know is this: Cardinal Wuerl is well-known and well-loved by many for his leadership of the Church in Pittsburgh and Washington, and for his ability to teach the faith. Aquilina is well-known because his books are very easy to read and informative, while not lacking in scholarship and depth of information. 

What this book sets out to do is to walk the reader through Holy Mass in a way that is understandable and informative, drawing from the tradition of the Church as well as the experience of two devout Catholics, one a lay man and another a priest and bishop of the Church. They're purpose for writing, they explain, is that "The Mass is what Catholics do," and yet they "find the experience more rewarding...when [they] understand the Mass as [they] pray it" (pages 21, 23). As Cardinal Francis George, OMI, Archbishop of Chicago, says in the Preface, "active participation in the Mass is the very soul of participation in the life of the Church"; Cardinal Wuerl and Aquilina use the pages of this book to try and help each person find that active participation in his or her own life. 

What I really liked about this book is that it simply and briefly takes the reader through every part of the Mass, not dwelling too long on any small detail but explaining the Church's reasoning for every single part. Whether you are a person who has never studied the Mass or even really paid much attention at Mass, or you are a person who has studied the Mass extensively, this book is a good resource. For those faithful Mass-goers and well-studied Catholics, this book will probably not change your life; but it will certainly help you enter more fully into the Mass the next time you attend. 

In my own life, I have already seen this book pay off. Since starting the book, every Mass I have attended has called to mind certain aspects of what the authors explained. Whether it was the reminder to come early and reflect before Mass, the chapter explaining the importance of the readings, or the beautiful reflection on the Holy, Holy, Holy, this book has already helped me get more out of Mass. This book didn't change my perspective on the Mass, but it certainly helped increase my desire to go to Mass, to receive Him, and to adore Him. 

To know Jesus is to love him. To gaze upon him is to be overwhelmed by that love. Knowing what we know--about his memorial, about his real presence--how can we help but adore him? (p.169)

If you want to learn more about this book or to find the book through Image Books' website, you can visit it here: The Mass. If you want to learn more about the Authors, visit the bio page: Cardinal Wuerl Bio and Mike Aquilina 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."  

Heart Speaks to Heart

"Sometimes there are moments of silence that, in themselves, constitute a sort of answer." 

-Abraham Skorka

The quote above is from an Argentinian Rabbi who was good friends with our Pope Francis back when he was in Buenos Aires. Simply put, I think, he explains what is the most common difficulty many of us have with our prayer lives: the Lord responds, but not in the voice we want Him too. In the silence of His answer, though, the human heart is drawn into relationship with the God who breathes life and the God who never abandons anyone. In the silence of His answer, man is forced to dive into relationship with God in trust, trusting that God is hearing man's cry even when man cannot hear God's answer. And that, we know, is a difficult thing to do. 

"The organ for seeing God is the heart. The intellect alone is not enough." 

                                                                                                             -Pope Benedict XVI

We see God, we hear God, we know God, not through our intellect, but through our heart. The intellect is important-in fact, it is incredibly important. If more Christians would take the time to let their mind and their intellect be transformed by the Truth of the Word, the crisis of faith in the Church in the modern world would take a direct hit. The intellect, though, is not how we see God; the intellect is how we break down barriers that we have set up (ironically, usually set up through our intellect) in order to allow the heart to see God, to know Him, to worship Him as He intended us to do when He created us out of His gratuitous and undeserved love. The heart is how we get over the difficulty of not hearing God's direct answer; we trust in our hearts that He is speaking, even if our mind cannot discern the answer. 

What then, if I often cannot even know God's answer, is the point of spending time in prayer? Or, maybe more concretely, what is the aim? If I am not going to hear Him, and His answer will often be spoken to me in silence, what am I going to prayer to accomplish? 

"Prayer, the self-opening of the human spirit to God, is true worship.

The more man becomes 'word'--or, rather: 
the more his whole existence is directed toward God--

the more he accomplishes true worship."
                                                                                           -Pope Benedict XVI

The point of prayer, then, cannot be self-serving. If prayer is about coming to God to receive help, we might receive the help we desire or we might not. We will receive help, but we will certainly not always receive the help we desire. No, the point of prayer cannot be this; it cannot simply be to achieve our own will, because, if it is prayer will leave us dry because it is not how the Lord wants us to pray (Our Father...thy Kingdom come...). If we seek prayer only in times of need, if we seek prayer to fulfill a duty and expect a response which fits nicely with our wishes, it is simply true that we will be disappointed. 

Prayer is not about seeking our will; it is about letting the Lord's heart speak in silence to our own heart, changing our will to be in line with His. If we let His heart speak to our heart, if we let our heart be transformed by His heart and our will transformed into His will, then we will accomplish the true worship that prayer was intended to be. 

These, then, will be the moments of silence which constitute an answer from God. For in silence, the Lord draws us nearer to His heart. In what we see as His "lack" of a response, He has responded with an emphatic call to love. When a person loves another person, they do not demand an answer which fits categories, but a response in love, whatever that response may be. In a similar way, we cannot demand the Lord to respond in a specific way-as if He was a simple being we could control-but rather we must move towards Him in love, trusting that His loving response will prove more fruitful than any plan we could possibly have laid out in our own minds. 

If we allow our heart to listen--truly listen--to the Word of God who desires to speak to us in a way too intimate for words, our faith will be firm and our hope secure. In the silence of Him speaking heart to heart, we will be transformed and made into a new creation in Christ. 

"The first and essential thing is a listening heart so that God, not we, may reign."

Pope Benedict XVI

On A Mission of Love and Truth

In the Spring of 2010 I had the pleasure of spending a semester studying abroad. During this time, I took a week with some friends and went to Madrid, Spain to spend some time working with the Missionaries of Charity (most commonly known as Mother Teresa's order). I was excited to go and do this work, but had no idea what to expect. 

Our team arrived late on Sunday evening, and early Monday morning half of us needed to report to the missionaries to help them, the other half taking a later shift that day. As one of our two "team leaders," I decided that I would go with, although I was planning to work the afternoon shift that day. We arrived a bit late (we were Americans in Europe, so of course we got lost a couple of times), and walked in during Mass. After Mass was over, the sisters quickly hurried to get to work, while a couple of them came to welcome us and take us into another room where they could serve us breakfast. Without the time to fight it, I was given instructions to follow one of the sisters to another building, where I would spend the next few hours helping in an AIDs Hospice house that they had there. Little did I realize, this place would be the central part of my work for that week-helping to dress, bathe, and care for these men and the place in which they lived-and a major moment in my life. While certainly not what I was expecting to do coming into the trip, I have never had an experience since those few days which impacted me in a way that even compares. 

This Sunday, October 20th, 2013, is World Missions Sunday. If you want to read what Pope Francis says about this (you do want to read it, by the way), you can read his Message for World Missions Sunday. I am writing this blog to join with Family Missions Company, an organization committed to calling people to go out on mission, in helping to encourage Catholics to take up their call to mission-you can find their website at www.fmcmissions.com. 

You see, what I learned in Spain that week was the importance of always being on mission. The AIDs Hospice was in a dire situation that week because it was holy week, and the sisters didn't have enough volunteers to take care of the men currently housed there. If myself and the other male in our group hadn't shown up, they told us, they would have struggled to care for these men. While I feel very blessed that I had the opportunity to step into that role, it was also shocking to hear them say that; in one of the largest cities in Europe, these missionaries couldn't find 2 men on an average day to give some time to serve these people in need. 

In John 13:33-34, Jesus tells His disciples that He will only be with them a little while longer, but after He leaves that they are to "love one another; even as I have loved you" (RSV Translation). In Matthew 28:19, Jesus tells His disciples to "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always to the close of the age" (RSV). 

Jesus' words in those two passages are very simple: you need to go out, you need to love all people, and you need to bring them the Truth. If those words were meant to end with the Disciples, they would have had no reason to write them down. If those words were unimportant, the Disciples and the other thousands (millions) of Christians who have been martyred since that day for this message would have done so in vain. If you're like me, you probably don't think these actions were in vain. In fact, if you're like me, you probably feel that this call to mission is a slap in the face reminding, you that you need to do a better job of knowing you're on mission, and living accordingly.

In honor of World Mission Sunday this year, I want to commit myself to remember that I am on a mission. Do I think that, right now, this means God is calling me to pick up and move to a foreign country? No, I certainly don't--but that does not mean I am not on mission. My mission, just like that of the Disciples, is to go out and bring the Gospel to people with love. For the Disciples and for people today, that might mean to bring the Gospel for the end of the world. For others, this might very well mean staying in your hometown and bringing the Gospel with love and sincerity; whatever the case, it is a mission.

No matter where our mission, it is not an easy job, and not one that is going to be accepted readily.  The place most in need of a missionary might be your home, your workplace, your friendships; maybe, for you, the place that you are called to serve with love and truth is in a foreign country, and maybe it's not. Maybe you need to make a mess to call people around you to live the Gospel, or you need to help people clean up their messy lives to see God's plan behind it all. It doesn't matter where you are called, all that matters is that today and every day you are willing to pick up your cross and be the Lord's missionary. 

"Christ has no body now, but yours. No hands, no feet on earth, but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ looks compassion into the world. Yours are the feet with which Christ walks to do good. Yours are the hands with which Christ blesses the world."  

--St. Theresa of Avila, Patroness of Missions

[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!