David Ancell / Saturday, September 21, 2024 / Comments(0)
We often hear about politicians acting like they will be the savior of society. All we have to do is elect them, and there will be the most peace and prosperity that we have ever seen in our lives or even in generations. You may even hear the same message among many supporters of a particular candidate.
Honestly, I feel sorry for the people who actually believe this every time about a politician. Then again, does anybody? It seems that, even if not, many have high hopes for a certain leader. However, it should be pretty clear that no politician is the savior of the world. That one has already come, and he wasn’t a politician.
Even getting major improvements in our country seems like a long shot. We are way too self absorbed in our culture to breed, much less elect, a leader with the character to do those things right now. Besides, the real fulfillment of hope in our country will be found in things that simply cannot be legislated. It won’t even work if we could try.
However, nearly every time I see the fact that politicians are not saviors presented, it sounds to me like an excuse not to care about political things. So, let me just state that our voice in elections really does matter. The right politician may not be a savior, but the wrong one can really, really mess things up. If we haven’t understood that by now, I’m afraid we won’t until it’s too late, if even then. So, even if you don’t imagine a candidate for a political office is going to do a lot of good, just realize that it may be that the reason for supporting a candidate is to keep the other one from bringing disaster on us.
Category: Response
David Ancell / Thursday, September 12, 2024 / Comment(1)
I have seen some social media posts on my feed from people who have found out they have terminal cancer and not too long to live. May I send out a bit of a reminder here? When you see these things, it’s a great opportunity to do a small but very beneficial act of charity to pray for that person and his or her family. You may not even remember them again, but nothing like this that you send to the ears of Our Lord will be wasted.
I know nothing about the people whose posts I saw. That doesn’t matter. It costs me so little to pray for them, and it may be what helps them be ready to meet God if they are not healed in this life. Maybe you’ll run across a post like this from someone whom you know to have led a life of sin. We should especially pray for these people. What if our prayers meant their salvation? No matter what someone has done, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile not desiring their salvation with Christian charity. Besides, our only hope is in the grace of God.
I make it a point also to pray for the souls of anyone about whose death I hear, even if I have no idea who they are or if I know them to be a manifest public sinner. Even if they are already in Heaven or have gone to Hell, I know that my prayer is not wasted and will be used somehow.
Category: Spirituality
David Ancell / Sunday, July 28, 2024 / Comments(0)
I was just at Defending the Faith at Franciscan University of Steubenville. It was, of course, an on-fire experience. There’s always something about being in a space at Mass with a bunch of people who really love Jesus and really want to be there. The atmosphere of the place can easily leave a better impression that the talks do, even though there are a lot of good talks that we heard.
One speaker said something that I really want to ponder here. He talked about how we need to invite people in to the Church, and if we spend all of our time talking about the problems, people aren’t going to want to join. Well, he’s right. No matter what may be going on, the Catholic Church is where we receive the fullness of truth, and the ordinary means of grace, better known as the Sacraments. There is just no better place to be.
We definitely don’t want to be those people criticizing everything that goes on, including many things that aren’t matters of faith or maybe even aren’t real problems. Some people make a spirituality out of talking about problems in the Church. This just isn’t going to lead people to Christ. To be honest, I have some sympathy for such people because I remember what things were like as I was coming of age. It was hard to know who to trust to tell the truth.
In fact, that’s really the thing that I want to ponder. How do we show the great love of God and the great graces he brings through his Church but be realistic about some of the things that are going on? It was always an odd position of mine as I was a young adult trying to say that the Church was the place to be but that, well, there are scandals. Not only that, you also need to realize that, if you want to know the fullness of the truth, you won’t likely get it from official diocesan or parish instruction. Even if they didn’t say anything technically wrong, it didn’t mean that they provided enough of the truth for us to be able to fully understand or live the faith. That said, I do think things have improved greatly in the formation department in the last twenty years.
I was part of an excellent RCIA team when I was in my early 30s. We really did try to teach the truth in a way that showed what a positive good every teaching of the Church truly was. However, a discussion came up when we were told not to talk about dissent from Church teachings. A few things did get said about problems in the Church however. There was once an outside speaker who said things that I had to kind of sneakily debunk in the next talk I gave. Once again, I actually agree that we can’t spend large amounts of time on problems, but . . .
Somehow, we do have to convey some of the problems just to give people a realistic picture of what things are like. After all, look at all the stories in the Bible about the people whom God chose to lead. We are not in Heaven yet, and so things are not perfect (and the speaker I mentioned earlier made note of this in his talk). As far as teaching, I think we have far better resources than we had when I was a high school or college student, but dissent still exists. Has it ever not been a problem in some way? I’m a lay Dominican, and the Dominicans were founded to preach against an extremely destructive heresy over 800 years ago.
While spending loads of time on problems is one extreme, not mentioning problems or downplaying them too much is another. If we don’t give a proper perspective, people will find out the problems. It’s hard to say how they will respond when they do, especially if we are not regularly meeting with them anymore to walk with them through it.
So, we don’t need to spend our time simply on problems in the Church. However, I think it is wise to say that we have had a period of time when the Church’s teaching was not properly taught and therefore do have a lot of Catholics who don’t know their faith. We want to equip you with the fullness of the Faith. We can even spend a session on different periods of trouble in the Church and the saints that led the reform. I’d argue we can even do this without making it a central theme. After all, we really need to spend our time telling people about God’s love for them, what he wants to give them, and how our lives in Christ should be lived.
Category: Response
David Ancell / Sunday, July 14, 2024 / Comments(0)
I wanted to give an update since my earlier post on not having seen many signs of a real Eucharistic Revival taking place in this country. I now know that the Juan Diego Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage is coming to Nashville this coming week. It was at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament last week, and my family and I had the privilege of being there. We went to events in Nashville and even drove to St Louis for a couple of others.
It’s good to see Our Lord being brought on this pilgrimage. However, I still have concerns that there really hasn’t been a serious revival. Until these events were about to take place, I remember next to nothing happening in my area. I think there was a big event in Memphis, but I’m not aware of anything major happening in Nashville.
Because of this, I have mixed feelings about participating. It’s true that Our Lord will be there, body, blood, soul, and divinity. I want to see how he will work through this. However, there’s something that doesn’t seem quite right. This pilgrimage, and the Congress following, should be the culmination of a major effort. I do worry that being a part of it is participating in the illusion that we actually did something big when in fact we didn’t.
However, it is great that we brought Jesus out to the streets. This is what we really need to do. It’s not just for people who identify as Catholic but yet do not believe, but for all who do not know or believe in Jesus and the wonderful gift he gave us. In fact, maybe having some processions and special times of adoration every now and then would be one of the best things we can do.
Category: News, Resources, Uncategorized
David Ancell / Thursday, June 13, 2024 / Comments(0)
Now that the dust has settled a bit, and Harrison Butker’s graduation speech (full text here) is old news, let’s take a look at it and what some have been taking offense at. The thing that really gets me is that it seems that the vast majority of the people who made comments either act like he should be tarred and feathered or like this was the direct word of God that is above any criticism. Both are way off here, but the former, some of whom have gone so far as to call for his dismissal from the Kansas City Chiefs, are just outrageous. My question is this: Can there be room to recognize the good things he has said even as we acknowledge that the speech was not perfect?
You can probably guess that I have absolutely no sympathy towards those that are all bent out of shape by what he said. Their reactions are just sheer insanity. However, there are still problems with people acting like this was just the ultimate in speeches. One person said on X that making a criticism just because the speech wasn’t perfect would be like petty infighting among Catholics. I have some sympathy for his view, and I agree we should support those who try to proclaim the Catholic faith. However, I also find it imprudent to cling to anything that attempts to defend the faith, especially if there’s something being said that is not correct.
Butker truly did try to convey the importance of family over career. He spoke of the importance of speaking up about and standing up for the faith. He reminded people about the importance of “doing the small things well” and about surrounding yourself with people who share in our Catholic faith to help build us up. We can tell that he took a strong stance just from the sheer number of feathers he ruffled.
A lot of people took offense to his comments about his wife and women as homemakers in general. While his choice of words in saying that his wife’s life “truly started” when she was married and had children was probably not the best, what he said otherwise about both his wife and himself leaning into their vocations and their family was actually very good if properly understood. He specifically mentions that his wife makes sure that he doesn’t let football and his business take him away from his vocation as husband and father.
I saw people online accusing him of relegating women to being considered inferior to men. I’ve long found this thinking to be ridiculous. Is there really anything inferior about spending your life raising souls who will one day spend eternity in Heaven or Hell rather than working for a corporation? Why is the modern workplace considered the ideal place that we need to be? I am all in favor of women having opportunities to work and make money. I am not in favor of treating economic opportunities as the most important ones or as a test of whose life is really fulfilling. Besides, just listen to Butker’s words describing the title of homemaker.
Others took offense because they felt that the life he described was just not possible for them. This is kind of a strange unwritten rule I’ve seen online that says it is not permitted to make a suggestion unless absolutely everyone is able to follow it the exact way you suggest. Look, it’s perfectly fine for someone make a suggestion that may not be possible for everyone. If circumstances don’t allow a family to have a stay at home mom, this doesn’t mean that Butker’s proclamation is wrong. Some women will have reason for working outside the home.
Like I said before, the speech isn’t perfect. Butker spends quite a lot of time talking about lack of leadership in the Catholic Church. I see where he’s coming from because, when I was his age, it was a huge concern of mine. Just go look at my earliest blogs on this site. With that being said, I think he devoted too much of his speech to this, kind of like I devoted too much of my time and energy to it when I was his age. The problems still exist, but we are in an era now where solid Catholic materials are much easier to find than they were back then.
The other major criticism that I have of his speech is that he takes a shot at natural family planning saying “there is nothing natural about Catholic birth control.” This is permitted by the Church, and so I really believe what he said was an error. NFP can definitely be abused, and it would be fine for him to give his opinion that more should consider allowing God to give as many children as he will. However, he needs to state that as his opinion. Natural family planning is permitted by the Church, so he can’t consider it “heterodox teaching.” One could also argue that he over-promoted the Latin Mass, but I don’t think what he said was really wrong.
Then, there were a couple of other things he said that are open to interpretation. So, I’ll share how I interpreted them. He uses the term “stay in your lane.” I took this to be a complaint about a trend we see in the Church that is a kind of “clericalization of the laity and laicization of the clergy.” The former part of this can be seen by the many lay people you have in the sanctuary today, especially the number of lay people distributing the Eucharist. This is really supposed to be the function of a priest or deacon. The former part is a bit more tricky. One example from over a decade ago was when the USCCB had a position on reducing the level of mercury in thermometers. Yes, I really saw that. It’s not a matter of faith, and I don’t think that’s the “lane” of the USCCB.
He also made a controversial comment about Congress passing a law making it illegal to state biblical teaching on who killed Jesus. This was taken by some as at least a potentially anti-Semitic comment. Let me make clear that I am completely opposed to anti-Semitism. While it’s possible that he meant what he said in an anti-Semitic matter, I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt. That proposed bill he was alluding to could have easily wandered into dangerous territory. Who interprets what is and isn’t anti-Semitism? What is to stop some anti-Christian prosecutor from going after the Gospels? It may not reach that extreme, but these kind of bills are far too open to being interpreted too broadly, and that may be what Butker was getting at.
The world is greatly in need of people who will truly proclaim the Catholic faith and who will not back down. We need these people in all walks of life, whether it’s sports, medicine, show business, manufacturing, retail, or anywhere else. While I do have some genuine concerns about some things he said, I would definitely be more likely to call this a bold proclamation of faith than I would a disaster. Let’s at least give him credit for being willing to say what he believed needed to be said.
Category: Response, Uncategorized
David Ancell / Thursday, May 02, 2024 / Comments(0)
If you follow much social media, I’m sure you’ve seen news of a lot of high profile conversions lately. I mean, they’ve been happening over the years, but recently I’ve noticed a group of them. They range from people converting from a life of serious sin to famous news personalities. Of course, like everything on social media, there are a lot of different reactions. For some of these people making comments, I just can’t fathom how they can think the way that they do.
Some people get too excited and put them on a pedestal. It’s like they figure these famous people are now members of the Super Saints simply because of who they are. Truthfully, some of these conversions are heroic. There are people who sacrificed, or at least risked, a lot by becoming Catholic. However, it’s too easy to forget that they are at the beginning of their journey and will still need to grow like we all do.
Even worse are the ones who are more disparaging. You can find comments in which people have said that someone who was such a sinner could not possibly have undergone such a conversion. Worse yet, in the case of someone who turned from a seriously sinful life, there are those who seem to say that God won’t forgive them. I hope there aren’t Christians saying that, but I’m afraid there are some that are. How can a true Christian really doubt the amazing mercy of God like that!
With that being said, I’m not saying that we should throw out our common sense and ignore obvious problems that we find out about. It’s quite possible that some of the conversions that we learn about will turn out to be phony. However, we really should assume sincerity, or at least hold out hope, as long as we can. I’d much rather stand before God and hear about how I welcomed someone who was an absolute hypocrite that hear about how my snarky comments regarding someone’s sincere, even if weak, conversion contributed to him having fallen away.
Even a sincere conversion can have its weak points. Some people just experienced an emotional high and then could not keep going when it wore off. Some were not well formed and therefore had a poor understanding of what it means to be Catholic. Others may have fallen into their old sins (or other sins), and instead of hurrying back to God and going to Confession right away, they became discouraged. Just think of what reading hateful comments will do to these people. People fall away, and we don’t want to contribute to the fall.
When you add to this the public nature of the life of someone who is famous, it becomes easy to make judgements that we shouldn’t make. New converts are, well, new to the faith. There are things they don’t know yet. Maybe in their formation they learned about chastity and modesty, but it can take time to sort out the particulars of how to live it out and therefore, genuine mistakes are made. Maybe the person has lived for years, if not decades, with a worldly mindset. Chipping away at that mindset can take a really long time. We probably all have aspects of a worldly mindset that we adopted without realizing it. It may be okay to post charitable comments correcting the error, but be careful!
So, what should be our attitude towards famous converts? We have every right to be cautious and acknowledge things (but not necessarily post our opinion about them) that are not quite right. However, let’s welcome them with open arms and encourage them if we are in a position to do so. We want to pray that they will be shining lights that bring people to conversion. They’ve got the ability to reach many people. We can be excited about their conversion and also be charitable and understanding about how they, like those of us who have been in the Church a while, still have work to do.
Category: Response
David Ancell / Saturday, December 16, 2023 / Comments(0)
NOTE: Please see this post for an update. The Juan Diego route of the Pilgrimage did come through Nashville. I was not aware that this would take place at the time of this original writing.
I’m sure you’ve heard the 2019 Pew Research poll that suggested that around two-thirds of Catholics (however they defined a Catholic) do not believe what the Church teaches about the Eucharist. Because of this, we now are supposed to have a Eucharistic Revival going on. If you don’t believe me, here’s the website. However, I have to ask – just where is this revival, and what is being done?
Not only am I at Mass every Sunday, but I’m there a lot of weekdays as well. I’m usually at my own parish on Sunday and other places during the week. I follow Catholic news (though I don’t spend hours looking over it). If we have such a serious problem as unbelief in the Eucharist, and we are trying to do something about it, why have I heard so very little about this supposed revival? I mean, something occasionally comes up, but it isn’t anywhere close to anything that would constitute an attempt at a full scale revival.
I see there is a Eucharistic Pilgrimage going on. However, if it went through the area where live, I don’t recall hearing anything about it. There is also a Eucharistic Congress planned. However, the cost to attend is way out of many people’s price range. Merely having these events does not constitute a serious, widespread effort at a badly needed revival in my opinion. Besides, the only people who are going to be interested in these are people who *do* believe what the Church teaches. How are we reaching out to those who lack faith in this great gift of Our Lord?
An interesting turn in this is that a new study shows that, while there is still a serious problem here, the actual number of Catholics who do not believe in the Church’s teaching on the Eucharist is about one-third. The discrepancy is suggested to have been caused by the options on the original poll asking if the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ or if they are a symbol. I’m not sure what to make of this because I really don’t believe a lot of Catholics really understand that the Eucharist, despite the fact that the bread and wine actually do become the Body and Blood of Christ, is also a symbol. It’s just that the Eucharist actually is what it symbolizes and therefore is not merely a symbol. So, there could be other explanations (e.g. who was polled) for the change.
However, I digress. My point is that, if we are serious about bringing forth greater faith in this great gift of Our Lord of his very self, I can’t tell by what I have seen of this Eucharistic Revival. Like Pope St John Paul II said in Ecclesia de Eucharista (article 61), there is no danger of excess in our care for this mystery. If people do not believe or do not have enough fervor, an all out effort needs to be made.
While I would not likely be one to lead a widespread revival, there are things I can do, and so can you. Be at Mass as often as you can be. Don’t be afraid to speak of Our Lord and his gift of his very Body and Blood. Show reverence at Mass. We can let people know we are serious about our faith simply by showing how Jesus Christ works in our lives through the very sacrament he instituted. We may make only a small impact, but the combined effects of a lot of small impacts will be tremendous.
Category: Catholic, News, Uncategorized
David Ancell / Thursday, November 30, 2023 / Comments(0)
The month of November will be over soon, probably by the time most people read this. As we have been remembering our beloved dead, now we can prepare for the coming of the king who will bring them eternal life. It’s time to think about this and how death is not the end but is the way in which everyone who isn’t alive at the second coming is going to get to meet God face to face.
As I’ve said before, the Church knows better than to allow these great feasts, like Christmas, to just happen. We prepare. By preparing, we have a fuller celebration when the feast day arrives.
Advent is kind of difficult for me because I’m not exactly sure what to do during Advent. It has never been all that clear. Besides that, these times can be ridiculously busy.
An important thing to do is to try to live our life and especially our faith as intentionally as possible. Don’t be carried by the wind. We have to deliberately set aside time to reflect on what we are about to celebrate and do everything in our power not to let anything interfere. No matter what this world throws at us, we must remember that, though we are in the world, we are not of the world.
Category: Spirituality
David Ancell / Sunday, November 12, 2023 / Comments(0)
November is the month where we especially remember to pray for those who have gone before us in the Church. We often hear at (or in anticipation of) someone’s funeral about how someone who has died is not suffering anymore. The truth is that they may be undergoing their final purification, and they will still be suffering.
For some reason, 2023 has been a year where a lot of people I have known have died. I’ve had my uncle (and my godfather), a coworker, a childhood friend, a former manager, and two priests whom I knew die this year. Because of this, it’s been important to me to make a point to offer a Rosary, Divine Mercy Chaplet, Mass intention, and whatever I can remember to pray for them.
If they are indeed in Purgatory, there is nothing they can do for themselves. Once in Purgatory, the time for cooperating with or rejection the grace of God is over. Because of this, it also means that, once there, Hell has been avoided forever. They now have only to wait for God’s purifying fire to cleanse them so that they are able to be in the presence of God for all eternity.
While they can’t help themselves, we, the living, who can still choose to cooperate with or reject God’s grace, can help them with our prayers and sacrifices. We can aid their purification. It has long been an important part of my prayer life to do this. I’ve heard one priest say that, if we don’t offer assistance to the souls in Purgatory, we won’t be able to receive any assistance when we are there. I don’t know where he got this or if it is exactly true, but if it is, then I can certainly see God’s justice in it.
One simple thing to do is to pray every time you pass by a cemetery for he people there. On our fall break, our route to our destination took us by a number of cemeteries near Protestant churches. I find it especially important to pray for those souls. Since nearly every Protestant is ignorant of or rejects the fact that there is a final purification, it’s unlikely that these congregations are praying for their dead. So, when I pass their cemeteries, I figure that I’ll pray for them.
Don’t forget that, if you were a help to someone during their final purification, they are not going to forget you when they reach Heaven. You better believe that people in the presence of God for all eternity are capable of talking to him. They will be praying for you so that you will be able to join them someday.
Category: Cathechesis, Catholic, Spirituality
David Ancell / Saturday, October 28, 2023 / Comments(0)
Autocorrect on my iOS devices is often annoying. I might be trying to write a proper name or something known mostly in Catholic circles, and it changes what I wrote to something else. Sometimes it does it three or four times. I’ve also yet to figure out why it capitalizes e-mail addresses on my iPad when I use my physical keyboard.
I’ve seen a web site that shows some supposedly funny things the autocorrect produces, but many of those are rather risqué. So, I had some better ones I wanted to share just for fun.
I recently bought some adjustable dumbells. However, my iPad apparently thought that I now have “adjustable dumbness” as it corrected one of my entries to this. I’m wondering why I’d want to adjust that.
Last week, I needed to register for a one day retreat. Before hitting send, I realized that instead of telling the person in charge that I had sent in my registration, autocorrect was going to tell her that I had sent in my resignation. No, folks, I didn’t quit my job.
This next one is a bit harder to understand unless you are Catholic and know people in religious life. Members of orders use post-nominal letters after their name. For example, a Dominican will use “O.P.” The name will be written as “Fr Firstname Lastname, O.P.” Benedictines use “O.S.B.” However, a sister once told me that the autocorrect rearranged the letters to say “S.O.B.” Whoops!
Category: Uncategorized