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.
]]>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.
]]>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.
]]>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!
]]>Many people accuse religious believers of just believing what they are told and not really thinking. If they weren’t serious, it would be hilarious! Such people should see the ridiculous groupthink that nonbelievers seem to accept without question these days. I grew in my critical thinking skills by leaps and bounds when I took more time to study my Catholic faith, especially in the field of apologetics.
The groupthink is precisely what I don’t want my kids to fall for. I want them to have at least a basic understanding of the aims of their life and why they should attain them. I don’t want them to settle for the superficial. As for how I know the sky is blue, my answer would be “I don’t, and I do not care that I don’t.”
]]>I’ve been interested in writings that advocate for a return to Catholic education. I read with interest the book entitled Renewing Catholic Schools: How to Regain a Catholic Vision in a Secular Age. The book clearly advocates using a classical model of education, forming a community, and making God the center of everything. These are all aims that I would support.
However, whenever I encounter someone writing about this, there is one thing I find missing. At some point, people need to learn a skill that they can use to earn a living. They need a skill that makes a contribution to society. At what point is this taught, and how? While I’m no fan of the career mentality of our society, the fact is that many of the professions that are practiced in the world are needed. Where would we be without doctors, engineers, electricians, plumbers, etc? So, while I am in total agreement that education should not be utilitarian, I think it’s important that advocates of classical education address the practical questions that arise from their writings.
]]>There are a number of good solid books with short chapters (or sections of chapters. They are usually pretty easy to read, and even in a pinch, it’s often possible to read these one section at a time. Here are a some examples:
I’m sure there are a lot of others out there also.
Anyway, to make it easier to have it with you whenever you have a moment to read, I’d actually recommend having them on your phone and/or tablets as e-books. They are usually less expensive that way, and you can have a number of books on one device. If you choose to do this, I highly recommend buying them as ePubs directly from the publisher rather than going with Amazon, Nook, or Kindle whenever possible. Avoid anything sold as an Adobe Digital Edition like it’s bubonic plague.
The reason for this is that books bought with the services mentioned above contain digital rights management (DRM) copy protection. It limits you to reading the book on their proprietary software (except for Adobe Digital Editions, but you are still more limited even here than with a non-DRM ebook). More importantly, however, is that your rights to read the book are dependent upon your account on a particular server. The publisher could pull the plug on your rights to use the book easily. With today’s cancel culture, who knows when some woke company employee will decide that they don’t want to keep providing access to a Catholic book. With a plain ePub, you can download the file and back it up and install it on anything that can read an ePub file.
I’ve been able to get more reading in doing this. It does mean that, when I do this, I’m reading lighter reading, but at least I’m able to do something. Recently, I’ve been doing this while also working on a longer or more complicated book just to allow me to maximize the amount of reading that I can do.
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Now, I have to wonder what constitutes explicit lyrics and if I can even use that standard. Take the song, for example, named I’m Offended by John Rich. It’s labeled as having explicit lyrics. The only line that I can find in it that contains profanity is when he talks about how he prays to God and says to the atheist something like “You don’t believe he exists, so why are you so p*****?” I hear that word from people who don’t use other cuss words on a number of occasions.
Another curious example is the now-famous song “Try That In a Small Town” by Jason Aldean. He starts talking about how one day “they” are going to round up all the guns and says “That s*** might fly in he city . . .” Well, maybe you could argue that one shouldn’t play that for one’s kids, but that’s hardly explicit lyrics in my mind. In any event, I found that there is a clean version from Jimmy Levy that says “That stunt might fly in the city.” It has a little different sound to it, but it’s obviously the same song.
What makes the labeling of “Try That in a Small Town” more interesting is Oliver Anthony’s now famous “Rich Men North of Richmond.” I counted four uses of the “s” word, and it’s not labeled as containing explicit lyrics. Honestly, I have a bigger issue with the way he uses the words “Lord” and “God” in the song than the profanity itself. It just goes to show that there may not be a standard that is being applied here.
The funniest thing I saw on an online store was this album being labeled as explicit: Benedicta: Marian Chant from Norcia. No, I am absolutely not joking.! This album is literally Gregorian Chant, but one of the songs was listed on two different music services as having one song with explicit lyrics. The name is “Sequence Ave Maria . . . Virgo Serena.” Search for it if you don’t believe me. I really don’t think the Benedictine Monks are dropping F bombs in Latin.
As a disclaimer, I’ll add that this info is accurate at the time of this writing as I know that sometimes the labels get changed. However, my point is that, while there is a lot of music labeled as explicit that is clearly garbage, the label itself might not be much of an indicator of anything in particular anymore. It’s worth checking out the lyrics online to see if they really are or aren’t offensive and making the decision from there.
]]>This is our chance during the summer for the kids to learn what they can’t learn as well in a classroom. The kids may go to summer camps or mission trips (not to mention vacations), and these are good. Even just taking time to socialize with each other provides a great opportunity. I hope to take my sons out on some bike rides during the summer just to get them out and active. All of these are valuable opportunities that we don’t want to lose.
I think of this when I remember that there was a drive in my home town to increase the length of the school year by 20 days. It was touted as a great opportunity to improve education in our town. I don’t think that was really the case, and I still don’t think so. I’m ready for my kids to experience more out of classroom growth.
]]>To me, there have to be some things that are coincidental. If I run into a friend I haven’t seen in a long time, did God arrange the meeting? He might have. However, it’s still possible that both the friend and I simply made decisions in our free will to be at a particular place. This doesn’t preclude the action of God at all. He could then work in a myriad of ways through this. In fact, nothing happens that God doesn’t at least permit, and he did permit the meeting. This is why we can “accept all things as coming from God.”
We have an interesting example of God’s providence in our free actions that is found in the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary – the Visitation (Luke 1:39-56). Mary is informed of her calling to be the Mother of Our Lord by an angel. Joseph is told in a dream not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife, and he is also told when to take the family to Egypt. However, in the Scriptures we do not find Mary having been commanded or even suggested to visit Elizabeth. She hears of Elizabeth’s pregnancy from the angel, and off she goes.
Through this, God does a work that begins with Mary’s greeting of Elizabeth. The infant John the Baptist leapt in the womb of Mary. Theologians tell us that John was redeemed in the womb of Mary. While God didn’t tell Mary to go to her relative as far as we can see, he allowed it and then worked a great work through it. We don’t know what would have happened if Mary had chosen not to go, but I would presume that she could have made that choice without having offended God.
Another thing to consider is that God can even use our sins to do the great work he wishes to do. This doesn’t mean we should sin so that God can work through it. However, if you look at the linage of Jesus, you will find that not everyone in his ancestry was amazingly holy. Even Bathsheba, with whom King David committed adultery, was in the linage (not to mention King David himself). Obviously, our sins are not willed by God. There is no way that God arranged for sin to be committed, though he may allow it with the intention to accomplish a greater good.
With all this being said, it is impossible to deny that God had definite plans for John the Baptist, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and King David. They had a definite calling that was made clear to them. All of them, especially Mary, had major roles to play in the salvation of the world. The will of God was definitely made manifest, and it will be in our own lives in the way God intends.
However, I think more could be said about our free will and the agency we have in accomplishing God’s plan. I don’t claim to have figured out how it works. I doubt we will figure this out this side of eternity. What I do know is that God created a real world and gave us a real role in it. God may even allow us our preferences in many circumstances. Our own choices may shape the way God accomplishes his will. However, we know that we can do nothing without God and his grace.
]]>Yes, I know they will rise again. Their families know this, too. All of them were of some kind of Christian faith. After all, in the Catholic Church, we are in the midst of a 50 day celebration of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Still, I don’t think it’s right to deny the tragedy of their deaths.
The thing is that death was not part of God’s original plan for us. The fact that it happens is not really a natural part of life as I have been told by people. It’s an outrage. It is a sad reality of our human condition wounded by sin.
Jesus himself was not unmoved by this at all. In fact, go read John 11:1-44 where Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. There is a notable verse (verse 35) that says “Jesus wept.” Jesus, who knew that he was going to bring him back from the dead in just a few minutes, wept over his death.
So, if Jesus wept at the death of someone whom he knew he was going to bring back to life in a few minutes, surely he is not unmoved by what has happened to all of these people at too young of an age. It’s true that he permitted it for the good of their souls. It’s true that they will rise again, and we know it. However, the fact is that all of their families now have to spend the rest of their time on earth without their loved ones. God is not unmoved by their sorrow, and neither should we be.
With this being said, I would encourage everyone to pray for anyone whom you hear is dying. It has been placed on my heart to pray the Divine Mercy chaplet for a number of people whom I heard were dying, only to learn of their deaths soon afterwards. After they die, pray for the repose of their souls. This is especially important if they are not Catholic as their family will not be aware that they need to do this, and probably won’t. Of course, don’t forget to pray for the comfort of their families that they will know the love of God during their time of mourning.
]]>Virtue is known to lie in the middle way. That means that virtue often lies in between two vices. One of them would to be to indulge our appetites, whatever they may be. We may experience some kind of pleasure like this, but it will be empty. We will become a slave to our passions. Ultimately, we will be so soft that we won’t be able to accomplish anything worthwhile.
However, there are plenty of people in our culture who are caught in the opposite vice, and maybe we have been at some point. We are caught in this when we are constantly working and constantly busy and fail to enter into his rest. Human beings are not machines and are not made to be continually working. Time needs to be taken for us to worship Our Lord, to be with the people around us when we aren’t trying to accomplish something, and to get some wholesome recreation.
Jesus will show us, even in the most difficult times, how we can live joyfully and live life to the full. Sometimes it requires more trust than others. Of course, the real fullness of life will come only when we are with him in Heaven. There we will know perfectly the fullness of life that he came to give us.
]]>There are many important concerns about what is being taught in public schools these days. However, I would say there is a deeper issue that I haven’t heard much about. If parents are not competent to know the educations needs of children, who is? How is it determined? To answer these, or similar questions, we need to first answer this – who is education for, and what is it’s purpose?
In order to know what a child needs to know, we need to know the fundamental purpose of the knowledge. Otherwise, we are aimlessly shoving academics at our kids with no real end in mind. This is something we really need to think about.
With this being said, I can’t think of anyone who would be better suited to direct the purpose of education than the people who love the kids the most. They certainly will know and understand their kids better than education system bureaucrats. Besides, if a set of parents messes it up, they mess up only their own children. The bureaucrats have the potential to cause an entire town, state, or maybe even the whole country to be poorly educated.
And besides, is there really an objective standard of what needs to be taught in a school? How is it determined? Are there things better taught by other means (I’ll say absolutely there are.)?
We’ve really got to think about these things.
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Of course, here in the United States, it’s met with a “we have to do something attitude,” or, more precisely, “the government needs to do something.” Well, of course we do. One of those things that is often proposed is gun control. I don’t think I’ve written much about this on my blog. To be honest, I’m not someone who really likes guns, but I have mixed feelings about gun control laws, and am probably more against them than in favor of them.
For me to favor anything, I need reason to believe it’s going to make a difference. If any proposal isn’t accompanied by study of how the perpetrators got their hands on their guns and how their proposal will curb that, then I will write it off as an emotional reaction. The last thing we need right now is an attempted solution based on a typical American emotional reaction. Someone may respond to this “Well, come up with a better one.” However, I would leave open the possibility that some “solutions” may be worse than doing nothing.
However, I would not oppose reasonable laws that would help curb the problem of guns getting into the wrong hands. While the people behind them are the ones really responsible for the killing, the guns are a rather convenient tool for them to accomplish their aims efficiently. However, the guns can also be a convenient tool for protecting oneself against such an aggressor. For that reason, I also want law-abiding citizens who are willing to pass necessary (and I emphasize necessary) safety measures to be able to obtain them.
To put it the way a former co-worker of mine once said “We need more gun laws because the criminals are not heeding the ones we have.” There are plenty of guns already in circulation in this country. If they were all of a sudden banned, then the only people who would turn in their guns would be the law-abiding citizens. It may have some effect on the criminal element because people can be stopped in their tracks if a gun is found, but that effect could be negated by another problem.
That problem is best illustrated by the problem of “gun-free zones.” We see lots of establishments that have signs saying that guns are prohibited. Does that keep us safe? It may keep us safe from accidents. It also allows someone who is found to have a firearm to be stopped without having to wait for him to discharge said firearm. However, people with criminal intent are not going to obey those signs. In fact, declaring a “gun-free zone” will even send a signal to someone with criminal intent that, if he shoots, there will likely be no one who can shoot back.
So, I don’t think the problem is solved by the simple passage of some ban of certain types of firearms. The unintended consequences may be worse than our current situation. While I don’t want mentally ill or criminally minded people to be able to obtain guns, I also don’t want them to have easy targets to hit.
In fact, as kind of a side note, I fully support having armed security in schools. This may scare some people. Keep in mind that this should be properly trained, armed security, not just anyone with a holster. You might say that this won’t really solve the problem. I’d agree, but only in the sense that giving someone food to someone on the brink of starvation won’t solve his ultimate problem. It’s not that I like the atmosphere of a school with tighter security. Rather, it’s just that we need to do something to stop the aggressors who are planning their attacks right now.
Just as we don’t want the hungry person to starve while trying to solve the underlying problem, neither can we let kids die while the underlying problems of school shootings are solved. This is going to require taking a good, hard look at ourselves and our society to see what we have become. We need to do this even though we will never completely solve the problem in this world. The ultimate solution is something we cannot and should not try legislate, which is to turn to Christ and his Church.
]]>Now, it’s a great thing if you donate the money saved to the poor. You may feel the need to do this in order to ensure you make a true sacrifice and don’t gain anything from it. However, making an offering to God that has no tangible value is perfectly acceptable. It can even help you avoid falling into the sin of pride for having benefited a charity, if you are inclined to this vice.
Giving up something is simply a way of offering something to God. It’s a way of reminding yourself that this world and its pleasures are passing. It’s also a way to detach yourself from something you enjoy. I remember a priest talking about how they get used to being without what they gave up. He seemed to think it made the penance useless. I’d say it made the penance successful, but if you are no longer feeling the sacrifice you made, then you can choose to make an additional sacrifice.
Also, giving up something is a good, natural means of strengthening the will. Think of it this way. . . someone learning to defuse bombs would not practice on a real bomb. They will use some kind of practice model. Likewise, if we are learning to resist sin, we can practice with something we can legitimately engage in whether than with something that would result in us having offended God if we did.
Also, if, for whatever reason, you aren’t donating money saved from your penance, you can always offer it up for someone who needs it. Maybe you can help someone get out of purgatory. There’s a lot of good to be done with it. So, give something up, but do it with intention.
One final note . . . if you do choose to give something up that isn’t sinful and then break your fast, you didn’t sin. You took on a voluntary penance, and you are free to modify it or even set it aside. However, Lent is a penitential season, so I would suggest ensuring you do some kind of penance.
]]>You see, we live in a place where you can still go swimming in September or maybe even October. Most of the time, what people north of us call “snow removal,” we call “just wait for the next day.” It doesn’t snow all that much here, and today, even in February, we are expecting temperatures in the 60s. There are few snow plows down here, so even a small amount of snow will shut down a lot of the city until it melts. It usually does pretty quickly, but we’ve seen it linger on our neighborhood streets, which no one ever cleans, for a week.
It works just fine as a trade off for me. I am not a winter weather person. I’ll take the warmer climate any day. However, I do like to travel to the north when it’s summer and it’s almost 100 degrees with 120% humidity.
]]>To be clear, I am using the app on my iPad. I don’t own a Peloton bike, but I do have an Inspire IC 1.5 bike (that didn’t cost as much as what shows here) that I got as a Father’s Day/birthday gift a couple of years ago. It works. I also have a few dumbells for strength training, but they aren’t the ones made by Peloton. However, you can use the app with non-Peloton equipment just fine (read on for my workarounds). It’s actually cheaper than using it with the bike, but there are some things you don’t get. I don’t need the leaderboard trying to motivate me by telling me I’m in 12,684th place, though some other features would be nice.
The first thing I will say is that I have to be careful what workouts I choose. The app lets me see what songs will be playing, and this is very helpful because a number of workouts use music that is morally problematic. I have only taken classes from male instructions (mostly Ben Alldis and Bradley Rose) because the female instructors are often not dressed modestly. They are not wearing a proper shirt. It should go without saying that I also avoid the yoga and meditation classes as the spirituality involved is problematic.
I am still able to find classes that I can take. There are cycling classes that allow me to push in intervals that help me to do a better job getting exercise than I would get on my own. There are some classes I take when I really want to do an all out workout, and then there are others that are a bit less intense. Ben Alldis has a number of ten-minute stretch classes that are really helpful when I’ve been riding. After a little over a month, I added in some strength training. That helped with the weight loss.
For me, it’s helpful to have the instruction call out a specific cadence (pedal speed) on the bike and the amount of resistance to apply. It gives me something to help me figure out if I’m doing what the instructor has in mind. I don’t think I did as well when instructors in some other apps used a “rate of perceived exertion.”
Since I don’t have a Peloton bike, I can’t exactly correlate the resistance, but I’ve used a couple in hotels and have a little bit of a feel for it. I connect a Wahoo cadence meter to the app so I can see my cadence, and a Scosche heart rate monitor to display my heart rate (or I use my Apple Watch). I also use the Inspire app on my phone, which also shows my cadence but, more importantly, shows my resistance level (I didn’t really like their classes.). The Inspire bike has 40 levels, and I’m using their level 20 for a Peloton 20 and their 30 for a Peloton level 50.
The other exercise apps I have tried before are the Inspire app and Wellbeats. I didn’t get a good feel for the Inspire workouts and did very few of them when I had a year’s free subscription. They were challenging but otherwise felt kind of blah to me. Wellbeats was more corporate and professional, so I didn’t have to worry about immodestly dressed instructors or bad music. After a while I started to not like it as well. I think I was using too much resistance, which meant I wasn’t quite doing the workouts as well as I could have been. Also, Wellbeats doesn’t seem to release new classes anywhere near as often as Peloton does.
I just really like the energy and atmosphere of the Peloton class better. It can be hard sometimes, especially when I’m tired, but it’s just so much more fun. So, while I don’t appreciate the fact that I have to be careful of what I take on Peloton, I have found a number of good classes that I have really liked. It has kept me engaged in exercise better than anything else I’ve used.
Now, I’m sure at least some people reading this have a question for me – “Would I buy a Peloton bike?” I’m honestly not sure. When I have tried a Peloton bike in a hotel, it’s an amazing ride. Still, the bike is very expensive, and then I am locked into their classes as their screen won’t show anything else. I may still want the option of using another platform without a big screen that I wouldn’t have a use for in the way. I may one day consider something like a Stryde bike (with an unlocked screen) or even a bike that would be used in a gym, with the idea that it would last me a very long time. However, I do like the Peloton experience and may consider it some day if I can. Peloton gives a great workout, and I’m really enjoying using it.
]]>By the early 2000s, when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger, I really thought it would be great if he became the next pope. However, I figured he wouldn’t because of his age. Just before the conclave, I remember that he gave a speech warning about the “Dictatorship of Relativism,” and some media person remarked that he just disqualified himself from the papacy. Then, I was waiting, and occasionally refreshing the webpage on a news site. Finally, much to my surprise, a bar with a red background appeared at the top of my screen saying that “Cardinal Ratzinger is the new pope.” It was a dream come true!
I very much loved his emphasis on focusing on God himself. The Church is not a social work institution, though we do that kind of work, but the Body of Christ. It is ultimately Jesus Christ himself whom we must seek and whom we must serve. From what I remember, he wrote his Introduction to Christianity to help correct the errors of some theologians who were leaning towards some kind of socialist understanding of Christianity.
One great example of his focus was his book entitled The Spirit of the Liturgy. It was one of the best books on the Mass I have ever read. Solid formation on what the Mass is and how it should be celebrated is still probably the most difficult thing to come by. I dare say there are people with advanced degrees in liturgy who have things completely wrong. There were people spouting off stuff like how the churches needed to be that semi-circle shape so that we see each other and see Christ in one another. This essentially de-emphasized God himself and made the focus more on “the community.”
Before I read the book, I found it strange that he advocated the priest turning around and facing the same direction of the people (often called “having his back to the people,” but this is a misunderstanding). However, when I read what he wrote, I became completely convinced that this is how Mass should be celebrated. We, the priest and the people, are moving together towards God.
There is a lot that could be said about this holy man whom we had as pope for eight years. Now, he has gone to be with the Lord whom he served so well. Eternal rest, grant to him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace.
]]>The thing about Advent is that the way in which we prepare for Christmas can be hard to figure out. When I was new to the Church, I saw my pastor in the purple vestments that signify penance, and I asked him if Advent were a penitential season. He told me it was “half-penitential.”
I can see why he said this. Just like in Lent, the priest wears purple vestments. The Gloria is omitted from Mass, but the Alleluia is still sung before the Gospel. There are some prescribed penances in Lent, but in Advent, there is no particular penance prescribed.
It makes sense that it is this way when one thinks about it. Lent is a preparation for Easter. However, in order to get to Easter, there is the Passion and death of Our Lord on the cross. There is no such death that we must commemorate before the birth of Our Lord. We are simply waiting for him to come. There is, however, a deep longing in the world, and many don’t realize that longing.
Maybe the best preparation is to do our very best to focus on the Lord and remember that he is the reason, not only for the season, but our whole lives. This can be difficult in the midst of our lives this time of year. We are in a pretty bad flu season, and I’m sure there are a lot of people who are either sick or caring for sick kids. If you are a student, you are likely either preparing for or taking final exams. Of course, it can also be crunch time in many jobs as well. There are plenty of parties to attend as well.
Combine this with the secular celebration of Christmas that we see in the world. On the one hand, we have retailers that don’t really want to mention the word Christmas despite making money from people buying presents for the holiday whose name they “forgot.” I’m not going to call it so much a war on Christmas as stupid secular political correctness but also unwillingness to not make the money. You can also listen to songs on the radio that speak of the such a wonderful time of year with marshmallows, caroling, mistletoe, and hearts glowing with loved ones near. However, such songs will say nary a word about why this is (or should be) so. Those are just a couple of examples.
I’m certainly not saying that we shouldn’t get gifts for people. I definitely wouldn’t suggest not doing the work that you have to do at this time. Don’t flunk your exams if you are a student! I don’t even want to suggest not going to people’s Christmas parties. We won’t bring people back to focus on Jesus Christ by offending them in this manner. The one kind of activity that I would suggest skipping out on is the ugly sweater contest. How does an ugly sweater give honor to the God who became man and came to die for our sins?
In some way, we need to take time to pray and think about how we are awaiting the coming of Our Lord. We need to prepare the way by making a good Confession. Take some time to show the love of Christ to someone less fortunate (who could even be your family members who have the flu). All we need to do is take a bit of time to think more on how we can keep the coming of Christ in our minds and hearts and act on it. Then, we can tell the world what we are celebration and the awesome reality that it is.
]]>Let’s just imagine that someone wants to reduce funding for a certain workplace safety program. Suddenly, people make emotional pleas asking not to cut the funding because workplaces will be come super dangerous if this program is cut. Finally, they argue that the people trying to cut this program don’t care about the safety of people in their jobs.
When these arguments are heard, one must be really careful of what conclusion one draws. Someone can be very concerned about job safety and still want to reduce funding to the program for a number of reasons. Perhaps one person thinks the program has enough money to operate and does not need more (or is making poor use of their funds). Maybe another believes that the program will not be an effective program for improving workplace safety. Still another may believe that the program is impossible to implement in its current state. Yet still another may believe that there won’t be measures in place to assess whether the program is effective, and it will continue to run and to receive funding forever despite no one knowing if it is doing anything useful.
While one may argue that such people should come up with an alternative if they care about workplace safety, it’s possible that, at present, the opportunity to do so has not arisen. Others may decide that lack of safety in the workplace is not a problem in a given place or time or that the owners of companies will take adequate measures on their own. Maybe the program being presented is such that doing nothing is better than trying to implement this particular program. When it comes to government or academic programs, I believe that is often the case.
You can substitute a number of things for workplace safety and do the same exercise, like education, public transportation, aid to the needy, or pretty much any organization that may not be doing its job effectively (or at all). You can also substitute, for funding, something like an e-mail campaign. I got tired of being blasted by e-mails by candidates whom I voted for or would have voted for had they been on my ballot.
So, this is a good thing to remember when making an argument. Get to the point of what the other person believes. Ask for specifics and debate those. Granted, some people are guided by emotion more than reason, but at least you are coming from a more sound and more charitable position.
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