7 Quick Takes, 2/15/14

--- 1 ---

Yesterday was the third anniversary of the worst Valentine's day ever.  A month prior, my wife and I were surprised and overjoyed to be pregnant.  Our first ultrasound appointment (at 8 weeks) was scheduled on 2/14/11 and as it turned out, our baby had died.  It was a blighted ovum--one of those cases where they had no idea what happened, and it would have been impossible to prevent it.  That was a terrible thing to go through, but it brought my wife and I closer than we'd ever been.  We leaned on each other, our love grew, and we have a little intercessor in heaven.  

--- 2 ---

I've read a few Agatha Christie novels lately, and I highly recommend them.  I enjoy her books in general, but since I was a teenager, I've loved her recurring detective Hercule Poirot.  Appointment with Death was pretty good; Murder in Mesopotamia was very clever and kept you guessing until the end; my favorite of the bunch, Murder on the Nile, felt like reading a film noir.  I loved it!  Finally, a little misdirection (slight of pen?) made Peril at End House a great read.  It was yet another that kept me wondering until the final reveal at the end.    

--- 3 ---

For my serious reads, I've been slowly getting through two books.  Hillaire Belloc's The Crusades and Caryll Houselander's Reed of God (about the Blessed Mother).  The virtues of both books are that they're well-written; unfortunately, they're not the kind of books I can pick up for a few minutes before bed.  I have to really concentrate and take at least 15 minutes to read them... I don't think I could be diagnosed with ADD but I often lack discipline when it comes to reading.

The books are great for different reasons.  Belloc tells of the Crusades from a Catholic perspective, which I find very helpful.  The Catholic perspective of that part of history is no where to be found in any secular textbook or history class.  Houselander reflects on the life of Our Lady and... wow.  It's profound, deep, but not overly complex or heady.  I hope to write separate posts about those when I finish them.
  

--- 4 ---

February 11th has double special meaning for me, as it is the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes and the feast of my baptism.  The connection of the two amazes me.  It feels like Jesus and Mary had a plan to make me feel loved and special, and chose things in my life to remind me how much they did love me.  I had a very powerful spiritual experience at Lourdes in college; I married a girl who picked St. Bernadette as her confirmation saint; we named our baby (see #1 above) Bernadette Hope; my grandparents and great-grandparents had a devotion to Lourdes and had a "statue" of the grotto (which included statues of Our Lady and St. Bernadette); in iconography class in the seminary, we wrote icons of Our Lady of Lourdes (at my hopeful suggestion) and my icon is one of my most prized possessions.  And it all started with my baptism!  Thanks be to God!

--- 5 ---

Work has been getting harder lately, and it will only be getting busier in the coming months.  Unfortunately for my stress level--it's become an exercise in mental toughness lately.  Getting greater mental toughness is just like learning humility or patience: IT SUCKS.  There's only one way to learn... 

--- 6 ---

I saw on Facebook that Bill Nye was going to debate a Creation Guy... and I had a hard time caring.  I don't believe in a strictly scientific view of evolution just like I don't believe in a fundamentalist, Protestant view of creationism.  Other Catholic people have written about it, e.g. Jimmy Akin, who writes well about it here.

My problem?  Some folks think Catholics are brainwashed fools, worshipping statues and indulging in superstition.  And some Protestants think we're on the road to perdition for not taking the Bible literally enough (to which I say: John 6).  But the Catholic view on the creation of the world, I think, blends faith and reason.  Being Catholic, I'm absolutely biased... but this seems very reasonable to me:

"Among all the Scriptural texts about creation, the first three chapters of Genesis occupy a unique place. From a literary standpoint these texts may have had diverse sources [This comes from historical-critical exegesis]. The inspired authors have placed them at the beginning of Scripture to express in their solemn language the truths of creation [the "why" rather than exactly "how", in the Church's view] - its origin and its end in God, its order and goodness, the vocation of man, and finally the drama of sin and the hope of salvation [the creation stories in Genesis tell us about ourselves, first and foremost; and those are the more important questions than the origin of the earth... they have to do with salvation]. Read in the light of Christ, within the unity of Sacred Scripture and in the living Tradition of the Church [=Catholics have an authority to turn to in the Magisterium when it comes to tough questions like this, thank the Lord!], these texts remain the principal source for catechesis on the mysteries of the "beginning": creation, fall, and promise of salvation." (CCC #289)   

It's worth reading the surroundings to that paragraph: Catechism #279-302.  

--- 7 ---

2013 was a surprisingly good year for my sports teams.  The 49ers went to the NFC Championship game; the Dodgers went to the NLCS; the Timbers (MLS) went to their conference championship game.  The team that did the worst out of mine was Notre Dame, who had a decent but not wonderful year.  I wonder how 2014 will turn out... one of my teams is overdue to win a championship.  The Niners last won in 1994, the Dodgers and Notre Dame last winning in 1988.  The Timbers have only been in MLS a few years, and I've only been following them for that long.

Jesus, you take prayer requests for sports teams, right?  Please?

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

7 Quick Takes, Retreat Edition, 2/7/14

In the coming month, I'll be a part of two retreats: one as a participant and one as an adult leader on a confirmation retreat. Here are 7 quick takes on good experiences and/or spiritual lessons from past retreats:

--- 1: Prayer works ---

Life Teen retreat 2005ish: I was a member of the core team at my parish, assisting with the Life Teen program. The high point of any Life Teen retreat was Saturday night, with some sort of prayer/spiritual activity. On this particular retreat, the activity was "Four Corners," where youth would go to core team members individually and asked to be prayed over. I was one of the pray-ers, and a youth came to me as a pray-ee. He asked for a specific intention and I prayed over him the best I knew how. The next day, his intention was granted! I know the Lord probably grimaced at my reaction ("You're surprised that prayer works? Yikes...") but I was taken aback. This guy's prayer answered? Me, an instrument like that? WAY COOL.

--- 2: Benefit of silence ---

Silent retreat as a seminarian, 2004: For some, being silent is a painfully difficult exercise; that wasn't the case for me, being a quiet sort of guy (generally). Still, I learned the value of silence. I really think the amount of peace in our lives depends on the amount of silence we have. Not that we have to become Cistercians to know peace--I don't mean that at all. But distraction can be just as much an obstacle in the spiritual life as sin. Certainly, those two things don't have the same effects on our souls. But how many people today are content with distractions, thinking that God/religion is a waste of time? And how many of us (by 'us' I mean me) give into distractions out of laziness, thus becoming more and more lazy?

--- 3: Expect unexpected blessings ---

Having expectations of a retreat is fine and normal, but don't be crushed if it's not a Mt. Tabor-level experience. Last year as part of a retreat, I went to confession. I made a list of everything and I waited in line... looking forward to unloading my list off my heart. Finally I reached the priest! He'd given a talk earlier, giving me the impression that he would be a good confessor. About halfway through my list he cut me off, talked briefly about one item, and finished the confession. I walked away disappointed. The moral? In hindsight, I think it was to rejoice in what was given me on the retreat (which was still a lot), not that I was due a best-most-awesomest-ever-ultimate experience.

--- 4: Sitting at a teacher's feet ---

There's great value in the spiritual wisdom of others. While I was in the seminary, we had a number of great speakers. We had Christopher West (great passion for his field of study), Fr. Robert Barron (incredible insights), Fr. Robert Spitzer (SO bloomin' smart!), and a host of others. We heard priests from the seminary staff or monastery give talks, thus discovering another side of them. In a small way, I think this is an ecclesiological matter. Not to mention a blessing! We're not meant to journey to Jesus alone--otherwise, He would not have founded His one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church. There is a unity among believers for mutual support and enrichment; what a special relationship we have with our spiritual mentors, especially the clergy. They provide us with spiritual food to deeper unite us with the object of our faith, Our Lord Jesus Christ!

--- 5: Chemistry ---

It's amazing what the chemistry of a group can do for a retreat, both positively and negatively. As a small group leader on youth retreats, I've experienced both. One semester's retreat had our youth group share a larger facility with a second group in the diocese. Things went along just fine in the beginning until a large, group sharing activity. We encouraged the youth to unload their burdens verbally, to the large group. There was also a cross in the middle of the room; anyone could write their burden down, go up, and attach it to the cross. A few minutes into the exercise, one of the teens revealed something deep that was troubling them. The floodgates opened and youth opened up like I'd never seen before or since. Powerful stuff, being emotionally vulnerable! The "spirit" of the retreat was incredible from then on. On the other side of the coin, I've been on retreats where the youth didn't give a ?@#!* about being there. They might have sincerely wanted to get out of the house for a weekend, or hang out with their friends. Maybe something was stirring on the inside... you never know... but on the outside? It was probably as painful for us leaders as it was for the discontented youth.

--- 6: Stormy waters ahead ---

Difficult conversations have been a memorable part of the last few years of my retreating experience. Unfortunately, it hasn't always been a good memory. Sometimes it was a struggling small group discussion (difficult = "you all have a pulse, right? You're not asleep?"), or perhaps frustrating discussions/arguments (difficult = this), and not to be left out, confronting an issue (difficult = "I'm in over my head on this one"). There's also the difficulty in not knowing what to say, not knowing how to get through to some youth, and questioning whether making a fuss about a minor issue is worth it or not. Even on retreats, the cross is ever present in our lives!

--- 7: Cast your nets into the deep ---

Overall, retreats are meant to light a fire in us. God wants us to seek Him more than we do now; to that end, He calls us away with Him into the wilderness. No matter the experience (good or bad), pursue Him. Love Him more, devote yourself more!

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!