Christmas is Nigh

Over the years, I've looked forward to a number of things at Christmas.  As a kid, it was Santa and presents.  As I got older, it became fun to give presents in addition to receiving them.  Christmas became more special once my wife was a part of my life, and even better now that we have our little son.

Last year, my wife and I had some quite time together on Christmas Eve.  I hope it becomes an annual tradition!  I had returned from singing in a small choir for our parish's midnight Mass at 9 p.m.  The church had a warmth to it that night, with the soft lights.  The choir with the exception of me, had incredibly talented musicians and singers.  It was a joy to sing "Silent Night" and "What Child Is This," listening to the harmony of the quartet's combined voices.  After I'd returned home and changed, my wife and I opened presents.  We settled in on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, listening to Christmas music.  No lights were on save those on the tree.  A soft glow permeated the room, the kind you see and feel at the same time.  Even with the music, quiet peacefully reigned in our house.

One of the great feasts of our faith... celebrating it in the liturgy... with the peace of Christ enveloping our home.  It was wonderful, and God be praised!  We do not have a sterile faith, nor one that's exclusively concerned with the intellect.  In contemplating the mystery of the Incarnation, God gives us multiple ways to connect with it.  We have the Mass, the love of our friends & family, and Christmas carols that sing the glories of God.  On top of that, we have all the manifestations of human creativity.  Have you ever stopped to think about human ingenuity, and how incredible it is?  It's one of God's greatest gifts to the human race.  The celebration of Christmas includes baking, cheesy movies on Lifetime & the Hallmark channel, ornaments, Christmas lights, and much, much more.

As we enjoy the beauty of the Christmas season, let's not forget to give thanks and praise to God, the source of all that is good about the season.

And, I'd like to share the "Midnight on Christmas Eve" playlist:

1. The King's Singer: Stille Nacht (really amazing choir)
2. Judy Garland: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (classic)
3. Gardiner Sisters: What Child Is This? (three sisters singing in harmony, in a great arrangement)
4. Celine Dion: O Holy Night (you need a powerful voice to sing this song and she nails it)
5. Nat King Cole: The First Noel (he makes singing sound easy & effortless)
6. Natalie Cole: The Holy & the Ivy (a lesser known Christmas carol but a really nice one)
7. The Daughters of St. Paul: Ave Maria (standard!)
8. Celtic Woman: The Christmas Song (some wonderful voices in Celtic Woman)
9. The Piano Guys: O Come, O Come, Emmanuel (instrumental, a piano and cello.  Really good!)
10. Choir of King's College, Cambridge: Coventry Carol (another amazing choir)
11. Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles: O Come Divine Messiah (a hymn, sung beautifully.  From their Advent at Ephesus album)
12. Martina McBride: Away in a Manger (my favorite country singer)

Hidden Grains in Matthew 12:1-8

Thanks to a confirmation talk I'm working on, I picked up the Bible last night before going to bed.  One of the Scripture passages I looked up for this talk was Matthew 12:1-8.  Why not read it, I thought, and just reflect on it; maybe that would benefit me more than simply taking notes on the passage.  You'd think the Holy Spirit knows what He's doing or something... the Holy Spirit pointed something out in the reflections that I wanted to share.    

One of the things that stood out was the boldness of Jesus--and it made me curious about the reactions of the Pharisees.  Yes, they voice their displeasure upon seeing Jesus' disciples pick grain on the sabbath, but Matthew doesn't let them get a word in when Jesus compares Himself to David (v. 3-4).  King David!!!  One of the most revered figures in Jewish history!  Even further, Jesus says for the first of three times in the surrounding chapters, "something greater than the Temple is here." (v. 6)  The temple, the most sacred place on earth and the dwelling place of God among His chosen people.  What's greater than that?  As if those weren't audacious enough, Jesus finishes off by saying, "the Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath." (v. 8)  The sabbath, instituted by God?  The sabbath, observed by Jews for millennia?  

Matthew grants the Pharisees an aside in v. 14, saying that "the Pharisees went out and took counsel against Him, how to destroy Him."

That shock that the Pharisees must've felt isn't just a historical commentary or a hermeneutical device, or other large words that make me sound smart.  They knew exactly what Jesus was saying.  One of the more concise treatments of this belongs to C.S. Lewis: Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord.  A liar could make all the claims that Jesus did, and was killed for stupidly sticking to his lies.  A lunatic would be granted some leeway; if this were true, then we should pity a poor, delusional man who preached his way to torture and death.  The Pharisees of the time fell into a variation of one of these camps.  

Or, He Is the Lord; Who He said He Is.  Jesus spells out Who He Is in this short passage: 

King: Jesus makes a direct parallel between Himself and David, the latter being the epitome of kingship for the Jews at the time.  

Priest: that is, one who offers sacrifice to God.  By bringing up the Temple, Jesus alludes to the very place where sacrifices were offered.  

Prophet: The scripture that Jesus quotes to the Pharisees comes the prophet Hosea: "I desire mercy, not sacrifice."  (6:6)

With these three references, Jesus is proclaiming that He Is the Messiah: priest, prophet, and king.  This is from Hosea 6:6, and the preceding verses are strikingly messianic:  

"Come, let us return to the LORD, for He has torn, that He may heal us; He has stricken, and He will bind us up.  After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live before Him.  Let us know, let us press on to know the LORD, His going forth is sure as the dawn; He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth." (v. 1-4)

 In quoting Hosea, Jesus joins His mission to the prophet from of old: to bring the hearts of His wayward people back to the Lord.  

Jesus' final line in this passage provides a whisp of a hint that the Messiah's mission includes the sabbath, although He doesn't go into detail.  With the benefit of hindsight, we can draw a clearer picture: Jesus, the great high priest (Heb 4:14) and victim; the Lamb who offered Himself for our sins (Gen 22:8, John 1:29); whose flesh, like the paschal lamb (Ex 12:8), is true food and drink (John 6:55); which serves as a new foundation for the sabbath of the New Covenant (Matt 26:26-28).

7 Quick Takes: Favorites edition, 11/6/15

Unbelievably, November is here!  Fall weather, foggy mornings, more rain, and football.  Ah, football.  At least one of my two teams is doing well.  For this 7QT, lucky you, they're all based on my favorite things!  My wife & son being first, and the rest being in no particular order.

1) My wife Erin is a beautiful, beautiful woman and I'm very blessed to be married to her.  Easy #1 choice for my favorites!  There's also my little son, Leo.  He's 9 months old now, and we only have a few minutes together in the morning and about an hour in the evening.  Work gets in the way, alas...  For Halloween, we dressed him up in a pumpkin costume.  Cutest and most wiggly pumpkin ever!  We couldn't get a single picture of him smiling and staying still.  

Just soak in the cuteness.  Imagine him crawling with
what looks like a little beer belly--even more adorable

Whoever on Pinterest that showed how to make an Ewok costume for a toddler, I will be thanking you next year.  

2) I love to read, especially books on the Catholic faith.  My interests also include history, although those books tend to require a little more discipline to read.  I just finished this book on Fatima, and I'd recommend it to anyone.  Tomorrow (11/7) is the first Saturday of the month.  Make this the first of your 5 First Saturdays, just like Our Lady asked!  

Come to our aid, Immaculate Queen!

3) Movies are another good source of entertainment, usually.  We've had hits--The Book Thief was excellent (though not a happy movie)--and misses (nearly any secular comedy we've watched in the last couple years).  We have tested out some religious movies, as well.  I've learned a few things... 

*Very few are made outside of Italy, which makes for a problem with... 

*...dubbed-over voices.  I'd much rather hear the actors speak in Italian than have a voice-over actor attempt to fill in the voices.  Can't stand it!

*Some religious movies, however well-intentioned, are bad.  BAD.  (there, I said it)  And it's okay that I feel that way.  It's a funny feeling, the guilt!  If some sort of secular movie had subpar acting, dialogue that doesn't translate well to the screen, I wouldn't feel the least bit guilty about lampooning it.  

*As long as a biblical movie doesn't wind up in the we-couldn't-make-it-through-20-minutes category, they're a good exercise in imaginative prayer.  We recently watched Mary of Nazareth, which was good.  There were so many scenes in the movie that I inwardly thought, 'I pictured it happening a different way' and... there you are, reflecting on a story from the Bible.  

*P.S. only two movies have made it into our we-couldn't-make-it-through-20-minutes category: one religious movie that out of guilt I will not name, and second, the horrendous secular movie Friends With Kids.  Its worst sin?  It wasn't funny.  It had an all-star cast of hilarious comedians and the movie was boring!  

4) Star Wars!  I grew up on it as a kid and I'm really excited to see Episode VII.  The new international trailer was just released... I don't buy the theories that say Luke Skywalker is Kylo Ren, but the tide of speculation is trending toward Luke turning to the dark side.  Kudos to JJ Abrams for this nice gesture, by the way.  

5) For football, Notre Dame is having a good season so far, and I think they'll end up a top 10 team.  Not so sure they'll make the playoff, but at least they're not having as bad of a season as the 49ers.  Seriously, seriously painful.  The owner and GM have driven the team into the ground.  

6) I came upon an old mix CD that I put together, entitled Relax Mix.  I hadn't listened to it in a while, so all the tracks were a surprise.  I'm still amazed at the effect that a great song can have--enticing your imagination to go off to a different place, using melodies, instruments, solos, and sometimes raw emotion.  This was one of the songs from that mix, enjoy!

7) Finally, I do like to write--though you'd never know it for often I write on this blog.  I was lucky to write another post at the Cora Evans blog, this time on 5 Catholic scientists making an impact on society.  My wife had the best idea of everyone on the list, Dr. Hilgers: the founder of the Paul VI Institute and one man responsible for probably thousands of babies being born.  Including Leo.  :)

More quick takes at www.thisaintthelyceum.org!

Fatima for Today, right now!

I recently finished Fr. Andrew Apostoli's book on the great phenomenon of Fatima, called Fatima for Today.  First things first: go buy this book and read it.

Fatima gets lost in the shuffle as yet another avenue of Marian devotion, one among many.  Our Lady is well-traveled and in her great love for her children, she's visited many places.  Some people take a liking to different titles of Our Lady, whether they be Lourdes (my favorite!), Guadalupe, Peace, Grace, Walsingham, and so on, and so on.

Before I read this book, I figured Our Lady of Fatima was another one on that list.  After I read this book, I think that every Catholic needs to know about it.  Here are my reasons:

1) It's one of the most decisive events in the history of the 20th century.
Three poor, shepherd children, two of whom died very young?  Yes!  The messages they were given aimed to correct the errors of the 20th century: first, hell does, in fact, exist.  This had long been frequently denied or ignored, a century ago just as it is today.  Look at the no consequences philosophies permeating our culture!  Second, penance is key to the spiritual life.  Materialist cultures like ours don't see a value in penance, don't understand it, and reject it as archaic.  Third, without serious correction and reparation, the world was headed for terrible suffering.  The death toll from two world wars; the atrocities committed by Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pot; war after war after war.  Our Lady was given the grace to know where our world was heading, and these messages were meant to warn us.

The apparitions at Fatima were decisive because of one of the largest controversies in the Church: the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  See below for my thoughts on the controversy, but Fr. Apostoli had a good take.  Look at how the Soviet Union "thawed" with Gorbachev... the manner in which the Berlin wall came down... how the U.S.S.R. dissolved without a shot being fired.

Imagine the alternative to each of those.

2) It's very important to learn the truth about the conspiracy theories, as not to get caught up in them.
A while ago, I googled the Fatima apparitions to learn more about them.  What a mistake!  I was surprised at all the garbage out there!  Various conspiracy theories claimed that the Third Secret finally revealed by Pope John Paul II wasn't the real Third Secret--Bl. Lucia wrote it on one page, and the photocopy had four pages!  The Sr. Lucia shown in photo X is not actually Sr. Lucia!  The Vatican kidnapped her and replaced her with an impostor!  There's still a fourth secret out there that the Vatican has suppressed!

Fr. Apostoli answers many of the common objections relating to Fatima... perhaps with the exception of Sr. Lucia being replaced with an impostor (which is silly).  

Sr. Lucia said herself that heaven accepted Pope John Paul II's consecration of the world as fulfilling what Our Lady asked at Fatima, to consecrate Russia.  It's really that simple.  No tales of intrigue, no rogue Curial bishops, no redactions from the Third Secret.  

Pick any hot-button moral issue today, and there's so much confusion.  What is the source of all the confusion about Fatima?  It's Satan!  He's attacked the message of Fatima to discredit it and sow discord within the Church... just as he did with abortion, contraception, euthanasia, gender confusion, and the like.  And sadly, he's done a damn good job.

3) The storms in our world are coming to a high point.  Our Lady of Fatima shows us the way through it--and her Immaculate Heart wins in the end.
These messages weren't just for the people of Portugal, Russia, or Europe.  The call to penance and conversion is a constant theme throughout the New Testament; there's nothing new there.  The difference at Fatima was first the insistence, and second, a reminder that our spiritual practices & life of penance (or lack thereof) has consequences.  She told the three visionaries that prayer & penance could've averted World War II, and the length of it was shortened.  So it is with our times!  Prayer/the rosary, penance, and frequent reception of the sacraments are the best defenses and weapons that we have against the evils of our time.

And lest we lose heart, she wins.  Evil loses.  There is hope!

There is so much to write about Fatima, and this will have to suffice for now.  Read about the Five First Saturdays here and start it this week!

Our Lady of Peace, pray for us.
Blessed Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta, pray for us.

Richard III and the Failure of the Church

In college, I had two British history courses taught by a wonderful lecturer.  He read all of his lectures, but did so as a storyteller.  It can be hard for others to grasp this concept--yes, history can be fun.  No, really!  Thank you, Prof. Von den Steinen, Prof. Garosi, and Mr. English (freshman year of high school) for making me love history.  

Back to the Sceptered Isle.  I spent the first half of my third year of college in London, and I've been fascinated with England ever since.  Don't get me wrong, I'm aware of the awful things the English did to the Irish (too lengthy to list here).  Truly, truly awful.  Even in light of that, there's something about kings, princes, queens, knights, and lords that I find really interesting.  Perhaps it's that such a world is so different in comparison to 21st century America; perhaps it's some innocent but misguided nostalgia for times that weren't really all that great to live in.

One of the topics of debate in the field of English history is the story of the Princes in the Tower.  A brief recap of what led to their tragic deaths: Henry V died in France in 1422, leaving his infant son as king.  Henry VI was generally regarded by historians as a weak king and an unsuccessful military campaigner (unlike his father, the hero of Agincourt).  That weakness led to a struggle for the throne, known as the War of the Roses.  The House of Lancaster fought to keep its hold on the throne against the House of York--and did so successfully until 1461.  Edward IV (of the Yorkists) gained the throne in 1461 and reigned until his untimely death in 1483.  There was a brief interruption when the Lancastrians gained the throne in 1470, but the Yorkists soon won it back.  Edward IV had two sons, and his eldest, Edward V, succeeded him as king in 1483.  Edward IV's brother, Richard, didn't allow that for very long.  Richard deposed Edward V, claiming him to be a bastard; Richard was so powerful that he forced his way onto the throne in 1483, becoming Richard III.  Richard lost his crown to Henry Tudor (who became Henry VII) when he died in battle on Bosworth field in 1485.  

The Princes in the Tower were Edward V (age 12 at the time of his death) and his younger brother Richard (age 9); both sons of Edward IV.  Each had a more legitimate claim to the throne than Richard III.  As any casual reader of history knows, no throne is safe when powerful lords and claimants to the throne are mixed together.  Richard was a cunning politician and knew this well; it wouldn't be a matter of if, but when someone tried to restore Edward V to the throne.  

After being imprisoned in the Tower of London, the two boys disappeared, rather conveniently.  It's a historical whodunnit that's over 500 years old!  Shakespeare penned his famous play on Richard III, using some historical sources but also indulging in the dramatic.  From that play, we have the picture of Richard as the villainous, evil, hunchback uncle who had his nephews murdered.  

Historians have taken both sides--those that defend and those that prosecute Richard.  Both sides make their case using the sources of the day.  But who is right?  

I picked up a book from Prof. Von den Steinen's class, one that I never read (oops).  The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey, was a mystery novel published in 1951.  Inspector Alan Grant, laid up in a hospital due to injuries on the job, starts investigating the case of Richard III and the Princes in the Tower.  He enlists the aid of a grad student working at the British Museum; together they piece together all the historical evidence they can.  In the end, they exonerate Richard III of the murders and place the blood on the hands of Henry VII.  

I'm guessing that it was from my days in college--my parents gave me Alison Weir's The Princes in the Tower.  Josephine Tey, whatever her sleuthing acumen might have been, was not a historian.  I was really interested to read a historian's take on the Princes.  Weir laid out the background to the Wars of the Roses, describes the key characters, the story, and arrives at the conclusion that Richard III arranged to have his nephews killed.  

I may not have convinced you to read those books (both were very entertaining) (and yes, a history book can be entertaining!!!), but hopefully the catchy title of this post convinced you to read this far.  I couldn't help but read the story of all those Richards and Edwards and see the failure of the Church.  

Free will makes it impossible for the Church to prevent each one of its members from falling into sin.  However, where was the voice of the clergy during that time in England, warning of the consequences of sin?  Clearly the monarchs played by a different set of rules.  These weren't the kinds of sin where we semi-unintentionally fall into it, or the kind of sin that we try our hardest to avoid but can't.  The following list were things planned for, plotted for, and done intentionally during the Wars of the Roses:  

-the ineptitude of Henry VI gave rise to greed for the throne, which led to war

-Edward IV was a model of infidelity, and his lust caused him to marry a commoner, Elizabeth Wydville.  Weir cited suggestions that Elizabeth wouldn't give into him unless they were married; there isn't enough evidence to prove this.  It does give a reasonable explanation to why a king married one of his subjects for only the second time in 400 years (=more than an uncommon occurrence)--lust is a powerful demon.  Just so we're clear, the sin part was the lust, not the marrying a commoner part.  But regarding the latter, Edward displayed a stunning level of foolishness by doing so... doing what was good for his pants rather than thinking of what was good for the realm...

-...that surprise marriage fractured the relationship between Edward IV and his powerful uncle, the Earl of Warwick.  Warwick then conspired with Edward's brother, George, to overthrow Edward...

-...the plot failed, and George was executed as a result.  Parliament recommended the execution and Edward IV signed off.  The future Richard III held the Wydeville family responsible for pushing George's execution through Parliament, and treated the family accordingly

-upon Edward IV's death, his son, Edward V, technically took the throne... until Richard's avarice for the crown declared all children of Edward & Elizabeth to be illegitimate

-Richard had some of his strongest supporters killed, for political expediency

-the two male heirs of Edward IV (Edward V and little Richard), ages 12 and 9, were murdered

-Richard somehow seduced his niece into an incestuous affair.  Believe it or not, the sister of the two Princes in the Tower... whom Richard most likely had murdered.

And that's a shortened list.  I know from my own experience as a sinner: terrible things result when we usher sin into our lives and families.  All the lust, greed, murder, and war for decades settled into England.  How can that not have its own spiritual consequences?  Look what resulted from a century of bloodshed, greed, adultery, and fratricide: the Tudor dynasty!  More of the same bloodshed, adultery, and greed.  By the time Henry Tudor (Henry VII) came along, someone with a tenuous claim to the throne, the English ached for royal stability and were excited to have anyone on the throne other than Richard III.  The Tudors took turns in schism, ripping England away from the Roman Catholic Church (Henry VIII), taking it further away (Edward VI, Henry's only legitimate son that lived beyond infancy), bringing England back to Rome (Queen Mary), and breaking away from Rome again (Queen Elizabeth), for good.  

Is it any wonder that nations undergo trials when their leaders do terrible things?  When sin begets further sin?  England enjoyed many centuries of prosperity later, but now, like the rest of formerly Christian Europe, has continued to distance itself from Jesus, the source of all life.  The problem with doing that is that God respects our free will--and lets us have what we want.  

"Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.  Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin; and sin when it is full-grown brings forth death." (James 1:14-15)

7QT: anniversary edition, 10/9/15

On our honeymoon in Ireland

1) Today, my wife and I celebrate our 5th anniversary.  I didn't know what to expect when I got married, but it's exceeded everything I thought it would be.  I never thought I could love someone so much!  I'm a blessed man to have her; I can't imagine my life without her.

2) Our little boy is almost 9 months old, and it's been a joy to watch him grow.  When I get home from work in the evening, I have about an hour with him.  I usually play with him (also known as distracting him so that my wife can get things done).  It's truly the highlight of my day.  HOW COOL IS IT HAVING A CUTE LITTLE GUY????  Yes, that's me shouting.  It's that cool.

3) I am taking a long weekend to attempt to recover from the biggest project I've ever worked on.  I was on a small team that coordinated the move of a three-story building into two new buildings.  The amount of details was burdensome and the stress was worse than anything I can remember.  Although the message we tried to get across to our fellow employees was...

...for some folks, it turned out more like this:

I've worked on many smaller-scale moves for work before; I forgot the #1 rule of moves.  Some people can't deal with change and it makes them stressed.  Then they make sure you know that they're unhappy.

4) I have another article up on the Cora Evans blog, this one on a piece of St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa.  I hadn't looked at the Summa in quite a while.  Part of my assignment was to comment on why the Summa still has value to modern-day Catholics.  I hadn't thought about it before, to be honest, so it was a good exercise for me.  With those articles, I think I learn much more in writing it than anyone does reading it.  Did you know the entire Summa is online at New Advent, along with the old edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia?

5) Back to the anniversary.  Today is also the feast day of Bl. John Henry Newman, a towering intellect of the 19th century.  Let me present reason #567,923 that God loves and cares about me...

a. Erin wanted to have a fall wedding, so we looked at October.  In 2010, Oct. 2 was a Saturday, and a really neat feast day: the Guardian Angels.  We were just about to book the date when a friend from back home sent out their save-the-date cards... for that very day.  We had some mutual wedding guests, and I really didn't want said guests to have to pick between attending a wedding 15 minutes away versus a wedding 550 miles away.  Erin and I went with the following Saturday, the 9th, avoiding the temptation to have the wedding on Sunday, 10/10/10.


b. I wrote my masters thesis on Bl. John Henry Newman--and finishing my degree was the occasion of my meeting Erin.

c. In September 2010, Pope Benedict XVI went on a trip to England.  Among other things, he beatified  John Henry Newman.  Long after our wedding date had been chosen, weeks after the invitations had gone out... Pope Benedict named October 9th as Newman's feast day.

6) If you're up for a thick but great read, pick up Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua.  It was the primary source material of my thesis.  There are many editions out, but you could also read it for free if you wanted to.  Newmanreader.org has all of his written works and collections of his sermons.  The book is fascinating, as we gives us a guided tour of his soul.  The "chapters" are divided among the various periods of his life.  Originally, each chapter was a pamphlet, and they were published one by one.

Because Legos have always been cool...

...and will always be cool

7) The Dodgers start their playoff series tonight against the Mets.  Let's go Dodgers!  Get out the rally bananas!  (no, that's not something dirty, I promise)  Clayton Kershaw is pitching tonight and he has some making up to do after the last few postseasons.  

Streams of Living Water

One of the subjects that captivated my imagination was the "water of life" theme from Jean Corbon's The Wellspring of Worship.  A really, really good book!  I attempted to write a serious article on it, and I may indeed try to get it published some day.  The idea of the water of life comes from a number of Scripture passages--from the Old Testament as well as the New Testament.  The first reading at Mass this morning (see the Sunday readings here) briefly mentions this theme, Is 35:4-7...

Thus says the LORD:Say to those whose hearts are frightened:Be strong, fear not!Here is your God,he comes with vindication;with divine recompensehe comes to save you.Then will the eyes of the blind be opened,the ears of the deaf be cleared;then will the lame leap like a stag,then the tongue of the mute will sing.Streams will burst forth in the desert,and rivers in the steppe.The burning sands will become pools, and the thirsty ground, springs of water.

I think one of the things I love the most about the "living water" motif (which is not the ability to sound pretentious, using words like 'motif') is the visual.  I imagine a parched desert... tumbleweed blowing across... the cry of a bird of prey echoes throughout the landscape... the ground is dry and cracked where there's dirt, and the sand is more arid than something really arid.  (NB: good vocabulary isn't always part of my imaginings) (is using NB: pretentious too?  I'm on a roll!)  Out of this will come streams?  A desert gets barely a hint of rainfall and is the utter antithesis of fertile ground.  Pools?  Rivers?  Springs of water?  The odds of that happening naturally are so infinitesimal that it would be impossible.  

Latch onto that image of the desert.  See how incredibly absurd it would be for the desert to all of a sudden burst forth with streams, rivers, and pools.  With this illustration, Isaiah's prophetic words are showing us: SUCH IS THE POWER OF GOD!  What's naturally impossible is no barrier to Him.  Even the tiniest amount of His grace is stronger than the greatest evil.  

And it's no less absurd when His grace acts in us.  Humans have free will, and thus the power to magnificently screw up our own lives.  Our souls can resemble that desert--dry, parched, and barren.  When we sin, we do so against God and our fellow man.  By all rights, we've earned every tumbleweed and every grain of arid sand in our souls.  For us to fix ourselves, on our own?  Make that barren soul a life-giving, fertile soil?  Impossible.  

Here is God, coming to save fallen humanity.  Here is Jesus, promising "living water" and salvation.  It's not just salvation for (=heaven), but it's also salvation from the barrenness of sin within us.  Come to Him, be healed!  Drink of His living water and never thirst again!

Fr. Barron's "Priest, Prophet, and King"

I somewhat recently watched Fr. Robert Barron's "Priest, Prophet, and King" series, and I loved it.  There are six episodes, and each runs about 20-30 minutes.  I think it's designed that way to make sure that Fr. Barron didn't overload his listeners with depth of content, as well as to fit nicely into an hour-long discussion group format.  I really enjoy Fr. Barron's material; I like his approach, delivery, and I appreciate how he can be profound and simple at the same time.  Here are some of the highlights of the series for me...

1. No competition between the baptismal and ministerial priesthood.  We share the same mission, and there is no misogyny, prejudice, or hate behind it.  Everyone can offer sacrifice, but not everyone can offer the Eucharistic sacrifice.  Does that devalue or erase the laity's sacrifices?  No!  We're co-laborers in the same vineyard.

2. The role of the priest is to reconcile God & humanity.  If someone had asked me to summarize what a priest does, I don't think I would've come up with something so simple as this.  Priests do lots of things, but what do they do?  They serve the people of God in the person of Christ, doing the same thing He did for us: healing us so that we can enter into right relationship with God.

3. How key the Temple was... and how the Mystical Body of Christ is the new temple.  The Jerusalem Temple was the literal place of reconciliation for the Jews.  By offering animal sacrifices, the Jewish faithful maintained their right relationship with God.  Had Jesus employed a PR firm, they they would have had an aneurism after hearing his saying, "something greater than the temple is here." (Matt 12:6)  The Temple was the meeting place of heaven and earth, and no place could be more sacred.  The transformation of the new covenant can be seen in St. John's marvelous vision:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.  And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away."  And he who sat upon the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new."  (Revelation 21:1-5)

4. False worship is not harmless.  The story of Elijah and the 400 prophets of Ba'al is an entertaining read and one that carries a lot of spiritual wisdom in it.  One of the highlights that Fr. Barron pointed out was that false worship always leads to some sort of spiritual harm.  The 400 prophets, when Ba'al didn't respond in a timely fashion, started cutting themselves, as if to cry louder to their god.  (1 Kings 18:28)  Although unseen, we do ourselves great spiritual harm when we worship something other than God.

5. Bad kingship starts with self-indulgence.  Although not all of us are ministerial priests, we are all still part of the baptismal priesthood; and thus we can offer sacrifice.  Similarly, although we do not possess kingdoms like David, Midas, or Henry, we are still to govern our own "kingdom": our body, home, and family.  King David fell into serious sin with Bathsheba; not only adultery, but murder.  Where he lost the spiritual battle?  He got lazy.

In the spring of the year, the time when kings go forth to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.  It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking upon the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful.  (2 Samuel 11:1-2)

First, he sent Joab to do his military campaigning for him.  Second, he either slept in until the afternoon or took a long nap in the middle of the day.  Vices often come in bunches--trouble with one leads to trouble with another, and even new vices may pop up as a result.  When David woke up that afternoon, he probably didn't intend to seek out another man's wife, defile her, and then kill her husband.  His sloth made him unable to fight the temptation.  A good lesson for all of us, though the details may (and hopefully do) vary.

6. The gates of hell not prevailing.  Fr. Barron ended the series with this, and it made me want to get up and go to battle.  We know the passage well:

"Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.  And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.  I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Matt 16:17-19)

I'd only ever thought of this with the Church in the defensive posture.  The Church would be assailed, and Satan would send every last warrior to break through the walls.  Fr. Barron flipped the imagery, which I found AWESOME.  The Church and the Mystical Body of Christ is on the attack, sieging the gates of hell.  Through the power of Jesus Christ, the most fearsome warriors of hell stand no chance.  Hell cannot win against the power of His grace any more than a toothpick could overpower a flamethrower.

Fight the good fight of faith (1 Tim 6:12) and be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might (Eph 6:10) 

7QT: grab bag and the end of the world, 8/1/15

My long-delayed return to the 7QT fray!  

1) It sounds dumb to say, but I care less about clothes.  My wife can attest, I haven't always sought to be the most fashionable guy.  Like many guys (I like to think), apathy often wins over dapper dressing.

The reason I care less about clothes?  Most of my t-shirts have been puked on, peed on, or drooled on.  One t-shirt in particular: Leo emptied the contents of his tiny stomach onto it.  I took it off, put stain remover on it, and it went in the wash.  The next day, when it came out of the dryer, I put it on again.  It took less than 10 minutes for Leo to puke on it again.  

2)  I have another article up at coraevans.com, this time on Ignatian spirituality.  The folks there are remarkably patient with a hack like me.  They kindly helped me finish part two of the treatment on Ignatian spirituality.  

3) I know I'm behind as far as this blog is concerned... this is my first post in a couple months... but the shock of the Supreme Court decision was considerable.  Actually, not so much that it happened (just take a quick stroll through TV shows over the past ten years), but seeing so much dissent among Catholics.  Well, living in a few different parishes and working in the Church for a time after college, that actually isn't all that surprising.  Those thoughts are pretty depressing.  

One Scripture verse that helped me was stunningly simple: 
"All his precepts are trustworthy, they are established for ever and ever, to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness." (Ps 111:7-8)

God's laws are not popular, always convenient, or what we want.  Yet they are trustworthy!  Not because a guy in the Church says so, but because of Our Father in heaven.

Over-the-top picture for purposes of levity

4) As things happen in the world, I wonder how close we are to the end times.  No, really!  I've read Mark Mallett (who's great), Charlie Johnston, and other pings are registering, too.  Charlie is of the opinion that sh-tuff is going to get REAL in 2016 for about a year or so.  I haven't read up on it in a while, but some of the things Charlie said reminded me of what was given to the Medugorje visionaries.   

It's a hard message--if they're correct, what lies ahead is the worst catastrophe in the history of civilization--and I appreciate Mark's and Charlie's take on their predictions: 

a) they submit whole-heartedly to the Catholic Church, the Scriptures, and Sacred Tradition
b) the strongest theme of Mark's writings is hope
c) Charlie isn't fanatical about the instructions he's given.  He merely passes on the message. 
d) both guys repeat and repeat to return to faith in God

Becoming a Dodgers fan is simply
the right thing to do.

5) One of my favorite homilists, Fr. Robert Barron, is now Bishop-Elect Robert Barron!  The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is lucky to have him.  From my time as a seminarian, I developed a new appreciation for the tough job that every bishop has.  They deal with a lot of crap (more than we ever know about), have to fight for the faith not only in the secular world but with their own clergy & chancery, and somehow have to maintain their own spiritual lives in the midst of all that.  

Maybe Bishop-Elect Barron will have to start rooting for the Dodgers, given his new digs... 

6) Ok, back to #4.  That kind of thing has been on my mind a lot lately.  Watching one of Charlie Johnston's latest videos made it sink in even more.  While the best preparation we can do is spiritual, that doesn't mean that we can't materially prepare.  I don't believe it's a violation in trust to prepare a "Get Home Bag" in case I need to walk home from work.  To that list, I'd add a small copy of the Bible, a rosary, and a St. Benedict medal. 

7) Still on #4.  The mentioning of somewhat specific dates by Charlie Johnston ("sometime in 2016" is as detailed as it gets) raises a red flag in some respects.  I have to mull it over some more, and pray about it even more than that; I don't have a reason not to believe him right now.  Even if his messages are wrong, redoubling our dedication to Christ is never out of season!  

Fast Food for a Hallowed Feast

Today is the great solemnity of Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Jesus.  We celebrate the "source and summit of our faith" (Lumen Gentium #11).

If I were throwing a dinner party and had some honored guests, I'd want to serve the greatest food.  The best ingredients and recipes I could muster.  If I met the Queen of England, I'd get my best suit, shave, do my hair, and present myself as best I could.

Why is our liturgical music different?  As time has gone on, I have a harder time with it.  Bad translations, fluffy lyrics, holdovers from the 70s, and not an organ in sight!  The Mass is only seen as a meal, not a sacrifice; the music focuses on the horizontal aspect (the community) rather than the vertical (worshipping God).  Social justice is a popular theme in modern liturgical music, but the definitions for that are varying and vague.  How about we go shelter the dreams of the homeless?  No, really. 

Here are the Latin lyrics of Panis Angelicus, the beautiful text written by St. Thomas Aquinas:

Panis Angelicus, fit panis hominum
Dat panis coelicus, figuris terminum
O res mirabilis!  Manducat Dominum
Pauper, servus et humilis

Te, trina Deitas, unaque poscimus
Sic nos tu visita, sicut te colimus
Per tuas semitas, duc nos quo tendimus
Ad lucem quam in habitas

This is one of those rare hymns that is widely known in the secular world.  The lyrics sing of the Holy Eucharist: Jesus' offering of Himself and the deliverance on a promise to be with us until the end of the world (Matt 28:20).  The Mystery of Mysteries!  Encapsulating all the major high points of the Catholic faith--the Paschal Mystery, the Incarnation, the salvation of our souls, the Mystical Body of Christ and our being drawn into the Holy Trinity... and on, and on, and on.  So the English translation of this great hymn would be carefully wrought, right?

Latin to English, in a Roundabout Way

The "translation" by Owen Alstott that was sung at Mass this morning is a great example of theology being stripped of the supernatural and robbed of depth.  I don't have a good enough knowledge of Latin to do a translation myself, so here's what Wikipedia says:

Bread of the Angels is made bread for mankind;Gifted bread of Heaven of all imaginings the end;Oh, thing miraculous!This body of God will nourish the poor, the servile, and the humble. 

Thee Triune God, we beseech;Do us Thou visit, just as Thee we worship.By Thy ways, lead us where we are heading,to the light Thou dwellest in.

Here are Alstott's lyrics:

Holy and living bread, wondrous food from heaven sent
God's sacrifice foretold, now in our hands we hold
Sign and reality, challenge for us to be
Humble servants to all the poor. 

God, holy Three in One, through this off'ring of Your Son
All now on earth can see, what we are called to be
Hope for a world in need, signs that love can succeed
Where true justice and peace endure. 

Perhaps he didn't intend to actually translate the lyrics; that he composed his own lyrics to go with the melody of Panis Angelicus.  That's the best explanation I can figure, since the his translation doesn't resemble the Latin after the first few words.  Not even close!  Well, the words humble, poor are the same... comments on the faulty translation (FT) below.

Not Too Shabby

I like how the sacrificial aspect to the Eucharist is mentioned.  "God's sacrifice foretold" alludes to the prophecies of the Old Testament.  "This offering of Your Son" makes me think of Jesus as the priest and victim, and the Paschal Lamb from the Book of Revelation.  I also like the mention of "sign and reality"--that is, highlighting the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

Shabby.  Very Shabby

Overall, my problems with the FT revolve around one central issue: removing the vertical language (=directed toward God and heaven) and replacing it with completely horizontal language (=about the community, the people, and the mission of the people of God).  Theology & spirituality need to keep both in tension; if not, distortions enter.  If a theology is only vertical, it stays in the academies, cathedrals, and monasteries and doesn't go out into the world.  If a theology is only horizontal, everything is human-based.  The focus is on the community, on ambiguously defined words like justice, and making the world into heaven on earth.  In a sense, the community replaces God, and achieving an environment of justice replaces heaven.  Those are extremes, but in my opinion and experience, SO MUCH of post-Vatican II theology and spirituality tends toward the horizontal at the expense of the vertical.

The FT exemplifies this problem, highlighting the horizontal at the expense of the vertical.  "O res mirabilis!" goes from being miraculous to "wondrous", which is nice but not the same.  The "challenge for us to be humble servants to all the poor" is way, way off of the Latin.  Wikipedia's translation says this Heavenly Bread will be food for the poor, servile, and humble.  One could do some theological calisthenics and say that the faithful, in being humble servants to the poor, do in fact feed them.  That's valid to some degree, but not where the song is headed.  Think the manna in the desert... think a generous God Who nourishes His people.  The FT changes direction: the vertical dimension is gone and replaced with the horizontal.  Making it all about us.

"All now on earth can see what we are called to be": really?  It's that clear to everyone?  Wouldn't our churches be more full if this was the case?  And what we're called to be is "hope for a world in need, signs that love can succeed, where true justice and peace endure."  Without actually defining huge terms like justice, peace, hope, and love, these words are empty.  A social work organization could write those exact, same things into its mission statement!  Fr. Dwight Longenecker has a great post on this, I highly recommend it.

In the Latin, the latter half of the second verse talks about heaven.  And yet again, the FT makes it all about us.  If we are "hope for a world in need" and "signs that love can succeed", then, true justice and peace endures!  That is the goal of the Christian life, justice and peace!  Who needs heaven?  Why bother talking about it?


What a shame that such a meaningful hymn has become banal.  The Solemnity of Corpus Christi deserves so much more!

7QT: love love edition, 5/15/15

So much for my resolution on Monday to write every day.  Onward to 7 Quick Takes!

1) This morning was the monthly men's group breakfast, and we started watching Fr. Robert Barron's "Seven Deadly Sins/Seven Lively Virtues" series.  The first deadly sin covered was pride, and its antithetical virtue is humility.  The content was great, as would be expected of Fr. Barron.  It pointed out to me how proud of a person I am, and how tough of a vice it is to fight.  That's kind of a proud thing to say, in the sense of false humility ("oh, I'm suuuuuch a sinner!"), but I really do mean it (which is what the falsely humble would also say, too, to insist how sincere their nothingness is).  Being selfish is incredibly easy, especially in this culture... 

2) ...nothing pointed that out to me more than a movie we watched tonight, "He's Just Not That Into You."  Whenever we first watched it, I remember enjoying it more than we did tonight.  Just about all the characters were selfish and shallow.  Love had more to do with the feeling of the moment and what was good for the self.  Only one couple out of the ensemble cast displayed some selfless aspects of love, and they finished the movie by committing to each other and promising never to get married.  Romantic, isn't it?

3) It stuck out to me for two reasons.  The first, I'm so thankful to be Catholic.  (false humility warning)  Life has meaning, and love doesn't have to fit into the inadequate definitions of a pagan movie.  Because as the good Fr. Barron taught us this morning, love is willing the good for the other.  And doing so leads to the second striking thing... 

4) ...love is a very difficult choice to make.  So many people inflict pain on themselves through bad choices.  One of the characters in the movie started an affair with a married man (at the suggestion of her friend), and it was a disaster.  The married man lost his wife and mistress due to his lying; the mistress ended up more confused and more wounded than before; the wife genuinely tried to make an effort to work on the marriage, but it was too late.  Relationships evolve over time, how could they not?  The essence stays the same (or hopefully should), but the particulars are bound to change.  

In front of St. Patrick's Cathedral (that the Anglicans really
should give back to the Catholics), on our honeymoon in Ireland

5) I looked through our wedding albums tonight after my beloved wife went to bed.  It reminded me of that fact that relationships evolve.  I remember what it was like when we first became a couple.  It was amazing and thrilling!  Those thrills didn't disappear, but were composed differently as time went on--one month, two, six, and so on--we started talking marriage.  Then we were engaged, and planning the wedding, and what a glorious day the wedding was!  We've been married over 4 years and have an adorable baby.  There's no way we can go back to what it was like when we'd only been dating two months... and I wouldn't want to.  Our love has taken root, grown, been pruned by suffering, and grown some more.  What we have is wonderful!  

6) In the movie, they had flip phones and Blackberries.  Flip phones!!!  Was 2009 really that long ago?

7) I'm always a take short.  Since the theme of the 7QT is love, I'd like to recommend Love Love Teriyaki in Salem (the one on Center St.).  Erin introduced me to it years ago and it's the best teriyaki I've ever had.  Now I'm hungry... 

For more quick takes, visit www.thisaintthelyceum.org!

Ascension Thursday

Another article up at the Cora Evans blog!

http://www.coraevans.com/blog/article/he-ascended-into-heaven-a-reflection-on-ascension-thursday

Taking my own Advice

Last year, I volunteered to be a chaperone/small group leader on the Confirmation retreat.  Most of the kids were sophomores, with some scattered freshmen and juniors.  I remember talking to one kid who was going through a tough time.  Among the things I told him was that whatever he were doing in their spiritual life, they needed more.  Praying already?  Pray more.  Reading Scripture?  More.  And so on, and so on.  God has more to give, and Jesus promised rest to those who came to Him (Matt 11:28).  Whether that was helpful or not, or if he only needed someone to listen, who knows? 

So in my struggle to maintain my spiritual life as a new parent, I’ve done a couple things.  We already went to Sunday Mass regularly.  I drink a lot more coffee, and I snack a lot more.  The pretense is that they help keep my energy up—in reality, I just like to eat.  I write articles about once a month for the Cora Evans blog, which I always enjoy.   

And yeah, that’s all.  I’d much rather give advice than take my own.

In an effort to take my own advice, I’m going to write everyday on this for a week.  Writing helps me process things, and it will inject a little more spirituality into my day.  We’ll see if my will or my procrastination wins out on this one…

That’s a long introduction to my topic of the day: the importance of good teachers in the faith.  I’ve been plodding my way through Pope Benedict’s second Jesus of Nazareth book.  He has a mixture of spiritual reflection, deep theological considerations, and commentary on biblical scholarship.  Out of everything, I appreciate the commentary on biblical scholarship the most. 

When I took scripture classes in seminary, just about every teacher I had taught strictly according to the historical-critical method.  Marcan priority and Q were treated as de facto facts rather than theories, and many of the events of the New Testament didn’t occur.  One article by a Dominican “scholar” looked at the Transfiguration and determined that it was only an expression of the early Christian community’s belief in the divinity of Jesus.  There was also the popular, idiotic, unsubstantiated-in-the-text, utter nonsense that Jesus didn’t multiply the loaves & fishes—He shared what He had, and in turn, the whole crowd shared what they had.  I find it incredibly irritating, since I heard that in a homily one Sunday.  Take a look at Jimmy Akin’s beatdown of that moronic hypothesis here. I find it really, really, ridiculously irritating.  Have I emphasized that enough?  Why don’t Catholics believe in the Real Presence in the Eucharist anymore?  Hmmm….

All that to say: scholars of Sacred Scripture are hit and miss, and there’s a TON of garbage out there.  I’m very thankful for good teachers like Pope Benedict, who can sift through the crap.  He gives a fair shake to the tradition (small ‘t’) of the Church, which few scholars do, in my limited experience.  In the Nazareth books I see a valuable resource in getting a full take on biblical scholarship.  Not agenda-driven, and fair to all sides—especially fair to the deposit of faith. 

And consider the importance of the subject matter: this is the interpretation of the divine Word of God!  Interpreting it correctly or incorrectly has huge implications. 

Let us pray for good teachers!