7 Quick Takes, Sunday Procrastinator Edition 5/18/14

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I'm amazed at how time goes by.  Christmas and the new year doesn't seem that far in the past, but it's nearly the end of May and June is a week and a half away.  There are a few things I'm really looking forward to this summer: the opening of the Volcanoes' season (short season, single-A baseball), a sacred music concert I just read about featuring "In Mulieribus", a family vacation to Utah, and lots of sun that will make our roses bloom.  

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My current read is a book by Msgr. Ronald Knox, an English priest from the previous century.  In Soft Garments is a collection of his conferences to Catholic students at Oxford from 1926-1938.  They're not extremely long, they're sequential, and so far enjoyable.  I half-expected him to write like Tolkien, Lewis, or Chesterton--dense and profound, though simple.  Not so, ol' chap!  Knox is very down to earth and the lectures have a familiar, friendly tone.  

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Although I have enough books in my library to last me a while, I still drool over new titles that come out.  One is a new collection of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's writings on the liturgy.  Yes, it's 700 pages and yes, I have a similarly-large collection of his writings on ecclesiology (from a theology class) that I have barely touched since I got it... and is it really something I would read?  (really, a silly question for a bibliophile)  It would look awfully good on my shelf.  How long until Christmas?

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Another book I'd really like to read is Jason Evert's new book on St. John Paul II.  It's easy to take someone for granted... how many of us appreciated St. JP2 while he was here on earth?  So many people have wonderful stories about him; the more I read about him, the more I come to love him.  A phenomenal pastor, holy guy, man of prayer, great love-r of the Church.

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We were blessed to have dinner with friends on two separate occasions this week.  A fantastic homemade meal and then dinner at Red Robin.  What would life be without friends to share it with?  

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There's a fundraising golf scramble coming up in August for the Fr. Bernard Youth Center, a special charity to me.  Anyone want to sponsor me?   Millionaires, how about you?  Check out FBYC!

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Baseball season means fantasy baseball in my in-laws' family.  If you've never played in a league, you'd be hard-pressed to find anything so frustrating.  Injuries are plaguing my team, not to mention a lack of power hitting.  And when do you give up on an underperforming player?  (I'm looking at you, Jose Reyes)

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

A Review of Jennifer Fulwiler's "Something Other Than God"

I've been a reader of Jennifer Fulwiler's Conversion Diary blog for a few years.  I really like her writing style--informal but articulate, substantial and light-hearted, and humorous.  Over time she'd post about a book project, until last month when the book was finally published.  Although I'm not too interested in a banana suit, I did want to enter the contest by writing a book review. 

Unlike myself, Jennifer posts quite a lot on her blog; sometimes three posts a week.  (?!?!?)  In a totally non-creepy way, I feel like I know her a little from her writing.  After all, she shares personal details about her life, her family, and her faith.  Reading Something Other Than God was somewhat similar, except it was a side of her that I'd forgotten about.  For years I've read her posts about Catholic this, pro-life that (except when it comes to scorpions), or her journey away from atheism.  In SOTG, it was really interesting to see Jennifer as a non-believer.  We all know folks who are non-believers to varying degrees, but we don't often get a chance to step inside their head.  SOTG is worth reading for that purpose alone!

Aside from that, here are a couple other reasons to read the book:

1) Gaining a deeper appreciation of marriage
On her blog, Jennifer's posts would allude to her husband, Joe.  I couldn't remember exactly how much he's been mentioned.  In SOTG, however, he's necessarily a big part of it.  (is it my bias, paying more attention to the role of the husband?)  There were times that he pushed her, and vice versa.  Just like I wouldn't be where/who I am without my wife, Jennifer's spiritual journey in SOTG depended in large part on the love, support, and companionship of her husband.  Thank the Lord for the spouses He blesses us with!

2) What Catholic that's even remotely humble doesn't like a good conversion story?
Faith is something easy to take for granted!  And God is so close to us that we're often blind to His handiwork.  A good conversion story like this is a great reminder of what we often forget and take for granted.  SOTG isn't a theological treatise; it's not the life of a saint.  It's the story of a real person who struggled with the same things many people struggle with.  It doesn't take place in an idyllic setting, a convent, or a monastery.  Jennifer is a laywoman, wife, and mother living in Texas.  Her ideals had to shift, not to mention her priorities and her & Joe's business aspirations.  Is God absent amidst medical issues?  Financial issues?  No way--it just takes the eyes to see it.

Check the book out, you won't regret it!

7 Quick Takes: Jen has a new book edition, 5/4/14

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Last weekend I bought my copy of Jennifer Fulwiler's new book, Something Other Than God.  You can get yours at your local Catholic bookstore (like this one!) or here.  I blew through it in about a week, and I could've finished it sooner if I could've stayed home from work a day or two.  My goal is to write a separate post about my impressions of the book... who can resist being entered into a special prize drawing?  In brief (as our friend the CCC would say), it's a great book and worth a read.  I love conversion stories and this is another good one to add to the list!

If the author saw the surroundings of her book,
I think she would be appreciative... 

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I've written about homilies before, although I can't remember if I've ever put links of good ones that are online.  Today's winner: one of my old seminary friends, Fr. Nathan Siray.  He's a priest in Canada somewhere and he teamed up with two fellow priests to put a blog together.  I think they write on it more than twice a month... unlike yours truly.   All three priests post their homilies there; Fr. Nathan's was especially good today.  Check it out!  

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Today is May 4th, a.k.a. Star Wars day.  May the Force be with you!  (and with your spirit)  I grew up on those movies as a kid, and like everyone with good taste, disliked the prequel trilogy.  Quick thoughts with token hashtags: 

-Han shot first.  #badass 

-A lot of SW fans hate the ewoks and Return of the Jedi, but I was 4 years old when the movie came out.  I loved the ewoks!  I still hate the part where the ewok gets shot and sad music plays.  #scarred #howoldamiagain

-A great cast, they had.  Luke and Han as heroes, Princess Leia (#first love) holding her own until crummy writing in ROTJ set her back...  

-Must-see: George Lucas In Love (it's online somewhere, not sure legally, but it's available), the 2 Robot Chicken episodes, Fanboys, and R2-D2 Under the Dome

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The feast of St. Athanasius was on Friday, May 2nd.  Read up on him here.  When I see his name pop up in the liturgical calendar, or when someone names their baby after him (no, just kidding; no offense, St. A), I can't help but think of Bl. John Henry Newman.  Newman looked up to St. Athanasius for his commitment to the Catholic faith and to his perseverance through suffering.  We extol St. A today, and it's easy to think of him in heaven, adoring the Lord he so stoutly defended during his life.  Let's also remember that he was persecuted and exiled; so too was John Henry Newman, in persecution, at least.  Part of what made them such great men was their perseverance in the truth, no matter the suffering.    

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We have two new pope saints!!!  I was happy I got to see St. John Paul II in person, at a weekly audience and at a canonization.  How long until we can call him St. John Paul the Great?

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Mother's Day is coming up next weekend; thanks be to God for my mom and all mothers!  I've mentioned the topic of infertility on this blog before, and I'd like to add something to it.  Besides Christmas, there's no more difficult holiday for an infertile couple to deal with than Mother's Day.  Please, right now, say a quick prayer for all couples in that situation.  

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Occasionally, I get to do professional things that I'm passionate about.  Usually, they don't have anything to do with my job.  I attended a Board member retreat for the Fr. Bernard Youth Center on Friday.  A 5-hour session and it didn't feel nearly that long.  I never got bored, antsy, sleepy; I never checked the clock.  What a nice change of pace!  Need a good charity to support?  Check out FBYC!

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Christ is Risen!

Treat yourself to a great song by Matt Maher, perfect for today.

I'm in the choir and I've sung at the Easter Vigil for the past few years.  It quickly become my favorite liturgy of the year, despite its length.

I've come to appreciate all the readings and psalms, to the point that I'm disappointed when the nine readings are cut to five.  They combine the major prayers of the liturgy to chronicle the entire scope of salvation history--from the beginning of time to the end of time.  The first reading is the creation of the world from Genesis; we hear the story of the Exodus, of God saving his people through water; the prophets foretell a Messiah that will come; the Gospel tells of Jesus, who fulfilled the prophecies and foreshadowings of the Old Testament.  Quite amazing!  It's essentially an extended Bible study in one evening: the Paschal Mystery (the foundational event of the Catholic faith) with its background and history.

The other impactful thing for me this year was the renewal of baptismal promises.  In the lone epistle of the evening (from Romans 6), St. Paul reminds us that we must think of ourselves "as being dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus."  Denying sin is only one side of the coin; it is incomplete without a profession of faith.  The renewal of baptismal promises have this same feature: the assembly rejects Satan, all his empty works and promises (a profession against), but then affirms their belief in God, His Son, and the rest of the elements of the creed (a profession in).

The entire story of salvation history is a story of love and of sacred covenants between God and His people.  May we always be faithful!  God be praised for the great things He has done, and continues to do!

It's Everything

Have you ever read passages of the Scriptures and marveled, feeling like you're reading them for the first time?  I had that feeling reading Matthew 13.  I'd heard homilies on all the individual parables of the Kingdom, but I couldn't remember the last time I'd looked at them as a composite whole. And what profundity!  It was awe-inspiring to "cast my net into the deep.

Matthew 13 is essentially the third Luminous Mystery--the proclamation of the Kingdom.  Jesus tells seven parables, teaching about the Kingdom of God.  He explains two of them and the chapter closes with he famous phrase, "a prophet is not without honor except in his own country" (13:57).  The seven parables are:

1) The Sower (rocky ground, fertile ground, etc.)
2) The Wheat & the Weeds
3) The Mustard Seed
4) The Leaven
5) The Treasure in the Field
6) The Pearl of Great Price
7) The Fishing Net

Rather than go over these one by one, here are some thoughts about the stories as a whole...

-I'm still taken with Pope Benedict's idea that in preaching the Kingdom, Jesus was actually preaching Himself.  More specifically, His Mystical Body.  It was in the first of the Pope's three Jesus of Nazareth books.  Reading the parables in that light, Jesus is the sower, the farmer, the treasure, the pearl, and the fisherman.  It adds a rich layer of meaning.

-The Kingdom is incredibly valuable.  And in one of those Christian paradoxes, it has a price even though it's free.  The merchant and the man who bought the field sold everything to gain their respective prizes.  All too often, we think about giving up worldly things for the Kingdom as a straight loss.  That is, we believe the secular world: giving things up for the Kingdom is like throwing something away.  We go from having something to having nothing.  But the parables assure us that the secular world is mistaken!  The two figures gain something of inestimable value.  It's not an empty trade.

-I was somewhat surprised at how clearly Jesus includes an eschatalogical element in two of the parables: the wheat and the weeds, and the fishing net.  There's no getting around it!  At the final judgment there will be a separating of the wheat and the weeds, the good fish and the bad fish.  To me, Jesus is very blunt here.

-Evil has a strange relationship to the Kingdom, but it won't be sorted out until the end of time.  On one hand, it's not a constituting part.  How could it be?  On the other hand, it's inseparable, since it's a result of the fall of man.  We can no more completely escape evil than we could escape our shadow.  In the parable of the wheat and weeds, the farmer (=Jesus) tells the workers not to pull up the weeds... lest the wheat come up with them.

I remember doing a paper for one of my history classes, regarding a movement of a number of utopian societies in turn of the century America.  It was interesting, but I couldn't help but think it a misguided effort.  These two parables?  Utopian societies have never & will never work.  Period.

To wrap this all up...

When I finished reading Matthew 13, I asked myself a question: what is the Kingdom for?  After all, you can define something in multiple ways.  Reflecting on Matthew 13, there are a few functions of the Kingdom of God.  First, it's meant to grow in us.  Individually and collectively!  And by growth, don't miss the parable of the sower--the seed that landed on fertile ground produced a hundred fold.  We're offered an infinite gift!  Second, it's something of incredible value.  It's everything, pure and simple.  Third, the Kingdom is meant to usher us to/into/through the end times.  We can't lose the teleological focus of our faith.  Too often we focus on the end times in the negative sense, or as something that's an end unto itself.  It's rather another step in the journey to our ultimate destination: heaven (hopefully).  Fourth, the function of the Kingdom is to detach us from the world.  There is a cost to discipleship that we can't escape!  Not everything is compatible with Christianity; no amount of wishing on our part can reconcile Christianity and opposing morals.

7 Quick Takes, Lent Procrastinating Edition 4/5/14

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Although it may not seem like it, being in & leaving the seminary was similar to being in a relationship.  It never ceased to surprise me until I went through the process myself.  Some friends had completely left the faith, others dropped off the face of the earth.  Mine wasn't quite so dramatic in that particular way, although I had to overcome a good-sized self-esteem issue.  One of the smaller manifestations was that I grew to hate the Liturgy of the Hours during my final year.  We prayed morning & evening prayer in community and all the other stress around academics and my impending departure (signs were there before I realized it) make me into, well, a cantankerous old man.  They're praying too slow... this part is too fast... I hate how we always speed up this section of the Salve Regina and how the rest drags... can't we get out of here already?... and so on and so on.

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(I always end up running out of ideas when I get to #7 so I'm stretching this one out)  I don't blame the seminary or the Liturgy of the Hours for anything--don't get me wrong.  It was a small microcosm of the difficulties I was going through.  My spiritual director comforted me with a story of St. Teresa of Avila, who one time got so tired of the Liturgy of the Hours that she threw her breviary out the window.  From that point in 2006 until the past month or so, that bitter taste was in my mouth every time I thought of morning prayer or evening prayer.

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I've found praying the Liturgy of the Hours to be very comforting over the past month.  I don't have any proof, but I'm crediting it to the intercession of my late spiritual director, Fr. Jerome.  I've prayed at work, even, which has helped my stress level.  It's like rediscovering an old friend you haven't seen in a long time.  I'm thankful to be healed from the issues I had with it (which again, had everything to do with me).

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The Sunday Gospel readings during Lent are pretty amazing.  I have a draft of a post about it, hopefully I'll get it finished and put up.  But in every week, we learn more and more about Who Jesus IS.  I remember going through all these gospels in a seminary class years ago, but I can't remember the last time a series of readings garnered such an impact on me.  I almost wish I was going through RCIA...

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During Lent I struggle with my ingrained inclination toward laziness.  I'm never quite sure if I should go all John the Baptist during Lent (to really try to combat that weakness) or if taking on small things is more prudent ("it's a marathon, not a sprint" idea).  The things my wife and I are doing have been good and I hope they continue for the rest of the year--and they're of the smaller variety.  Just curious, has anyone reading ever swung for the fences, so to speak?

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My reading of the Gospel of Matthew has been wonderful, in large part because of the commentary I've been using.  It's like having a scripture class, a Bible study, or someone to walk you through all the minutiae that you never knew about.

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Infertility is a nasty thing to go through, I'd ask your prayers for my wife and I... and for any couple bearing this cross.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Gospel of Matthew Ch. 5-9

Over the past (embarrassingly) few months, I've been making my way through the Gospel of Matthew.  I've made notes along the way, with my insights and those of a commentary I'm reading Fr. John Bartunek's The Better Part.  It was a gift from my mom, thank you very much!

Although the individual stories are a treasure trove of spiritual wealth, there's also a larger perspective of several chapters, 5-9.

Ch. 5 is notable for the Sermon on the Mount--there's so much in there!  The Beatitudes, "salt of the earth" and "light of the world", and all of Jesus' "you have heard it said... but I say to you..." teachings.  We probably can't fully appreciate how revolutionary those words were to 1st Century Jews.  Here Jesus set a new direction for the moral life.  The new standard isa daunting one: "You, therefore myst be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt 5:48).

Chapter 6 continues with the same speech, but the focus shifts.  Instead of the moral life, Jesus expounds on the spiritual life.  Yes yes, they're intricately related, but still distinct.  He teaches the disciples how to pray (the Our Father, 6:9-13).  He draws a figurative line in the sand, that we cannot serve both God and mammon (6:24).  But that is not cause for despair, since the generosity of The Lord is unbounded!  Consider the lilies of the field, simple in their splendor (6:28).  God provides for all!

There is no break in flow from Ch. 6 to Ch. 7.  Jesus warns against judging (7:1-5), exhorting us to ask, seek, and knock--slipping in another reference to how much God the Father loves and cares for us.  We should enter by the narrow gate, being aware of false prophets; because eternal salvation isn't a slam dunk ("Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord' shall enter the kingdom of heaven," 7:21).  

(now a word from our theological sponsors) 
Revelation comes to us in a dual method: words and deeds.  Just like what Jesus instructed the crowds in 7:24: "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock."  Throughout the Old and New Testament, God revealed Himself to humanity with words (e.g. prophecies, promises) and deeds (e.g. the Exodus).  He tells us, then He shows us--talking the talk and walking the walk.

(back to our infrequently scheduled blog post)

For the DEEDS, look no further than Ch. 8.  To prove that He has the authority to preach so audaciously, Jesus goes on a healing spree.  A leper is healed (8:1-4), the centurion's servant is healed (8:5-13), and Peter's mother-in-law is healed (8:14-15).  No matter the disease, large or small, Jesus shows His power over it.  And, Fr. Bartunek pointed out a touching detail with Peter's mother-in-law. Jesus touched her hand, when a word from Him would've sufficed.  Just imagine how tender of a gesture it must've been!

Then, two larger things: Jesus calms a storm and casts out demons.  That must've knocked the sandals off the disciples.  And your take, Keanu?

Chapter 9 continues the gratuitous healing power of God on display.  He heals a paralytic, the daughter of a ruler, two blind men, and another demoniac.

CONCLUSION
So, to recap.  Ch. 5-7, Jesus lays down a new law and gives new direction in the spiritual life.  WORDS.  To prove He was who He said He was, DEEDS.  Lots of 'em, ch. 8-9.  Jesus displayed His power over nature on a small scale (diseases), nature on a large scale (calming the storm and raising the ruler's daughter from the dead), and the supernatural realm as well (the demoniacs).

God knows the human heart, He knows we need both aspects of revelation.  Once we come to belief in Him, then we follow what happens next in Matthew's Gospel.  The disciples are sent out to preach the kingdom of God.

We can also look at this liturgically.  Ch. 5-7/words: verbum Domini.  Ch. 8-9: Hoc est corpus meum. Ch. 10: Ite, missa est.  God is there in everything, coming to us in many ways, but especially in the Mass!