Hallelujah is Our Song

Ah, the convenience of hypocrisy!

2011-12-11T13:27:00.004-06:00

As usual, Joe over at Shameless Popery (one of the best apologetics blogs I've read) had a great post up the other day.

There's not much more to say beyond that. Either an unborn child is a human person worth of life, dignity, and respect, or it isn't. There is no middle ground.

Our Lady of Good Help, pray for us!

So Much for Relevance

2011-12-05T15:42:00.003-06:00

Not being alive during the tumultous period just after the Second Vatican Council has its perks.

I mean, for me, a baby Catholic who's only been going to Mass since 2006, tales of clown masses, Pizza Eucharist and liturgical dance are as foreign to me as the Abominable Snowman or Sasquatch; unbelievable horrors I've heard about but never seen with my own eyes. (And thank goodness)

But while those vestiges of Sacrosanctum Concilium misinterpretation are almost gone, a few remain. No, I'm not talking about hand-holding during the Our Father, though I am thrilled it's on its way out.

Much worse, I'd argue, is the idea that the Mass is something we do, something that ought to entertain, something that is about us. This is a postmodern, mega-church mindset, and while such a mindset is not necessarily bad, is isn't appropriate in a Catholic liturgy. The liturgy is about God.

Jimmy Fallon did an NPR interview the other day during which he mentioned his Catholic upbringing. As a child he loved elements of the Mass now considered old-school: bells, incense, his special job as an altar boy. In the interview, Fallon mentioned that he recently went back to church but found it off-putting:

GROSS: Do you still go to church?

Mr. FALLON: I don’t go to – I tried to go back. When I was out in L.A. and I was kind of struggling for a bit. I went to church for a while, but it’s kind of, it’s gotten gigantic now for me. It’s like too… There’s a band. There’s a band there now, and you got to, you have to hold hands with people through the whole Mass now, and I don’t like doing that. You know, I mean, it used to be the shaking hands piece was the only time you touched each other.

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. FALLON: Now, I’m holding hand – now I’m lifting people. Like Simba.

(Laughter)

Mr. FALLON: I’m holding them (Singing) ha nah hey nah ho.

(Speaking) I’m doing too much. I don’t want – there’s Frisbees being thrown, there’s beach balls going around, people waving lighters, and I go, ‘This is too much for me.’ I want the old way. I want to hang out with the, you know, with the nuns, you know, that was my favorite type of Mass, and the grotto, and just like straight up, just Mass Mass.

Notice that? Things that are supposed to make Mass more "relevant and accessible" to hip young adults like Fallon - like having a cool worship band, holding hands all the time, using gimmicks - didn't speak to him. And you know what? I don't blame him.

We don't need gimmicks to make the Mass relevant. It's already relevant for what it is. Jesus is always relevant, and His Church will endure forever.

Bring on the smells and bells. The hip music and social hour can wait outside, thank you.

We the Young Fogeys

2011-12-03T14:57:00.005-06:00

My nickname around my office is Pollyanna. I'm sunny and optimistic by nature, but sometimes I think that kind of attitude is certainly called for.

Lately, I've been quite encouraged by the beautiful, patient witness of several of my Facebook friends concerning a certain article and video that are going viral around the Internet. Not being from the house of Gryffindor myself, I'm a bit of a mouse when it comes to engaging others in debate about such things and have mostly kept to the sidelines. But seeing my friends, in all their critical-thinking and patient-and-loving glory respond to people with whom they vehemently disagree but still love and respect, has been uplifting. The West is not dead yet.

In addition, I reflect on the other ways I see fellow young Catholics standing up for their faith and their Church.

For example, among all the hulaballo about the New Roman, Missal, the comboxes of the Catholic blogosphere sometimes resemble a warzone. But into the fray stomps Marc, all of 18 years old, and offers this beautiful solution instead. Sure, he's snarky when snarky is called for. But I love his blog because it gives me such hope for the future.

Remember the Harvard valedictorian who entered the Dominican Sisters of Mary last fall?

She's one of a steady stream of talented, educated, and dedicated young men and women entering consecrated life.

At the same time, we young laity seem to be stepping it up, not content to let the world around us crumble to an amoral wasteland for our children to inherit. Using techniques Pope Paul VI could have never imagined, the New Media will be a huge force in the coming renewal of the Church. (Encouragement examples: here, here, and here)

It can be easy - too easy -- to become discouraged. Parishes are still closing, sometimes at an alarming rate. Yes, there's a priest shortage. Yes, most Catholic young people are cohabitating and contracepting at a rate equal to their secular peers. Yes, fallen-away Catholics represent the largest religious demographic in the country. But amid all that bad news, we must remember there is always hope. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The Holy Church he founded will certainly go through ups and downs along the way, but the gates of hell shall not prevail against her.

And with your spirit!

2011-12-01T12:52:00.003-06:00

It's been a few days since the implementation of the Missal so I've had a bit of time to collect my thoughts.

Since a large part of my job is teaching, for the last several months I've been looking at the Missal from an education standpoint: it provided a teachable moment to educated families and youth about the Mass, and even those who have been "Catholic their whole life" needed to learn something new. My coworkers and I provided handouts, powerpoints, special sessions, videos, and email updates in our preparation. We did everything we possibly could to make sure our families knew what was coming and why.

Now that it's here, I can let go and simply enjoy it.

Before I loved the new Missal because it was a teachable moment, another very visible sign of how seriously Pope Benedict takes the renewal of the liturgy, and a chance to "freshen up" how we see the Holy Mass.

Now I love the new Missal for all those reasons, but mostly I love it because it is beautiful. It is fresh. There were hiccups along the way, of course; I'm sure it'll take most people the better part of a year before "and with your spirit" is our reflexive answer to "the Lord be with you." But the depth of the prayers, especially during the Liturgy of the Eucharist, is amazing.

I've only been Catholic for four years, but I already had most of the prayers of Mass memorized. But now I get to listen anew, and delve into the beautiful language with brand new ears.

Is the language more formal and complicated? Of course. Is that bad? Of course not. Formal language is required for that which is important. When the Supreme Court is called into session, the marshal says, "Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! All persons having business before the Honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States, are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the Court is now sitting. God save the United States and this Honorable Court!" Despite the fact that nobody ever uses "Oyez" during their every-day speech, it's still appropriate. It's 2011, but this traditional formula hasn't yet been replaced with "Hey! Can y'all listen up? These guys are important, ok?"

Might it sound silly? Perhaps a bit. But it conveys the seriousness of the occassion: a meeting of the highest court in the country.

How much more reverence and seriousness ought we bring to the celebration of the Holy Mass?

Something I dislike about the Missal is the way it has brought into sharp relief the various (and often opposing) views about the purposes and attitudes people have about the Liturgy. The comboxes of the blogosphere and the Catholic news outlets (and secular news in some cases) were full to bursting with angry comments from both "sides" of the argument. Ad hominum attacks, misquotes of Sacrosanctum Concilium, sweeping generalizations, and awful rhetoric gave me such a headache that I threw up my hands and refused to read comments at all.

But still I see hope. The Missal is beautiful. Much of the Church is young and orthodox. It's a good time to be Catholic.

Deo gratias!

Only One Thing is Needed

2011-11-17T14:17:00.007-06:00

It's a crazy-busy time of year. For most people, things are crazy-busy because their kids are in 3,195 Christmas events and they have presents to buy and fancy Christmas foods to make. For me, none of those things are an issue. I don't have a husband or kids I need to shuttle around. My family is skipping Christmas presents this year because we're all flying to France to visit my sister. And so the fancy food preparation is also unnecessary because I don't think they let you bring a honey baked ham on trans-Atlantic flights.

But things are busy with work! Pretty much every summer activity my students will be doing- youth conference, service trip, faith camp, and Lifest - has registration due incredibly soon, so I'm doing one of my least favorite aspects of my job: paperwork. Ugh. But I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! Soon it'll be back to actual teaching and chilling with teenagers, which is far more fun than filling in health forms.

My brilliant spiritual director recently cautioned me to not make an idol of busy-ness. In our culture we associate "being busy" with "being important." But Christ calls us to be humble. Christ calls us to serve. Being busy is well and good, when it's for the glory of God, but is not an end unto itself. My Martha-ish tendencies manifest in the worst way when my to-do list is long. Prayer life suffers. Old habits creep in. Not good.

"...The Lord said to her in reply, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. Only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her." Luke 10:41-42

Another tendency of our modern culture is equate importance with doing 'big stuff.' We see the politician or executive who deals with multi-million dollar budgets and think what he does is superior to the stay-at-home mom who can feed a family of six with $100 a week. We might look at the activist who raises awareness of a human rights abuse and think his life is more heroic than a dad who works 60 hours a week at minimum wage to provide for his family.

I have a great love for St. Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei, who taught that by living our life to the fullness of our vocation, striving for holiness in little things, and keeping focused on Christ, we can become saints.

"Persevere in the exact fulfilment of the obligations of the moment. That work — humble, monotonous, small — is prayer expressed in action that prepares you to receive the grace of the other work — great and wide and deep — of which you dream."

-The Way, no. 825.

(other than one tiny objection - using Myanmar instead of Burma - I freaking love that song)

So I will try to refocus this weekend on the "the one thing that is needed:" pursuing Christ and falling in back in love with Him.

Deo omnis gloria!

It's Friday, Friday....

2011-09-16T00:15:00.005-05:00

Whoa, my blogging has really lapsed. Here's an attempt to get back on the bandwagon!

Thanks to Jen, our weekly hostess!

--1--

Like everyone else who's read/reviewed it, I *adored* Brandon Vogt's new book The Church and New Media. I wrote a full review for our diocesan young adult newsletter, which I may post later, but here's the short version: it's excellent. Not only were all the contributers' essays great, but Brandon added great supplementary content too, including a glossary of Web 2.0 terms and a list of online resources. I wish everyone in Church leadership would read New Media, especially Marcel LeJeune's excellent piece on young adult ministry and the Internet.

--2--

In more news of fabulous young Catholics, Marc Barnes of the Bad Catholic Blog is making me chuckle a lot these days. For someone who's only 18, this kid has got spunk, insight, and wit.

--3--

I've finally been let into the beta group for Pottermore. It's awesome. I haven't done my Sorting yet though, since I'm waiting for a few friends to catch up so we can all Sort together. Very excited to see what House I'll get. I've fancied myself a Ravenclaw almost my whole Potter-reading life, but many friends have predicted Hufflepuff for me. I'll soon find out!

--4--

Next on my to-read list is Matt Swain's Prayer in the Digital Age. I quickly tore through the first two chapters before pulling myself back to work, but they were great chapters! Looking forward to the rest of it.

--5--

My sister Katie is in France! She left on Tuesday night and is all settled with her host family in Paris. It's odd to think that I won't see her again until Christmas; usually I visit her at school at least twice a month. I miss her already, but she will love her study abroad!

--6--

Our high school youth ministry leaders are going on retreat this weekend. I'm very excited for them; we are meeting up with youth from other parishes around the diocese to do some leadership and team building as well as lots of prayer time. I'm giving a talk about discipleship and the centrality of the Eucharist. I'm not nervous about it, but I do need to pray more to prepare!

--7--

And This Is Love from Catholic Media House on Vimeo.

7 (Very) Quick Takes!

2011-07-01T17:04:00.006-05:00

I'm leaving for Florida in eight days and have 4,189 things to do so these will be brief!

--1--

I'll be in Florida, naturally, for the the largest Harry Potter fan convention in history. Yes, I go to those. Yes, I'm one of "those people." And I love it. 3,500 fans altogether at the theme park for the final film release? Yes!

--2--

While at the convention I'll be insanely busy with two shows. For one of them I'm the costume designer and a cast member, and for the other I'm just the costume designer. I have about 19 costumes to finish this week. Much better than last year, when I was much farther behind schedule and barely slept for 2 weeks in order to get everything done.

--3--

It's ridiculously hot today, pushing 100 degrees, which is quite unusual for northeast Wisconsin. Ugh. I hate paying for air conditioning, but I think I must just have to suck it up this time.

--4--

Had a wonderful afternoon today; three friends and I had a nice picnic lunch on the beach at our local lake and chatted about theology for a few hours. I'm curious to know what the people in the next group over thought as we discussed the inherent contradictions in consubstantiation vs. transubstantiation.

--5--

I bought a swimsuit! I hate swimsuit shopping because it's almost impossible to find something that is cute, feminine, not-old-lady-ish, modest, and affordable. I've been drooling over this suit from Jen Clothing for a while, but just couldn't justify spending over $100 on a swimsuit. But I found this one instead, and it was on sale for less than $20! I'm thrilled!!

--6--

Today my dad bought plane tickets for our upcoming family trip to Paris at Christmas!! I've never been out of the country, and I'm quite thrilled my sister is studying abroad, something I never had the chance to do in college. Christmas midnight Mass at Notre Dame? Yes please!

--7--

It's Canada Day, and the Feast of the Sacred Heart!

That's it! Thanks to Jen for hosting!

Dominus vobiscum

2011-05-22T17:32:00.004-05:00

Today I attended the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite for the very first time. I'd wanted to go for a while, and never managed it. Luckily, however, the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest has an oratory site in Green Bay and celebrates both High and Low Masses every single Sunday. Mindy, Jason, and I went along, and I'm still processing, but I have some observations:

Having been interested in Latin Mass for some time, I've done my research, so I knew a bit what to expect and felt comfortable most of the time. I didn't have a missal with all the prayers, but I had my Handbook which contains the text of the Ordinary Form in both Latin and English as well as collects and Prefaces for each Sunday, so followed along as best I could. I didn't find it daunting to not know exactly what the priest and altar boys were saying. I knew the basics, and that was enough to foster an atmosphere of prayer.
I loved loved loved that the people there were really dressed in their Sunday Best. Many men wore suits. Most wore, at the very least, nice shirts and ties. Women were all in skirts and dresses of modest length (ie, knee-length or longer). Shoulders were covered. No tank tops, shorts, jeans, stiletto heels. Even little children were in "nicer" clothes.
The importance of Confession was obvious. Not only did the priest remind us all in his homily the requirements for receiving Communion worthily, but the line to the confessional was long both before and during Mass.
Of the perhaps 150-200 people present, less than 50 had grey hair. That is to say, the vast majority of people there were my age or close to it, young families in their 20s to their early 40s, usually with many beautiful children. The children were squirmy sometimes, but it didn't seem to bother anyone. And those old enough to receive Communion and serve at the altar knew how to behave.
Speaking of altar boys, holy Moses! There were ten of them. I've since learned they have a variety of jobs, from the master of ceremonies (who looked about 17 and did the most "work") to the candle bearers (couldn't have been more than 8. Precious). Every Sunday for High Mass they have this many boys serving, and judging from the calendar of liturgical ministers in the bulletin, there is a veritable army of them waiting to serve. Amazing.
I loved being able to receive Jesus kneeling on the tongue! That is my preferred way to receive, and I so seldom get the chance it was a wonderful treat. I feel so much more passive and receptive to the Lord when I'm not dealing with worries about being too tall to receive on the tongue standing or irreverence by receiving in the hand. And the lovely gold paten the server used put at ease any worries I had about anyone dropping the Host (that happened to me once when I received standing, and I was horrified but lucky enough to catch just in time. With the paten there are no such worries)

Overall, I enjoyed the Extraordinary Form, although I don't think I'll become an regular Trid myself. But it's important to remember that regardless of my feelings, the Holy Mass is not intended to be enjoyed. My opinions and feelings, both positive or negative, matter not a whit to the validity of the Sacrifice.

I'm so thankful for Papa B's Summorum Pontificum!

Santo Subito

2011-04-30T21:01:00.006-05:00

Unlike many of my generation, during his pontifcate Blessed John Paul II was not "my" pope. I love and respect his memory, ask for his intercession often, and am thankful every day for how he led the Church. But I didn't become Catholic until 2007, so while I was vaguely aware of John Paul II's existence, as a Protestant I never thought of him.

The days following his death in 2005, and especially the day of his funeral, I remember flipping through channels in my dorm room and repeatedly stopping at news coverage of what was happening in Rome. I didn't care at all, really, but somehow I felt a tug in my heart; a fascination that millions of people, many of them my age, flocked to Rome to stand in St. Peter's Square for the funeral of a man they didn't know. But they did know him, it seemed, and as I talk to my friends and peers who remember his passing, he was their pope; the only one they'd ever known. He was their true spiritual father, even from thousands of miles away. As Archbishop Dolan wrote so eloquently this week, so many young, especially those called to the priesthood, saw in John Paul a man so ordinary and yet a man set apart.

Later as I came closer to entering the Church and the months thereafter I became a voracious consumer of things John Paul had written and said and done. The very title of this blog is taken from a quote of his. I devoured George Weigel's Witness to Hope and Richard John Neuhaus' Catholic Matters. As I fell more and more deeply in love with Jesus, especially because of Mary and the rosary, I developed a new appreciation for John Paul's leadership and service. I loved reading his letters about women, Mary, artists, life, the dignity of work, the Holy Eucharist, and priesthood. He wrote with clarity and precision, love and truth. Posthumously, then, he became my pope. I have more pictures of him in my apartment than any other [almost-]saint (except Mary). I ask his intercession for my students as they embark on their Theology of the Body for Teens. I talk about him all the time to my students. If blessed with marriage and children someday, I plan to name one of my sons John Paul. I try to make his motto (Totus tuus Maria) true in my own life too. And I see his legacy springing up all around me: a generation of the young and orthodox who fully embrace the fullness of Truth in our faith, knowing the world will hate us for it, but who take comfort in the first words he spoke to us as Holy Father: Be not afraid!

Blessed John Paul II, pray for us.

Ephesians 5 and Feminine Dignity, Part 1

2011-03-18T15:41:00.006-05:00

It's been a very long time since I've blogged here! But I've been active in the Catholic/Christian blogosphere in other ways, especially reading and commenting often on Leila's blog and my friend Sarah's blog.

However, fruitful discussions with my friend Mindy have prompted me to post here again!

Tomorrow, March 19, the feast of St. Joseph, Mindy is getting married. The 2nd reading in her wedding Mass is from Ephesians 5:21-33.

Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is head of his wife just as Christ is head of the church, he himself the savior of the body. As the church is subordinate to Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. So (also) husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. "For this reason a man shall leave (his) father and (his) mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the church. In any case, each one of you should love his wife as himself, and the wife should respect her husband.

I have the honored task of reading this to the gathered assembly. I am so excited; not only is this one of my favorite passages from St. Paul, but especially because the priest has already told Mindy he will be expounding upon this passage with particular care in his homily. I can't wait.

Most of the first half of the passage is enough to raise the ire of any self-identifying feminist and quite a few people who wouldn't classify themselves as feminists. I will address the ones I imagine will the be the most objectionable, thought it'll take several posts because I want to really dissect them.

1)"Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ."

Right off the bat it's important to remember in the context of this passage, St. Paul is addressing both husbands and wives. Both have obligations and both have responsibilities. This is not a passage aimed at "Listen up, you women, as I teach you to be doormats." Subordinate to one another. What does that mean? Subordinate is a word composed of two roots: sub (meaning under, beneath) and ordinate (meaning orderly, ordered). Order is a good thing; the world is chaotic but thrives on organization. After the wedding, probably later this weekend, I will ruminate on on this opening statement a bit more. :-)

St Joseph, terror of demons, pray for us!

Politically Homeless

2010-11-02T14:49:00.004-05:00

"At this time, some Catholics may feel politically homeless, sensing that no political party and too few candidates share a consistent concern for human life and dignity."
~USCCB, "Faithful Citizenship"

And so another election day has come.

In high school I was a political junkie. Had Nate Silver's brilliant FiveThirtyEight existed back then, I would have read it with the fervor I usually reserve for Harry Potter books. I mostly attribute this politcal zeal to my love for all things West Wing; I fancied myself a northerner's version of Ainsley Hayes, though I wasn't ever as pretty.

Then I went to college.

My freshman year, before it was "embarassing" (for Madisonians at least) to associate oneself with the (gasp!) GOP, I had an internship at the Republican National Committee's Wisconsin offices downtown. Every Monday and Wednesday I walked a 2-mile roundtrip from my little dorm to the Capitol Square, where I answered phones, made coffee, ran the copy machine, and observed.

I was disillusioned. Theses were hard-working men and women, clearly. They had, so far as I could tell, genuinely good intentions. But so much of what they did -- what we did, I suppose -- was aimed at blocking "them" from doing things. It was a constant back and forth between "us" and "them." I have friends who had similar experiences working for Democrats, so I know this phenomenon isn't strictly a Republican thing. And suddenly the nice, clean cut, Sorkin-esque lines between "good guys" and "the others" were blurred. Life is messy. Eventually I decided that my non-confrontational nature would not be very happy working in an environment that thrives on arguing, so I dropped my Poli Sci aspirations and focused solely on science.

And now election days fill me with discontent.

The idea of voting is awesome. I love the ability to vote, which is something we Americans take so for granted in a world where the right to vote is often limited (by either laws or circumstances) to a privileged few.

But the actual casting of a vote for a person is complicated. The cult of celebrity makes me uncomfortable. The cult of political celebrity makes me even more uncomfortable. How can someone claim he or she is a panacea to all the problems that ail us? The only person who can claim such a thing with any read credibility is Jesus Christ. Yet self-promotion to the point of arrogance is part of the game for anyone in either party, no matter their platform or beliefs.

And then Catholic Social Teaching comes in. There are so many important issues. There are, of course, the non-negotiables outlined by the USCCB's Faithful Citizenship.

My father likes to accuse me of being a bleeding heart liberal. "Thank you," I say. "So was Jesus." Jesus's favorite people were the poor and marginalized. They should be my favorites too.

But my bleeding heart doesn't have any sympathy for candidates, groups, or persons who think that murdering innocent unborn children is an acceptable solution to a problem.

The problem, of course, is that there are never any (so far as I know) candidates whose platforms line up with Catholic Social Teaching. Those who are vigorously in favor or a preferential option for the poor and vulnerable, who uphold the dignity of work and the rights of workers, who understand that treating the earth respectfully is key, who have, as my father would say, "bleeding hearts" like mine so often have little regard for the "least of these" in the womb. Nor do they recognize (because of poor catechesis and and misunderstanding of its nature) what really constitutes the Sacrament of Matrimony.

On the other hand, candidates who espouse respect for human life and marriage often support things I detest, like war, the death penalty, health care for only the privileged, and deny practical ways to offer dignity and support to the poor, especially immigrants. Their hearts are soft when it comes to "the least of these" in the womb, but hard when it comes to "the least of these" in the world.

What's a Catholic to do?

The answer, of course, is obvious: I prioritize the right to life first, because without the right to life, rights to property, freedom, and citizenship become negligible.

And it drives me crazy.

I am going to vote in a few moments. I will fill in the lines for candidates who are pro-life in their voting records, but I will cringe as I do it, because I know that while this most important of issues lines up with my faith and belief, so many other of their positions do not. And I could weep for it. But I have no solution.

I pray for the day when killing innocent children isn't acceptable. On that day, I will finally get to "vote my conscience" and weigh other issues on their merits. But until that day comes, I am stuck.

St Thomas More, how we need your prayers!

Daily Bread

2010-10-17T21:51:00.012-05:00

My mother never worries. She's concerned about things, sure, but she has an uncanny ability to trust in God with far more simplicity and sincerity than I can ever manage. "He provides," she always says. And he does. He gives us our daily bread. Not a feast, not an endless supply. What we need for today. If we trust him.

My car has been in my possession since high school. It's a 1995, older than some of my students. She has 167,000 miles on the odometer (85,000 of which were put on solely by me since mid-way through college), no longer has functioning air conditioning and the heat is iffy. The check engine light is always on. She shakes when I take her over 65 mph. It's loud enough when running that my friends can always tell if I'm calling them while driving vs. in the quiet of my home. Last month when I had my breaks checked the mechanic flat-out told me my engine was in horrible shape and I should consider getting a replacement or a new car. But my engine has been in horrible shape for years. I'm used to my car's little quirks. And she's lasted me since I first sat behind the wheel; she wouldn't fail me now, I thought. Not now. I can't afford a replacement. Just hang in there, baby, just a few more months.

And finally she died.

At the worst possible moment (naturally).

My sister's college choir just ordered new dresses for this season's concert series. Of course, they all needed to be altered, so I offered to do the alterations and hemming for a far cheaper rate than a professional seamstress. It's a win-win: poor college students save a little money, poor Church employee earns a little extra. I took measurements two weeks ago and then brought them home to sew. Their first concert was this past Friday at 7 pm. Dress rehearsal/sound check at 6. I planned to meet my sister for dinner at 5:15 and then come along to rehearsal to distribute the dresses.

I left work a little later than I meant to, because Fridays are busy. I figured I could make up time on the highway by keeping up with the left lane 75 mph-ish traffic flow instead of the right lane where I usually drive.

48 miles into my 63 mile trek things were looking good. I was on schedule to meet my sister for dinner. The dresses were all nicely hung in the back seat. There had been a good streak of music on the radio. I zoomed along in the left lane of rush hour traffic, cruise control on, everything dandy.

Then the engine died.

The cruise indicator light disappeared. The accelerator no longer responded. I was surrounded by other cars going 75+ and was losing speed alarmingly fast.

I have no idea how I managed to pull over all the way to the right shoulder. My guardian angel gets full bragging rights for that one, because by all logic I should be dead. I do not remember the actual pulling over, only that I was in the left lane, and then I was on the right shoulder. I let the car roll to a stop, turned it off, and put on the flashers.

Then I thought, "Oh dear God, the dresses."

By now it was 5:10. I was only 20 or so miles north of the college, but how would I get them there in time for the concert without a working car? I grabbed my phone and scrolled through my hundreds of contacts, looking for anyone I knew in Appleton who might be home on a Friday afternoon and willing to be a miracle worker. The first five people I called didn't answer. My friend Jen did answer, but she was out of town and couldn't do anything. "Pray," I told her. "Please just pray." "I will," she promised. And guess what? The next person I called was home and able to help!

Brigitte had company over for a dinner party. She left her guests to come find me on the side of the road, pick up the formal black silk performance gowns, rush them to Lawrence, navigate the campus parking, and deliver them to my sister, whom she'd never met, while I sat and waited for the tow truck.

She is a true angel. One of the most selfless people I know.

Once the immediate crisis of the dresses was solved, I sat waiting for the tow truck and the reality of the situation began to hit. I could have died, or at least been in an accident and seriously injured. I still can't believe it. I do not know how I managed to pull over. It defies logic. This relief and fear combined with the soul-crushing panic of "oh dear GOD, how am I going to afford to get the car running again? Or buy a new one, if she's beyond repair?" I cannot function without a car. I live only two miles from work, and on nice days I often walk to the office, but I have meetings at the diocese usually once or twice a week, plus numerous family and social obligations all over the Midwest. This month alone I've put 850 miles on the car running to Milwaukee to help a friend with wedding plans, going to book festivals, visiting my sister in Appleton, visiting friends in Green Bay, running errands everywhere else. My life doesn't work without four wheels and a (working) engine.

All these panicked thoughts led to quite a few tears. I sniffled, hiccuped, and gasped my way through the rosary that always hangs from my rearview. This is how the State Patrol officer found me when he pulled up. He was incredibly kind despite my blubbering and I explained I was waiting for a tow. He offered to wait in his car behind me, because while I was pulled over safely, I was still very close to the next exit ramp, certainly not an ideally safe place.

Soon after the tow driver arrived. I've used the company several times before, because 1) my father knows the owner and trusts him 2) their rates are very reasonable and 3) all the drivers are very nice and personable. It was nearly an hour drive home, but thankfully I was able to afford the tow (and I learned AAA's "free towing" only goes up to 5 miles, and I was almost 50 from home). He even detoured to my office so I could grab my computer and some paperwork I'd planned to do over the weekend, then dropped off the car at the mechanic, and drove me home. Very kind.

But things were looking grim. A new engine would be close to $1,500, absolutely not worth it in a fifteen year-old car, but a new car was certainly not in the cards, at all. Panic attacks began to set in. I spent a lot of time on the phone with my mother, as I always do when something goes wrong, and she put her entire Bible study and prayer group to work praying for me.

Saturday was rough. The few weekends I'm not hip-hopping all over the state I like to stay at home. But yesterday my house arrest was mandated by circumstances beyond my control, and it grated. I couldn't do any of the errands I wanted. I needed groceries, but while I could walk to the store, how would I get them home without a car to load them into? I'd planned to meet friends for lunch in Fond du Lac and visit Holy Hill. Nope. I needed to run to the Joann's in Milwaukee to buy some fabric for one of the Halloween costumes I'm making; fabric I'd specifically put on hold because they didn't have enough at any of the closer stores. And I was stuck. I was stewing with frustration all day. I accomplished nothing.

This morning I woke up late and felt a powerful desire to roll over, go back to sleep, skip Mass, and stay in my pajamas until the afternoon indulging my misery in Ben & Jerry's. But I couldn't. It was my week to lead Children's Liturgy of the Word. I had to be there. Had I not had that responsibility, I probably (certainly) would have broken the third commandment and skipped Mass out of pure spite at God. Hopelessness. Anger. "Why are you doing this to me, Lord!?" But I had an obligation, so I grudgingly rolled out of bed, found my practical flats, and left for church an hour early, knowing the walk would take at least 35 minutes.

It was beautiful out; a perfect fall morning. En route I pulled out my phone and listened to my favorite Liturgy of the Hours podcast. The moment I arrived my melancholia began to lift. There was a baptism at Mass, which always makes the environment more celebratory. Today our Children's Liturgy group had four new preschoolers who'd always been too timid to come forward before. They all behaved themselves, for the most part. After Mass I mentioned to one of my youth ministry volunteers that I would need a ride to church tonight for our youth gathering and I gave him the short, less-dramatic version of the story.

"You know, Maggie," he said, "we have an extra car just sitting in the driveway now that Eric's gone at school. I was going to sell it anyway. Why don't you borrow it until you figure out what you're going to do?"

And just like that, I have a car again. It's a 2001 Taurus, with a little minor body damage and rusting, but in far, far, far better shape than my ancient Nissan. It runs smoothly (and quietly!). It is perfect.

Daily bread. I didn't need a million dollar miracle, or a brand-new shiny Lexus. I needed a safe, working vehicle to get to around. Going to the grocery store never felt so good.

Tomorrow I'm going to figure out options for selling/salvaging my old car and, most likely, using the money to officially buy the Taurus.

But tonight, I am singing a song of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving to my guardian angel for his constant protection. Thanksgiving for my friend Jen for her prayers. Thanksgiving for Brigitte and her servant's heart. Thanksgiving for my parents and their rock-solid confidence that God will always provide. Thanksgiving for Todd, whose generosity will, quite literally, keep my life running on an even keel in the coming days and weeks. Thanksgiving for the parish community, who unknowingly helped lift me out of a very foul mood of bitterness.

...And holy is your name, throughout all generations. Everlasting is your mercy to the people you have chosen, and holy is your name...

Esperenza

2010-10-13T11:50:00.003-05:00

They are coming home today.

69 days, 33 men, a world holding its breath.

Today.

What are we fighting for?

2010-08-04T17:48:00.007-05:00

Warning: very gloomy post ahead

I don't think anyone, anywhere was truly surprised by the California court's decision to overturn Prop 8. Even the most ardent supporters of marriage were bracing themselves for it.

The question is, what next?

The decision will go to the Ninth Circuit, where it will be upheld. It will go to the Supreme Court, where it will be upheld. 2011 will be the new 1973. And suddenly "just because it's legal doesn't make it right" will apply to two separate (but intimately connected) issues: life and marriage

Not to sound like a Debbie Downer, but at this point there's very little to be done about it. Supporter of my Church's teachings though I might be, I can't help but cringe at the clumsy ways in which the pro-marriage crowd seem to be fumbling for articulate words to argue their side. I was there myself, a few years ago, before I became Catholic.

My parent's denomination, Presbyterian Church USA, voted to allow same-sex marriage in 2006. Only a college sophomore at the time, I panicked. I was attending an Evangelical Free church near campus. I was happy there but knew that after graduation I'd inevitably move away and need to find a new church home. Since many Protestant denominations have a very "locally owned and operated" mentality, there is often little doctrinal consistency. How was I to know that the beliefs with which I was raised would be carried on to my own children if the church I attended as an adult could shift its teaching with a vote? It worried me. Those worries eventually led me to examine the larger question of authority, and that question naturally led me into the arms of Holy Mother Church, a place where I can trust the authority is apostolic and Spirit-guided, and even though there are sinners aplenty here (myself included), there is a comfort knowing that, like her spouse Jesus, the Church and her teachings won't be changing. And that's a good thing.

Beyond the question of authority, one of the larger question I wrestled with was "what is the purpose of marriage?" The Catholic Church could easily and definitely answer this question: marriage is a permanent, indissoluble bond meant to help oneself and one's spouse grow in holiness, to create children, and to image Christ's love for the Church. Because procreation is an undeniable part of that equation, the rest of the Church's sexual ethics follow: no contraception, no abortion, no same-sex marriage, no divorce. It make a lot of sense when seen as a package deal.

If you remove procreation from the equation, as most (all? I think?) Protestant denominations have done, there is really no solid ground upon which to base an arrangement against same-sex marriage. Okay, okay the whole Jesus as the Bridegroom/Church as the Bride argument falls apart too, but that's not a very Protestant-friendly image anyway, so nevermind.

Without the greater awareness of what marriage is designed to be, pro-marriage supporters (at least, those who aren't Catholic) are grasping at straws to defend their position. If marriage is only about lovey-dovey feelings and big parties and expensive cakes and wedding registries at Crate and Barrel, then who's to say it has to be reserved for those of opposite sexes? If sex is casual, if marriage is temporary, easy to tear with divorce, meaningless enough that Brittany Spears can be married in Vegas for less than twelve hours before rectifying her "mistake," then no one has any business saying it can be limited to one man and one woman.

This is a problem.

What happened today shouldn't surprise anyone. It's the natural progression of a world sterilized by contraceptive thinking. We've been on this road toward the Fall, of course, but our progress down it zoomed along once the Sexual Revolution hit in the 1960s. Since the mass introduction of the Pill 50 years ago, and in the 42 years since Humanae Vitae, everything Paul VI predicted has come true.

What's the answer? As much as I'm energized by the growing popularity of Theology of the Body courses, NFP classes, and so forth among my fellow young adults, I feel that ToB, a rediscovery/re-articulation of Church teaching from time immemorial, is coming too late. It's not "too little, too late," because what the Church teaches about sexuality isn't too little. It's beautiful. It's God's plan. But I fear we may be too late.

My usual optimism has fled today. By the end of 2011 the Supreme Court will uphold Prop 8. By 2012 or 2014 at the latest there won't be a state in the Union that will have legal provisions against it. And then, friends, the fun will begin. Persecution of churches will be subtle. It will be financial, in the forms of tax law, property law, and so forth.

In the cold darkness of hell, Satan is smiling.

*Necessary addendum.

I'm not sure I'm even a supporter of traditional marriage as defined by state law. I'm a supporter of marriage as defined by the Church; marriage that is free, total, faithful, and fruitful.

Calling an orange an apple is just silly [ ie: calling same-sex unions marriage is a contradiction in terms, if I use my Church's definition of marriage].

Calling a tangerine an orange is silly, but understandable [ie, calling "non-sacramental, married-on-the-beach-in-Mexico-by-your-friend-who-bought-an-officiant's-license-off-the-Internet-to-the-boyfriend-you've-lived-with-for-six-years-and-who-only-proposed-because-his-mother-was-nagging-him" marriage the same as a union centered on Christ, witnessed by the Church, and rooted in self-sacrifice by the same name is a little ridiculous, but I currently have no solution for it. It's a problem of semantics as well as theology].

In a world where marriage and sex have been so cheapened (again, we've been struggling with this since the Fall, but it was made ever so much worse from the 1960s onward) the debate about marriage almost ridiculous in itself. Supporters of traditional marriage, at least the Glenn Beck types, seem to live in the fantasy that defending traditional marriage will roll back the tide of sociological problems that have escalated exponentially since the 1960s (ridiculous divorce rate. Horrific numbers of abortions. Single mothers galore. The list goes on).

Keeping marriage defined as one man/one woman won't give us paradise. We need to deal with a more pressing and difficult issue: what God planned for humanity from the beginning. How do we even begin to fix the larger problem? It is so vast I cannot even fathom it.

I can't bring myself to support same-sex marriage, because I'm a Catholic who supports her Church because her Church is based on the synergy of faith and reason. But it still bothers me that heterosexual marriage is hailed as the gold standard, even though it as an institution is already fraught with problems in our hedonistic, postmodern culture. Is this just giving up? What's the answer?

One solution I considered was kicking government out of the marriage business altogether. After all, marriage is a sacrament, meant to be under God's discretion, not the state's. Marriage only became a civil contract (thanks Martin Luther!) because of the financial things that go along with it- tax status, insurance benefits, and so on. What if, just what if, the government was out of the marriage realm altogether? What if everyone, gay or straight, went down to the courthouse for a civil union? What if such a civil union enabled couples to seek a tax shelter, share insurance benefits, and so on? Then, if you're interested in marriage, go to your church. As long as churches have the clearly articulated right to refuse marriage to those whose union doesn't conform to their beliefs (which for Catholics would include contracepting or cohabitating couples), then marriage as a sacrament would stay protected and the same-sex marriage advocates could stop screaming about equal rights vs. "second class citizens." Am I totally crazy, or might such a system actually work? Is this just giving up?

I have no idea. But I look at the divorce rate, in particular, and it's abundantly clear that marriage is in serious trouble. It's been under attack since the beginning, of course; something so beautiful and holy will certainly be high on the Enemy's hit list . Same-sex marriage is only his newest technique, along with so many others in his arsenal. Pornography, addiction, abortion, contraception, etc have all been used with great success to destroy God's plan for marriage. This is only the latest ploy in the game.

I am having trouble seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. How dark it seems.

St. Thomas More, ora pro nobis.

O Happy Fault!

2010-04-03T20:20:00.000-05:00

Hæc nox est,
quæ hódie per univérsum mundum
in Christo credéntes,
a vítiis sæculi et calígine peccatórum segregátos,
reddit grátiæ, sóciat sanctitáti.
Hæc nox est,
in qua, destrúctis vínculis mortis,
Christus ab ínferis victor ascéndit.
Nihil enim nobis nasci prófuit,
nisi rédimi profuísset.
O mira circa nos tuæ pietátis dignátio!
O inæstimábilis diléctio caritátis:
ut servum redímeres, Fílium tradidísti!
O certe necessárium Adæ peccátum,
quod Christi morte delétum est!
O felix culpa,
quæ talem ac tantum méruit habére Redemptórem!

"...they have taken my Lord from me!"

2010-04-02T14:50:00.003-05:00

He is gone.

And now we wait until the glorious crescendo of Easter Vigil...

Per crucem et passionem tuam, liberanos Domine.

An invitation

2010-03-06T12:28:00.003-06:00

This week I was shanghaied cordially invited to attend a fancy-schmancy dinner party for women who are discerning religious life.

Or, as my friend Corrie immediately corrected me, panic in her voice, "women open to discerning religious life."

Whew. That' s a little less scary.

But we get to spend an evening with our rockstar bishop! And several friends are going with me. If nothing else, it will be a good time wherein we all enjoy some lovely food and wine with our diocesan Shepherd and might even collect good stories to share at each other's weddings someday.

Or, each other's vow professions someday.

Last night Matthew Kelly* reminded me that saying "I just want God's will" is a cop-out.

God gave you the ability to dream and act on those dreams.

So what do I want? God's will, certainly, but that's too esoteric a concept. I want my will... and I don't even know what that is. Ideally, through prayer and acts of service and growth toward holiness my will will become more aligned to God's will, insofar that "wanting to do God's will" is no longer a cop-out but a joyful embrace of what He knows is best for me.

*speaking of Matthew Kelly, I enjoyed the books of his that I've read, but I wasn't actually too impressed with his in-person presentation. Perhaps more on that later.

Remember you are dust.

2010-02-17T10:18:00.003-06:00

Wow, it's been a long time since I blogged here. Partially from being busy, partially from little desire to do so, and partially because I heartily agree with many of the points my friend Katie makes in her farewell post.

I'm not sure if I'll continue blogging at all. One of the things God has put on my heart recently is a call to analyze and discern if I'm using my time effectively for His kingdom. Lent is a good time for discernment, so we'll see what happens. There are so many things that occupy my time- good things, fun things, work things, social things, spiritual things, service things. Prioritizing is key.

But nevertheless, I am looking forward to Lent. It's always my favorite liturgical season, except for Triduum, because we are called to examine ourselves and be honest and critical abut the ways in which we've fallen short... and the ways in which God picks us up. It's beautiful. My diocese is embarking on an exciting Catholics Come Home campaign, and participating in the planning and execution over the past seven months has been thrilling (and exhausting). I just pray the commercials draw people home...and more importantly, that when people come back they feel truly home.

...and to dust you shall return.

It's the one about duty. They're all about duty.

2010-01-07T12:30:00.002-06:00

I don't know who Erin Manning is, but she provided me with a nice laugh this afternoon. Via Mark Shea, I discovered this gem:

I am the Very Model of a Modern Rad-Traditional

(sung to "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General" from Penzance)

I am the very model of a modern Rad-Traditional
I've information Latin and liturgic-inquisitional
I know the work of Modernists and people even sillier
And can recite the names of forty bishops, pre-Conciliar
I'm very well acquainted too, with matters Mass-grammatical
I'll tell you why the words "for all" require a sabbatical,
As to the bad new music I possess the means to measure it
With special focus on the dreck of the St. Louis Jesuits
I'm very good at sniffing out indifference and irreverence
And punishing the bad with all the force of social severance
In short, in matters Latin and liturgic-inquisitional
I am the very model of a modern Rad-Traditional!

In fact, when I know what is meant by "agape" and "caritas"
When I can judge between bad innovations and "varietas"
When Jewish domination I no longer in each theory see
And when I know precisely why it's nuts to say, conspiracy
When I discover that the Novus Ordo Mass is still the Mass
When I can give a nervous server's errors a forgiving pass
In short, when I remember that it's not my job to judge them all
You'll say a more reformed Rad-Trad has truly never heard the call
For my charitable impulse, though I'm expert in validity
Has suffered just a bit in the degree of its timidity,
But still in matters Latin and liturgic-inquisitional
I am the very model of a modern Rad Traditional!

So the baby was thrown out with the bathwater, huh?

2009-10-28T10:11:00.004-05:00

I just had an uncomfortable and very heated discussion (possibly classified as an argument) with my DRE about plenary indulgences during the the week of All Saints' Day. I feel a huge rant coming on, but I don't really have time right now, so I'll suffice to say: Vatican II did NOT "get rid" of indulgences. Indulgences, while they've been abused in the past, are a beautiful, good thing, and part of Church Teaching.

Or, as Padre Pio once said, "We must empty Purgatory with our prayers."

GAH.

::headdesk::
::headdesk::
::headdesk::

Lord, grant me patience and serenity and humility.

The Young Fogey and the Spirit of Vatican II, 2.0

2009-09-15T13:17:00.003-05:00

I just discovered that my director of religious education, technically my boss, is a member of Call to Action.

::headdesk::

Friday keeps sneaking up on me!

2009-08-21T07:50:00.007-05:00

Whoa, it's been a long time since I did one of these!! Thanks, as always, to Jen, our hostess with the mostest.

--1--

The beginning of the school year is almost here! I haven’t been a full-time student in sixteen months, but I’m still excited about the newness September brings. As Tom Hanks so adorably says in You’ve Got Mail, “Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.”

--2--

On the other hand, the close proximity of the fall means I need to put the final touches on my religious ed curriculum, finish ~~shamelessly begging~~ asking people to be catechists, and firm up the calendar. Yikes!

--3--

I have come to really, really, love the simplicity of daily Mass. It’s so… easy to focus. A priest, two dozen older people, one altar boy, the lady who lectors, and me. It’s also nice to know that everyone is there because they want to be, not because they felt they had to come. No one texts during the homily. No one sprints for the door after Communion. Everyone reverences the tabernacle. It’s refreshing. This probably means I’m just not charitable enough toward the “typical” parishioners who won’t come to Mass if it means missing the Packer pre-game show. Clearly, I need to pray for humility. Speaking of which....

--4--

The Litany of Humility is awesome. And, appropriately, very humbling. Written by Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val (Secretary of State for Pius X, whose memorial is today!) he used to recite it after each time he celebrated Mass. But it's also a darn good way to start the day and remind myself that I am not, in fact, the most important person in the universe.

--5--

I went to another wedding last weekend. It was a beautiful ceremony, but I acutely felt something lacking. My friend married a wonderful Lutheran man. They had a Catholic wedding but not a Mass. It felt so….empty without the Eucharist to complete the symbolism of marriage.

--6--

My mother and I had an actual conversation about religion, which hasn’t happened since I became Catholic two years ago. She mentioned that she doesn’t miss the Eucharist at all, and is so much more “fed” by the good preaching at the Presbyterian church she and my dad attend. I know God touches each of us differently…. but I wanted to weep. The Sunday Gospels have all been from John 6 recently. The Bread of Life discourse from 6:22-71 is *the* defining reason I love being Catholic. I’m simply flabbergasted that my mother, with her years of Catholic education, considers the Eucharist to be negligible. It makes me so sad for her, and mad at her catechists and professors. Sad and mad. Smad.

--7--

I’m starting St. Faustina’s Divine Mercy in my Soul this week, and I’m prepared for some serious spiritual butt-kicking. I think I love St. Faustina so much because she was overlooked and under appreciated. Like St. Bernadette, everyone thought Faustina was stupid, and no one took her visions seriously at first. Despite all the things she endured, she was always humble and always loving. I need to be more like her.

......and I'm out!

GIRM Warfare: Part Two

2009-08-10T15:58:00.008-05:00

There are few things in Satan's military arsenal more upsetting than the monstrosity that is the Polka Mass.

(alright, alright, things like genocide, abortion, slavery, blasphemy, adultery, and a few others are trillions of times worse. But good Lord.)

This summer, due to many different comedies of errors involving traveling, mixing up Mass times, and oversleeping, I've been subjected to *three* Polka Masses. The all had varying degrees of hokeyness and irreverence, but regardless of the band's talent, the congregation's degree of participation, or the popularity of the concept, all three had something in common: they were liturgies where I received Jesus in the Eucharist but spent most of the Mass trying desperately not to groan or hiss. I slipped up a few times. Last Sunday when the Umpa Band began playing "Peace Like a River" in lieu of the Agnus Dei, I did audibly hiss. The woman next to me stared. I gave her a sheepish apologetic smile before muttering under my breath, "Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi...."

The most ironic thing is that all the parishes where I ~~suffered through~~ experienced a Polka Mass normally have beautiful, reverent, appropriate Novus Ordo liturgies. They were a beacon of hope that the "Spirit of Vatican II" and her liturgical dancers, clowns, 261 Eucharistic Ministers, and stand-up comic priests were on the outs.

Where did this tradition come from? I know it's a very Wisconsin thing, since there are lots of people here with Polish heritage. I was talking to a friend about this, and he said, "A few years ago the pastor [a more traditional fellow] tried to abolish the yearly Polka Mass but people howled. So he moved it to Saturday afternoon, where most of its fans [ie, elderly people] are anyway."

The Polka Mass, and its fellow liturgy-abusing cousins, is deeply troubling to me because it reflects a fundamental problem with how we see liturgy. A Mass that reminds me of a beer hall is not one where I feel like I'm in heaven. A Mass where liturgical dancers float up and down the aisle reminds me of an elementary school dance recital, not the Lamb of God. A Mass where the priest tries to be a folksy stand-up comedian during the homily reminds me of a high school talent show, not the Communion of Saints. In all these cases, liturgy becomes about "us" and not about "Him." I don't know whether the GIRM precisely forbids themed Masses (probably not), but something like this-- where the form severely detracts from the meaning -- can't be good.

I've just finished reading Seraphic Goes to Scotland's hilarious and informative "Secrets of the Trid Mass" (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four). While I do love Novus Ordo when it's done well, I'm beginning to wonder if I shouldn't make the effort to check out a TLM every now and then, just to comprehend what my grandparents' Mass experience was like. I don't think I'll become a regular TLM-er, nor do I believe that we should revert solely to Extraordinary Form, but I do appreciate Papa B's motu proprio which gives us the opportunity. Time to buy a mantilla!

MASH

2009-06-10T10:56:00.002-05:00

When I was a little girl, one of the most popular things to do on inside-recess days was to play MASH. The object, of course, was to predict your future- who you'd marry, what career you'd have, where you'd live. The name comes from Mansion Apartment House Shack, the four options for living. Clearly, living in a Shack was the least desirable option.

Fifteen years later, The Shack is still not a great choice. This time, however, I'm referring to the runaway bestseller by William Young. A co-worker lent it to me a few weeks ago and I've yet to open it, mostly because I don't have time, and also because I've heard many less-than-glowing reviews of it, from both orthodox Catholic sources and Protestant ones.

I'm inherently suspicious of any pop-religion themed book, because they tend to be shallow at best and heretical at worst. Maybe I'm a snob, but I prefer to read things like the Bible, the Catechism, G.K. Chesterton, or Papa B16. Bubble-gum, empty-calorie theology just doesn't cut it for me.

This week Adoro wrote two great posts on the book - not the book itself, which she hasn't read, but the reasons we shouldn't.

First: Conduit to our Souls

And: The Importance of Authenticity and Truth

Additionally, last year Catholic Exchange gave a review, as did Paragraph Farmer. USA Today even did a piece on the controversy.

I think Adoro sums it up nicely, "Theologically, then, if you don't know a lot, and sincerely want to learn, and someone hands you a book full of errors, well, you're going to go on internalizing those errors. You're going to pass them on, and in the end, not only will your "patient" be spiritually dead...but so will you. And you'll propagate that error more quickly than Ebola or Swine Flu."

So I'll be staying out of The Shack.

Reason #19,273 why I love Papa B16

2009-06-08T15:44:00.001-05:00

"Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment. " (Spirit of the Liturgy p. 198)

Hat tip to Fr. Z.

St. Paul was not a hippie

2009-06-05T10:19:00.011-05:00

It’s June, and the official end of the 2008-2009 Year of St. Paul is close at hand. It’s been a great year- I’ve seen and heard of lots of Pauline Bible studies, prayer cards, workshops, and such. All of them are great. We had a terrific Pauline series at the Norb ertine Center for Spirituality, my favorite of which was Sr. Diane’s lecture on “Paul and Women.” If you think about it, St. Paul is probably the most important figure of Christianity aside from Jesus himself. Thanks to his many letters, we know more about Paul and his life than anyone else in the Bible, including Jesus. Along with St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, Paul’s writings have been the foundation for most of Christian theology. Augustine and Aquinas were standing on his shoulders, though, so it really comes down to St. Paul. Most of his letters were written before the Gospels, and were widely circulated long before the canon was established at a little seaside town called Laodicea in 360 AD.

And yet, the poor guy gets kind of a bad rap.

Some of Prog Cath’s favorite verses are of Pauline origin. Many people love quoting Paul, especially when they say things like, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28). Another favorite is “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7) These sort of [out-of-context] snapshots, along with Paul’s occupation as a traveling tentmaker/evangelist who fought The Man might leave us with the idea that Paul was all about love and flower power, granola and co-ops, Woodstock and women’s ordination.

Um, no.

Paul was a hardass. Paul had no problem telling it like it is and getting in trouble for it. He was frequently stoned, expelled from towns, put in prison, rioted against, and generally made lots of people angry for speaking the truth and writing things like, “If anyone does not obey our word as expressed in this letter, take note of this person not to associate with him, that he may be put to shame. Do not regard him as an enemy but admonish him as a brother.” (2 Thessalonians 3:14-15) or “Keep watch over yourselves and over the whole flock of which the holy Spirit has appointed you overseers, in which you tend the church of God that he acquired with his own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come among you, and they will not spare the flock. And from your own group, men will come forward perverting the truth to draw the disciples away after them.” (Acts 20:28-30)

I don’t even know if I would have been friends with St. Paul, had we been contemporaries. I would have admired him, supported him, and welcomed him into my house (like Lydia, Phoebe, or Prisca), but I’m not sure I could have a nice cup of coffee with the guy and catch up on the news of the day and the goings-on of all our friends. He just doesn’t strike me as a bubbly coffee-klatcher.

But he *definitely* wasn’t a hippie.

GIRM Warfare: Part One

2009-04-21T17:01:00.006-05:00

(<--- shamelessly lifted from Fr. Z's blog)

Even before I was Catholic, I loved liturgy. When I was ten, my family attended a traditional Episcopal church for a few months, where the liturgy was beautiful, the priest was reverent, and the community was flourishing. We ended up leaving because, among other things, the liturgy made my ex-Catholic mother uncomfortable. However, I can still remember loving the rhythm of the service; the mystery and beauty of incense, vestments, and chanting. (*note: I’m calling it “the service”, not “Mass.” Mass is where Jesus becomes present in the Holy Eucharist, made possible through consecration via apostolic ordination. Episcopalians don’t have a valid priesthood (so far as I understand it), so the liturgy they celebrate doesn’t culminate with true consecration like ours does).

I was drawn into the Catholic Church partly due to the mystery and beauty of the liturgy, and so I am easily saddened when I visit a parish where liturgy isn’t always up to snuff. I’m a huge fan of Fr. Z and his motto (“save the liturgy, save the world”), and I find myself often thinking about liturgical abuses. Where’s the line between nit-picking and being genuinely concerned?

A few liturgical abuses that secretly drive me crazy include:

Female altar servers. This is one of the areas I just bite my tongue and grimace, because I know that 99.99% of the parish would burn me in effigy if they knew how I feel about this.
If altar service is meant to inspire and foster a call to priesthood, why the heck are girls encouraged to be altar servers? To be fair , the girl servers at our parish are awesome, and most of them serve with reverence and do a great job. But it just seems strange. Of the dozen or so servers at our parish, more than half are girls.

I wonder if boys simply don’t serve because they think it’s girly? After all, an alb looks suspiciously like a dress to a teenage boy. This is what liturgist Fr. Edward McNamera seems to be saying: “Among the pastoral factors to be weighed is the obvious yet often forgotten fact that boys and girls are different and require different motivational and formative methods. This difference means that both boys and girls usually go through a stage when they tend to avoid common activities. Preteen boys in particular are very attracted to activities that cater especially for them, and they tend to reject sharing activities with girls.They also tend to have a greater need for such structured activities than girls who are usually more mature and responsible at this stage of life. As a result, some parishes have found that the introduction of girl servers has led to a sharp drop-off of boys offering to serve. Once the boys have left and enter the years of puberty, it is difficult to bring them back.” (source)

Similarly infuriating is mixed gender foot washing on Holy Thursday. One of my co-workers (who also happens to support women’s ordination…) organized twelve people to come forward and have their feet washed at the Holy Thursday Mass. This year I think there were six men and six women. I’m not aware of precisely what the GIRM says on the matter, but the foot washing recalls what Jesus did for the apostles. The apostles were men. It’s not really an accurate representation of the Last Supper, then, eh?

Extraordinary Ministers of Communion. Maybe I'm crazy, but it seems that one of the only redeeming qualities of the EM is speeding up the progress of the Communion line. Those who serve as EMs might find is a special ministry, which is great, but I have several issues with it. First, EMs seldom are comfortable with distributing on the tongue. Priests and deacons are trained to do this. EMs often aren't. Secondly, when I go to Communion, I want to focus on Jesus, not if the EM serving me is someone I know. Thirdly, during his ordination a priest's hands are bathed in chrism, specifically prepared to consecrate and distribute the Body of Christ. The EM's hands weren't. Fourthly, an EM is less likely (if at all) to withhold Communion from someone who shouldn't receive. This applies more specifically to people publicly dissenting from the Church. Last week at Abp Dolan's installation, Rudy Giuliani refrained from receiving- and good for him! However, had he gone up, would bet Dolan might have refused him the Eucharist (rightly so). Would an ordinary EM have the moxie to do that? My guess is no.

Sloppy terminology. A few months ago our pastor decided to slightly tweak the way in which people come forward for Communion. The new set-up makes a lot more sense, and things go more smoothly now. To explain the new system, he included a “map” in the bulletin to demonstrate the Communion flow. The map showed the six stations where people receive the Body of Christ, the six where they receive the Blood Christ, and how to move among them. It was a great map.

Except that instead of “Body/Blood” of Christ, it said “bread” and “wine.”

I almost screamed. I brought this up with several people and explained (I had to explain this? Really?) that labeling the stations as “bread and wine” is simply bad theology. When people come to Communion, they don’t receive bread and wine. They receive the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. If they want bread and wine they can go down the block to the Lutheran church. All of them scoffed at my concerns. "Everybody knows what it means," they reassured me. "What the map says doesn't matter."

But doesn't it?

Last Sunday at youth group one of my eighth graders - a smart girl very involved in the parish, whose family attends Mass each week -- was genuinely surprised when I explained that we really receive Jesus' Body at Communion. Was this news to her? Really? I shudder to think about the misunderstandings rampant among the kids who don't even come to Mass; the kids who parents drop them off on Wednesday nights and that's it.

"Save the Liturgy, Save the World." No, I don't think everyone should revert to solely using the Extraordinary Form. Novus Ordo has a place, and I think Mass in the vernacular can be a good thing. But we need to ensure that a Novus Ordo liturgy is still sacred, reverent, and holy; after all, the Mass is Heaven on Earth!

The Three-Pronged Attack: Part One

2009-04-20T09:28:00.001-05:00

Last winter I read Matthew Kelly's excellent book, Rediscovering Catholicism. It's a great read and I highly recommend it. One of his main points is that people, especially Westerners, find authentic Catholicism too demanding. He finds this puzzling, since for centuries people may have misunderstood the Church or disagreed with her, but people didn't accuse the Faith of being "too difficult." He chalks this up to a three-pronged phenomenon of postmodern culture: the combination of minimalism, hedonism,and individualism that haunts our (particularly American) culture. Just to be clear, he defines his terms:

Minimalism: What's the least I can get away with?
Hedonism: Pursuit of pleasure is my chief end
Individualism: My own needs & wants are more important than the general good of society

Of course, these problems are hardly new; ancient societies (particularly Rome) wrestled with the same problems.

Right now in my own life & ministry, I'm struggling with the effects of minimalism.

I'm blessed to be working at a great parish; one that's supportive of youth ministry, has a dedicated young priest, an excellent religious education program, and parishioners who support the parish spiritually (prayer) and materially (resources).

However, despite a contingent of active, supportive parishioners, there are also a whole host of people on our parish mailing list who do little more than send their children to Religious Education each Wednesday for ninety minutes. That's the entire extent of their participation in faith: no Mass attendance, no prayer at home, no setting an example of a holy Christian life for their kids to observe. It's hardly a new problem in the Church, but one that drives me absolutely crazy.

I was nearly driven to screaming when, during February and March, we were preparing for the Living Stations of the Cross play performed by ninth and tenth graders right before Holy Week. The DRE and I decided that this would be a class endeavor: all ninth and tenth graders in religious education would be (ideally) involved in some capacity. Mindful that teenagers are insanely busy with school, sports, jobs, friends, families, etc., I devised four different levels of participation in the play: actors, singers, ushers, and babysitters. Between the sixty kids in the class, there's no reason why all four groups couldn't have adequate participation. After the first week of sign ups, I had two volunteers for actors (of a needed 18), three for choir, eight for ushers, and four babysitters.

After the initial week of apathy, I began a campaign of phone-tag and tracking kids down before they raced out the door on Wednesday night to personally invite them to take part in a beautiful opportunity. Three weeks later, I had thirteen actors, five choir members, eight ushers, and five babysitters. An improvement, to be sure, but given the amount of time and effort I've invested in announcements, bulletin blurbs, take-home handouts, phone calls, Facebook messages, and personal appeals it seems a paltry yield. This is minimalism at its zenith.By the end of the seven weeks of rehearsal, I had everyone I needed, but things barely came together at the last minute.

The attitude? "I have to come to CCD on Wednesday because you take attendance. But I certainly am not going to Mass, since 10:30 on a Sunday is far too early, and I won't give a rat's patoot about any other youth ministry events in our parish or Diocese, especially if it requires me to do more than show up and sit as a warm body in a chair."

How did we get here? How did this minimalism become so rampant? Even among "good kids" who do well in school and have it "together," I most often get blank stares when I pitch anything - even "fun" events like ski trips, lock-ins, movie nights, camping, and concerts. In a parish of 1100 families, half of which have children, we have an average participation of ten to fifteen kids at youth events. I know it's not a numbers game, but what about the other 95%? Why don't they care?

The phenomenon isn't limited to teenagers, either. Adults (particularly the "Lost Generation" raised in the 70s and 80s in a black hole of kumbaya, clown Masses, and poor catechesis) aren't any better. Most of the ushers, Eucharistic ministers, choir members, and prayer ladies in our parish are over 65. What happens to the Church when they're gone?

Minimalism drives me crazy. I used to have arguments about it with Evangelical friends before I was Catholic- friends who meant well but just couldn't understand my "fascination" with all the "extra stuff" in Catholicism. "It seems like you're just looking for a way to make more work for yourself," one told me. "Why can't you just be happy with the faith you have? You love Jesus- why do you need anything else!"

Why? Because we are not meant to be complacent. We're meant to push the envelope, and "being happy with the faith you have" in the context my friend was describing is a route to becoming lukewarm. And what does God think of that? "I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth." (Revelation 3: 15-16) Kimberly Hahn so eloquently writes, "I wasn't going forward in my faith, so I was going backward, since our relationship with Christ never stands still."

I don't know the cure for minimalism. I don't know how to inspire people to step out of their comfort zones. All I can do is pray.

The best of all Fridays

2009-04-10T09:44:00.006-05:00

Jen isn't hosting 7 Quick Takes this week, given that it's Good Friday, but I think I'm going to anyway, since it seems to be the only time I ever write.

--1--

Yesterday marked the beginning of Triduum and my three-year "Catholic Birthday;" the third anniversary of the first Holy Thursday when I, a very contented Evangelical, "accidentally" went to Mass with three wonderful Catholic friends and was so entranced by the beautiful liturgy that I had to keep coming back.

--2--

It may seem like a silly thing, but my favorite part of Holy Thursday's Mass is hearing the Gloria again. After a six week hiatus, we again echo the angels proclaiming "gloria in in excelsis deo!" For whatever reason we don't often sing the Gloria at my parish, so singing it in my favorite Mass setting after a long drought was like heaven on earth. And in fact, it was! Mass is heaven on earth! If you don't believe me, read Scott Hahn's take on the subject.

--3--

Living Stations was a huge success. I'm so proud of my students. I was horridly worried about it, but they came through in ways I never could've guessed, and really took ownership. I think this demonstrates, once again, that teenagers are capable of great things, far more than adults often give them credit for. If we set the standard high, they will meet it and be better for it.

--4--

A year ago at this time I was six weeks away from graduation with no idea what I would be doing. Now I'm happy in a job I love, two hours away from most of my friends, but still very happy overall. Ironically, I've had a handful of emails from friends and colleagues in the past weeks about other job opportunities; jobs I would've leaped at a year ago... but I can confidently decline them, knowing that it's far more important for me to be here. At first those emails were a horrendous temptation, but now I can just be thankful and flattered for their offers and re-assert that I need to be here.

--5--

This video makes me smile. A lot. And not just because the priest is really, really good looking.

--6--

Spiritual warfare has been on my mind a lot lately. It seems to be coming up a lot, either with friends, co-workers, or students. A youth minister friend at a different parish was dealing with some very scary things happening in her building, so we figured out a plan to get the priest to do a blessing/sprinkle some holy water, and we brainstormed prayers to say, saints to invoke, etc.... and thank God it seems to have worked. On Wednesday night one of my eighth graders casually mentioned that she and her friends love playing Ouija boards and holding seances... and I tried very hard not to scare her as I explained that those things are *not* a good idea, since they open us up to very bad things like demonic influence. I really hope that I didn't scare her too much, but if it's a choice between her being too scared to do it again or too apathetic to realize that occult practice are NOT GOOD THINGS... I'd honestly prefer she be a little freaked out.

--7--

Our Holy Father is the man. This isn't really news; just the latest episode of papal awesomeness. Papa B has come under so much fire lately for speaking the truth (!), and he and all bishops need our prayers.

I suppose this is technically and "eighth take" but... The Novena of Divine Mercy starts today!

Friday... whew!

2009-03-27T15:36:00.004-05:00

--1--

I'm glad it's Friday, but I'm terrified that it's Friday. Friday means that Monday is only two days away and my term paper for my Old Testament class isn't done. Friday means that Wednesday is only five days away and I still have twenty-four costumes and accessories to finish for my 9th and 10th graders' Living Stations. Methinks this will be a weekend without much sleep and lots of caffeine.

--2--

Last Friday I didn't post because I was at a Diocesan conference on "parish revitalization." The first day of the conference was fantastic, mainly due to its amazing keynote speaker, Leisa Anslinger. However, I almost walked out of Friday's session, and many of my collegues did. Friday's keynote was Paul Wilkes, a less-than-orthodox Catholic known for his dissent from the CDF's document Dominus Iesus (and other things) and his less-than-positive view on our clergy. The morning started with his declaration that "the age of priests is over. It's time for the age of the laity!" Yes, we're living in a post VII world. Yes, laity are important. But the way he said it (and in the larger context of his talk) he seemed to be saying, "move over, guys with collers! You're washed up!" His wording was so eerie it actually gave me flashbacks to this guy -----> saying," "The age of Men is over. The time of the Orc has come." Anyway, he was giving away issues of the National Catholic Distortor/Reporter; that should have been my first clue that I was in for a long, frustrating day. Oy.

--3--

Despite Paul Wilkes and his boo-hiss Church schpeel, last weekend I was incredibly encouraged by the many faithful Catholic youth at the YOUTH2000 retreat in Madison run by the CFR brothers and sisters. The CFRs are a great community, and their honesty and pastoral approach to the truths of our Faith was awesome. The kids all seemed to respond really well. I was sitting with kids from St. Ambrose Academy though, so most of them are already from rockstar Catholic families. But even public school studnets seemed to be responding well. It was beautiful. I cried, especially at the end of the weekend when brothers invited anyone who had felt a preistly or religious calling that weekend to come forward. Three of "my" girls and three of "my" boys from St Ambrose went up, and I felt buyoed with so much hope I was soon a blubbering mess. Hope! The New Evangelization is happening; there *is* a coming springtime in the Church!

--4--

I was able to chat with a college friend who is in Ave Maria University's Institute for Pastoral Theology Master's program; he couldn't stop raving about it. He encouraged me to look into it, and it looks like something I definitely will pursue when I finish Commissioned Ministries in three years. I like that it's part time and once a month; I like that I can trust the professors will be from an orthodox theological background; I like it a lot! Something to keep in mind.

--5--

The Feast of the Annuciation was Wednesay, and so I kicked off my nine-month Novena (ending Christmas Day). My intentions list is really, really long this year. Really long. But I entrust it all to Blessed Mary and her powerful intercession!

--6--

I have had some more vocational clarity of late. Thanks so some brave people in my life who told me things I needed to hear, I'm getting closer to actually discerning my vocation *for real* rather than constantly waiting to discern. That sure will be nice.

--7--

I may have found a new spiritual director. I'm excited about this possibility. Spiritual directors = Made of Awesome. I love Fr. Philip's awesome post about SD here.

Finally Jumping on the Bandwagon....

2009-03-13T09:43:00.013-05:00

It's no secret that I am a huge fan of Jen F's Conversion Diary. "Huge fan" might be an understatement; in fact, between Jen and Thomas Peters over at The American Papist, perusing the blogosphere has become as much a part of my morning routine as a cup of tea.

Anyway, for a while now Jen has been hosting a fantastic tradition called "Seven Quick Takes Friday" in which we all list seven tidbits, not substantial enough for their own complete posts, but should be out there anyway. Given, also, that I've become really, really lax at regular writing on this thing, it might be a good way to make sure I blog about *something* at least on Fridays. We'll see. But for now, here we go!

--1--

I'm getting more and more excited -- and more and more nervous -- for our 9th and 10th grade classes' Living Stations of the Cross performance, coming up in a mere three weeks. Because this is a new thing at the parish, the kids are understandably hesitant, especially since it involves 18 of them wearing costumes and saying a memorized monologue in front of perhaps 200+ people. However, I'm going to try to stay calm about it. After all, every other time I've directed/costumed/acted/been somehow involved in a Living Stations, things are horribly stressful until right before showtime... and then they usually go off without a hitch. Deep breaths. Jesus, I trust in you!

--2--

My sister has been accepted to two colleges so far. Neither is her first choice, but it's good to know she has options. I'm still hoping she'll be going to the conservatory 40 minutes from my house.... but we won't know all the admissions decisions for about three more weeks. Gah, I remember that awful time of limbo, waiting to hear from schools.... is there any better way to to torture a seventeen year old?

--3--

In the past month or so I've gone on an intense health food kick, mostly a response to reading Michael Pollan's fantastic book, In Defense of Food. His thesis: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." I feel about 150% better physically and emotionally when I eat well, so there's really no downside. Appropriate for Lent, too, as any sort of processed, sugary anything is certainly not what Mr. Pollan classifies as "food," but he instead calls an "edible food-like substance." It's far easier to ignore the recently-delivered boxes of Girl Scout cookies in my pantry when I remember that they are "edible food-like substances."

--4--

Yesterday at the store, I silently grumbled that the price of blueberries had risen from $3.99 a pint to $3.29 for half a pint in the last week. However, such a dramatic price change didn't affect my ability to buy the berries, and I realized what a luxury it is that I can buy whatever I want to eat, shop at a grocery store full of fresh produce, drive home in my nice car, and store them all in my refridgerator. It's a damn tragedy that 85% of the world (and a sizeable percentage of Americans,even) doesn't have the same privilege. Like Elton John sings, "Times have changed and now the poor get fat..." The vast majority of people can't afford to feed their children fresh fruits or vegetables, and instead must resort to processed, sugary, fast-food like meals composed of "edible food-like substances." I don't know the solution, but it makes me very angry.

--5--

This morning Larry D over at Acts of the Apostasy posted a truly disgusting story about a British scientist who wants to use the organs and tissues of aborted babies. It's a horrible story,but needs to be read and shared. God have mercy on us all.

--6--

So far I'm loving St. Teresa of Avila's The Interior Castle. It's also helpful that two friends are reading it along with me, so we keep one another accountable to our reading pace and get to discuss. St. Teresa's humility is striking; practically every page contains a vehement plea that she's not worthy to write this or that no one could possibly find it helpful or fruitful. Beautiful.

--7--

Lately I've been wrestling a lot with the need for social justice **and** personal spirituality in one's life as a Christian, especially a Catholic Christian. In my parish personal spirituality is a very unpopular thing; devotions are almost unheard of, and prior to this liturgical year we didn't even have Adoration with any regularity. However, there's a thriving social justice component. I'm trying to figure out how to get these two crucial aspects of our Faith in better balance, especially with my students.

Bad Blogger...

2009-02-23T11:26:00.004-06:00

It's been a month since I posted anything! Yikes!

Not that I don't have anything to say... in fact, I have three posts in progress.... but the last month has been unbelievably busy. I used to think that once I was finished college and had a "real" job my life would be a nice 9-5 routine of predictability. Not so much! Maybe people with Office-Space-esque existences have that sort of routine... but youth ministers sure don't.

Anyway, the last month has been frustrating. And beautiful. And encouraging, and full of trials.

But God is good. So, so good. He pours out on my when I least deserve it; he lifts me up when I am starting to get discouraged.

Looking at things critically, it's rather easy to see why the last few weeks have been so wonderful, and so hectic: my prayer life has rocked. I mean, really. This is due in part to the arrival of The Handbook of Prayers, which contains so much spiritual food-for-thought that I will be discovering new gems in there for months to come. Also, I've spent an insane amount of time in the car lately for both work and personal things, and long road trips provide lots of time for Rosaries, Divine Mercy Chaplets, and extemporaneous prayer. In addition, my charism for music in prayer has been fed by several new rockin' CDs: one with popular Psalms in nice choral arrangements, a Taize mix I've made, and the newly-finished demo album for The Garden (finally!).

Also, my eyes have been more "spiritually open" lately. I finally got my hands on Peter Kreeft's Angels and Demons: What Do We Really Know About Them? and can't recommend it highly enough. I think I've always been a tad sensitive to angelic presences; I am pretty astute at recognizing spiritual warfare and asking for angels to come fight for those under attack, but Kreeft's book helped to digest some of what the Church teaches about the many choirs of angels (and demons)- their natures, their existences, their goals. It's kind of a Cliff's Notes version of what St. Thomas Aquinas writes about in the Summa.

Anyway, Lent is almost upon us. My favorite liturgical season by far, Lent is going to (hopefully) rock this year. More on that later.

The Passing of an Age

2009-01-20T09:33:00.011-06:00

"...and so the fourth Age of Middle-Earth began."

It's probably because I'm filled with hope after a week-long Lord of the Rings marathon, but I refuse to feel less than hopeful about today.

Instead, I'm enjoying my work day. I won't be listening to the radio or watching television or checking CNN at all today because I'll probably just throw up. Granted, it's wrong to pre-judge someone, and I do pray that Obama lives up to his predecessors and does in fact "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God." We can worry about a whole host of issues, but it's much more fruitful to be proactive: to pray, fast, and work against evil than just wring our hands in frustration.

I know the confetti and shiny lights and fanatical crowds are distracting, but just for a moment, let's try to remember that $150 million is being spent on the One's coronation, despite soaring unemployment, immense debt, slow growth, and a tanking stock market. When the Bush Administration spent $40 million four years ago, all we heard was howls of distress about irresponsible spending. But today? Not a peep. Interesting.

The always-awesome Fr. Z posted a beautiful prayer written by the Archbishop of Baltimore way back in 1791. It's a good reminder that our work begins *now.* Regardless of my disagreements with him, Obama is an intelligent, clever man who is capable of greatness. Let's pray that he allows God to use his gifts for the benefit of our country and not its detriment.

There is always hope. Not hype, but hope. True hope.

"Hold your ground! Hold your ground. Sons of Gondor! Of Rohan! My brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of Men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the Age of Men comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!

Subtle Selfishness

2009-01-09T12:00:00.003-06:00

Last week I heard joyful news: two more sets of friends are engaged! I’m thrilled for them, really, and can’t wait to celebrate with them in the next wedding season. So far there are “only” four weddings planned for next summer among my friends, as opposed to the eight last year and the five the summer before. Of course, all this talk of marriage usually puts me in an inward tizzy about my own vocation and current state of singleness. For the past year or so I’ve fiercely resisted set-ups and blind dates, protesting that I love being single, I enjoy being utterly independent, and I’m too selfish to be a good wife and mother right now. “Someday” when I tired of the singleness thing I’ll turn my Claddagh ring around and open my heart to potential suitors. I assert that, at t only twenty-three, I have years of fertility left and no reason to freak out about my biological clock just yet.

That theory got sort of a beating this morning. Thinking about selfishness and its incompatibility with Christian marriage, I heard a rote response forming in my head, “I’m selfish, and darn it, I like it! Too selfish to be married right now, that’s for sure.” I know that to be a good wife to someone someday I need to learn how to die to myself for the good of the other and be joyfully willing to lay aside my own interests and concerns for my husband’s. However, as a single person I don’t have to do that. Ever! Now that I’m finished college and don’t have roommates anymore, I can be as selfish as I want! I don’t have to worry about what sort of decorating color scheme I want in the bathroom, because no one will disagree with me. I don’t have to worry about playing my music too loudly, because no one is trying to study in the next room. I can turn the heat up as high as I’d like, because I’m the only person responsible for the electric bill. As I thought about the litany of benefits to this singleness, it hit me: by relishing my small acts of selfishness I’m not practicing selflessness. I’m getting very comfortable not having to worry about other people. If I don’t begin actively combating my selfishness, how on earth will I do it when I fall in love? I’ll be so out of practice that I’ll probably fail.

Here’s the catch, though. How do I learn self-denial right now? I don’t live extravagantly, so I’m not overindulging on luxuries like designer clothes or a new car or a fancy home entertainment system. How do I learn to give of myself? What are good exercises in self-denial that will help me learn to put myself second? How do I really take up my cross? Something I’ll be praying about as we start getting ready for Lent.

Sing of Mary, Pure and Lowly

2008-12-12T14:00:00.010-06:00

Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. As Fr. Paul pointed out in his homily this morning, there have been two great Marian feasts within a week of each other: Immaculate Conception on Monday, and Our Lady of Guadalupe today. Advent is a time when we (rightly) focus on Jesus’ First Coming and look forward to His Second Coming. However, Mary can appropriately be thought of as the saint of Advent. Without her “yes,” would Jesus have been born? Who knows? But Mary, like all humans created in God’s image, had free well. She could have said no. She said yes.

A few years ago I was in a class for my minor (in Latino/a studies). We were looking at various works of Chicano/a art, especially focusing on the Brown Power Movement of the 1960s. One of the paintings we studied was Yolanda Lopez’ "Portrait of the Artist as the Virgin of Guadalupe." It portrays, unsurprisingly, the artist’s self portrait in the traditional garb of the Virgin as she appeared to Juan Diego in 1531. I’m still unsure of how I feel about it. I wasn’t Catholic then, but I was very close to becoming one, and I’d been praying the Rosary for a few months and drawing closer to Jesus through Mary. My initial reaction was one of discomfort; why would Lopez feel the need to change the image of the Blessed Mother that is beloved and cherished throughout Latin America? What is she trying to say about herself, Mary, or women in general? Many of my classmates reacted positively; they thought that portraying Mary as a “strong, independent” woman (running freely, letting her cloak fly back and reveal her legs, etc.) was a much-needed message of liberation for women. They put a lot of emphasis on the “impossible” and “paradoxical” standard Mary sets for women: in the Catholic Faith (and Latino cultures in particular), Mary embodies true femininity. However, my classmates frowned on this, claiming that Mary’s two roles as a virgin and a mother are conflicting and set too high a standard for women, suppressing their sexuality and discouraging women from having roles other than “virgin” or “mother.”

They’ve got this so totally backwards!

There is a delightful little book about St. Michael the Archangel which contains hymns, prayers, and stories about St. Michael. My favorite part is the first chapter, which opens with an (imagined) account of Mary’s Assumption. Michael greets Mary, his Queen, and tells her the time is coming. The author writes a little about Mary’s memories, and her wry amusement that people will remember her as “Mary, meek and mild.” Meek and mild? Ha! I’ve never met an archangel myself, but based on how the shepherds reacted (they were sore afraid), I’ll bet that they’re not chubby babies with fluffy wings. Angels would be terrifying to an unprepared human! And yet Mary takes Gabriel’s visit totally in stride (Luke 1) when he shows up in her garden/room/kitchen (we don’t know which) and tells her she’s going to become pregnant with the Messiah. Meek and mild? To stand in the presence of a prince of heaven and not freak out? To accept her role as an unwed pregnant mother knowing she could be stoned and her family disgraced? To know that even if she survived the pregnancy and birth that she would have her heart pierced with sorrow when her Son left her home to pursue his mission? Mary had guts! She had moxie! She was brave! When we hear “meek and mild” in our post-modern times, we envision a wilting flower damsel in distress with no personality, brains, talent, or skills. Mary couldn’t be further from this!

Maybe secular feminists (not authentic JPII feminists) have a problem with Mary because her life focused on her role as a mother. But what’s wrong with that? Certainly women aren’t only capable of being mothers, but to belittle women who accept that vocation is immature and arrogant. Recently I read about Rebecca Walker, 38-year-old daughter of (in)famous feminist Alice Walker, who finds motherhood to be a joy and privilege and loves her children with all her heart. This is beautiful! Good for her! Mary, like all other mothers, laid down her life for her son with she was carrying and birthing him. Women die in childbirth all over the world, and even though the rates have gone down as medical care improves, the gift of life and self-sacrifice that mothers make for their children is invaluable.

Mary, as a mother, did this for Jesus. But she’s also our mother; the spiritual mother to all Christians (John 20:26-27) and the mother of the Church. That’s a pretty big job! I know an amazing women who has eleven children (wow!), but Mary, as everyone’s mother, has many billions of children! Can you imagine keeping track of that many children’s prayer requests, soccer practices, food preferences, and ballet recitals? But she does! She is Queen of Heaven, Queen of Apostles, Queen of Angels. Mary fights for her children when we ask her to. She draws us closer to her Son Jesus. Mary isn’t meek and mild, but a strong, independent women who puts others before herself, lives out her vocation to its fullness, and honors God in all of her actions. Why wouldn’t you want her as a role model?

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas, ora pro nobis!

ZPG Thinking Reaps What It Sows

2008-12-02T15:47:00.013-06:00

When my mother was in college, she signed a "Zero Population Growth" pledge: she planned to have only two children, so that the population wouldn't continue "growing wildly out of control." I find it beautiful - and hilarious - that she's the mother of three, one of whom (me) is a Catholic who will hopefully raise a large family (if God allows me that privilege). However, millions of other people raised in the sexual revolution era made good on their promises and had only one or two children. My generation isn't doing much better, delaying marriage and children until the late twenties or thirties and often frowning upon couples who have more than two (or, God forbid!) three children. After forty-odd years of this behavior, there were bound to be some consequences. The Demographic Winter is coming, and it isn't going to be pretty.

Last week my long-awaited copy of Demographic Winter arrived. The film was excellent. Disturbing, but excellent; the scholarship was well-informed and presented the argument for the dangers of depopulation from many angles: economic, sociological, environmental, etc. They didn’t touch on the morality-based reasons population is declining, but neither did they sugarcoat the truth about how the sexual revolution was pretty darn horrible for family stability and world population maintenance. My only critique of the film is that it doesn’t really offer a solution to our problem; rather, the experts seem to all throw up their hands with a sort of “Yup, we’re screwed” attitude.

The mainstream media is really good at ignoring crucial issues if they’re politically incorrect, but, as usual, this will eventually come around to bite them from behind. It’s kind of a beautiful irony, if you ignore the whole pesky “denying-the-inherent-dignity-of-human-life” aspect.

World birth rates are declining. Rapidly. This will eventually come to everyone’ attention when our Social Security system goes (completely) bankrupt, but until then, it’s a silent but deadly snake in the grass. If it weren’t for immigration, the populations of both Western Europe and the United States would already be far below replacement rate (2.1 children per woman). Even developing countries are seeing vast declines in population. This has all sorts of catastrophic consequences explained in the film. However, I’m going to find a silver lining.

In the U.S. at least, some of the only people having more than two children per family are…. Practicing Christians, specifically, NFP-using faithful Catholics. (and Mormons, apparently, though I’m not aware if Mormonism has a specific teaching about family planning). While it’s tragic that the remaining 98% of the population isn’t experiencing the joy of fertility appreciation, eventually they’ll die out. Look at the numbers:
Say there are 200 people, or 100 couples, in an imaginary model society. 98% of them contracept and have, at most, two children per family. For the sake of an easy model, if they replace themselves each generation with 2 children per family, there will always be 98 contracepting couples, or 196 people born each generation. The remaining 2 couples are faithful Catholics who use prayer and discernment to let God decide family size, via NFP. They have, on average, five children per family and instill in their children the same pro-family values.

Generation 0: 196 people, or 98 contracepting couples, plus 4 pro-family people = 2 pro- family, pro-fertility couples.
Generation 1: Contracepting Postmodernists(CPMs): 196 children born, who grow into 98 couples. Pro-family faithful Catholics (PFFCs): First generation of 2 couples yields 10 children, or five couples.
Generation 2: CPMs: same number: 196 born, 98 couples. PFFCs: 25 children born to five couples, and those 25 children grow into 12 couples (one will be a priest, of course!).
Generation 3: CPMs still going strong at 196 children born. PFFCs have 60 children who grow into 30 couples.
Generation 4: CPMs are at 196 children. PFFCs closing in with 150 children or 75 couples.
Generation 5: CPMs staying at 196 children. PFFCs have 375 children or 187 couples (plus a priest).
Generation 6: CPMs still have 196 children. PFFCs have taken a commanding lead, 935 children or 467 couples (and another priest! No vocation shortage in this model!)

Within five generations (and especially by the sixth), contraceptors have become a minority group- literally culling themselves out of existence. Wow! So if a generation is usually about 25-30 years long, within 150-180 years the anti-family crowd should die out. However, that’s assuming that none of the pro-family children jump ship and start contracepting. But in my own anecdotal experience, the people I know (at least the other young adults I know) who come from large, faithful Catholic families are NFP-using pro-family advocates. Thus, there’s some truth to this little fable. Of course, it’s just a model, and doesn’t account for things like acceptable, serious reasons to limit family size via NFP, so not *every* PFFC family will have the “average” of five children.

It’s been two generations since the introduction of widespread contraceptive use. And things are already pretty messed up because of it. It’s only going to get worse, I’d imagine, but in the end, the truth will prevail (which it has a funny way of doing): Mess with procreation and you open a pretty nasty Pandora’s box.

Pop Culture Immersion

2008-11-25T12:00:00.016-06:00

This past weekend I spent a lot of time observing and participating in a pop culture phenomenon: specifically, the much-hyped new Twilight film. I won’t get specific about it because there are many other places that do, but I did really enjoy all four novels and the first movie. A sequel based on the second book, New Moon, got the go-ahead from studio execs when Twilight recouped its entire production cost ($37 million) in the first twenty-four hours after its release. I’ve been to several other midnight-showing experiences with a built in fan base (Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter), but Twilight was different because neither its genre (young adult romance) nor target demographic (teenage girls) aren’t typically big earners for studios and don’t get a lot of recognition. After a $70.6 million opening weekend, Twilight became the highest-earning movie directed by a woman (Catherine Hardwick).

It seems that this year has been kind of a wake-up call for studios. High School Musical 3: Senior Year also made lots of money from a teenage-girl crowd, and Sex and the City: The Movie was a hit with the 20s and 30s yuppie set. Films about women or films that appeal to women have done very well financially. I think Hollywood has long neglected the spending power of teenage girls and young women. This is certainly a mistake, since teenagers have more disposable income than most other groups (assuming they have jobs or allowances and no expenses) and seeing a movie with friends is usually a more popular thing to do for girls than for boys. I'm no film historian or market analyst, but I think that most big movies are aimed at a male or gender-neutral audience: think the Batman franchise, Harry Potter, the Bond films, Bourne series, etc. However, Twilight had a bigger opening than any James Bond film.

This is interesting to me, because while lots of feminist-style “pro-woman” movies (like Sex and the City) have done reasonably well at the box office, not one of them even comes close to Twilight. The Twilight Saga, written by Mormon stay-at-home mom Stephenie Meyer, is an untraditional vampire romance series. There’s all the usual bloodlust, secrecy, and werewolves-versus-vampires action, but the series is also an ode to chastity and traditional values. Bella and Edward (the teenage heroine and her 108-year-old undead boyfriend) barely kiss in the first novel and don’t make love until their wedding night in the fourth installment. His behavior toward her always is protective and chivalrous, and he goes out of his way to be polite to Bella’s friends and family. When Bella becomes pregnant with his half-human, half-vampire child, she opts to carry the baby rather than terminate a pregnancy that nearly kills her. One of the things Bella loves most about her life with Edward is his family: six other “vegetarian” vampires who survive on animals instead of people and love each other as much as human siblings do. Bella, the child of divorced parents, thrives under the loving attention of her in-laws, especially Edward’s sugary-sweet sister, Alice.

The Twilight novels (and now, movie) have been criticized for being anti-feminist, and I can understand that accusation even if I don’t agree with it. Bella does everything a post-modern woman shouldn’t do: she falls in love in high school, has notably low self-esteem, is engaged before graduation, marries at eighteen, is pregnant right away, doesn’t abort her unplanned child, becomes a vampire in order to live forever with Edward, and gives up acceptance to Dartmouth College to stay with her husband and new daughter. From the outside, Twilight is certainly anti-feminist.

However, what does it really mean to be a feminist? There’s a lot of talk about what modern women ought to do and be, and I’ve always been skeptical that things are much better for women now that we’re “liberated.” It seems to me that authentic feminism- the kind John Paul II wrote about in Mulieris Dignitatem and his Letter to Women - isn’t about liberation from the oppression of men, but rather the oppression of Satan. Everyone is struggling with this sort of oppression, not just women, or course, but because men and women are fundamentally different (if equal in dignity), we women have a different way of fighting evil, embracing our vocations, and contributing to the world than men do.

Thinking about Twilight’s unprecedented success, I began to wonder if all the “girl power” and postmodern feminist hoopla isn’t leaving girls empty and cold. It certainly had that effect on me for a while, until I read Stasi Eldridge’s fantastic book Captivating. Her book is exquisite, capturing the longing we women have to be pursued and beautiful, but also emphasizing our innate need (and ability) to be active participants in an epic story; to be warrior princesses like Eówyn or Lucy, not damsels in distress like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty.

My friend Dave Stiennon, a guy who admits to not only reading, but actually liking, the Twilight novels, wrote about why they appeal to so many women a few weeks ago. He writes (emphasis mine):

“#1: Women feel vulnerable, in a way that men really don’t. This was definitely the vibe I got from Bella [the heroine and narrator], partly with her constantly falling into danger either from freak accidents or from malevolent extras, but partly just from the way she sees the world. It struck me that the first thing that makes her really attracted to Edward isn’t that he is handsome or that he is kind to her (other characters, particularly Jacob, are this) . It is that he makes her feel secure and protected.

#2: Many women don’t realize how attractive they really are. I think part of the reason Bella seems like a jerk from an outside perspective is that a large number of sympathetic readers do not see themselves as being particularly loveable. Furthermore, Bella seems to genuinely not realize that she is the most beautiful girl in the school. I know that me and my other dude friends (as far as I can tell) experience lack of confidence sometimes, but it is of a different nature. This seems to be the other thing that makes Edward so attractive to Bella, more than his being kind and handsome. It is that he makes her feel beautiful. It isn’t just by admiring her looks, it’s by doing things like where he spends the entire day grilling her for every detail of her life. It makes her feel special. It makes her feel important. It makes her feel loveable.

#3 Women tend to be more binary about being in love. In other words, either you are or you aren’t. Girls, I invite you to correct me if I am wrong here, but I think that us guys are unique in this attitude: That we see every girl we meet as a potential mate. We might rule you out pretty quickly, but we always evaluate the possibility. Furthermore, when faced with breakup or rejection, I think it is easier for us to say, “I think I could have been happy with her forever, but it just wasn’t meant to be. Broken hearts heal eventually, and there are lots of good fish in the sea”. Bella seems to have a remarkably different approach. Even with boys who obviously like her, such as Mike and Jacob, she seems to have zero interest in them, and to be a little annoyed by their advances. With Edward, in contrast, there is little development before she is irrevocably in love with him.

#4: You might notice, I’ve hardly mentioned the theme of vampirism so far. That’s because I don’t think that whole vampire thing by itself is at the emotional core of the story. However, I do think vampirism is important to the story in how it is used as an analogy for marriage and for sexual desire. Consider: For Bella to really become united with Edward, she would have to become a vampire herself. To do this, she would have to leave behind her family and friends, not in the sense of never seeing them again, but in the sense of parting ways, in favor of Edward and his family. The commitment would be forever. It is appears to be wonderful and desirable, but at the same time it is a terrifying leap of faith. I know that’s how I feel about marriage, and I bet it is even more so for women.

I also think that Edward’s thirst for Bella’s blood is meant to be an allegory for the desire for sex that all men have. Ladies, if I guess right on the significance of Twilight, you understand this already, but just in case, let me explain: all men want sex all the time. It’s a constant, aching hunger, it starts around the age of twelve, and it never stops. We aren’t consciously thinking about it all the time, but it’s always there in the background. Most boys get some level of civilized control over it eventually, but in the mean time, we are in junior high school, and this is a big part of why every one of us is a total jerk in junior high school.”

(it's a great post; but the rest is on Facebook and so not available to the general public).

One of the biggest (if not the biggest) reason Twilight has such rabid fan base among teenage girls is the character of Edward Cullen. At the various movie events these past few months, it's Robert Pattinson, the actor playing Edward, who elicits the most screaming, fainting, and marriage proposals. This is probably pretty uncomfortable for Rob himself, but I can understand the mania. Edward (and Rob) is incredibly attractive, but that’s not the main reason women love him. Twilight is written from Bella's perspective. Because it's first-person, and she has love-goggles on, we very rarely see any flaws in Edward. To Bella, he's perfect. It's not until the fourth book, which is partially narrated by Bella's best friend and Edward's rival Jacob (a werewolf, of course), that we hear anything negative about Edward. Like Bella, millions of young girls have fallen in love with the idealized version of Edward, one without any flaws. Edward embodies an old-fashioned Byronic hero in his chivalry, concern, and love for Bella, but it's always struck me as a tad unhealthy that Bella (and fans) see him as utterly perfect. No one is perfect! However, Bella (and fans) are willing to overlook his flaws because he is so willing to put himself second. Edward puts himself in danger time and time again to save his girlfriend/fiancée/wife, and that protection is incredibly attractive to women. Even though we are certainly capable of fighting alongside guys, we like them to man up and do what they’re supposed to do.

This is something sorely lacking in many guys today, especially the teenage guys young girls see on a daily basis. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not male-bashing, and I know a lot of incredibly good men who are like Edward- strong, protective, loving, and all that. However, the average fifteen year old boy just isn’t. As Eldridge writes so often in Captivating, women are designed for pursuit. This pursuit is intended to lead us to Jesus, but lacking that relationship, we’ll settle for any guy that pursues because it’s what we’re made for. Millions of teenage girls are in love with Edward Cullen because he’s everything they think they need but can’t get from their male peers.

Culture tells young men that they should be James Bond, not Edward Cullen. Bond has a different partner in every film. Women are transitory and unimportant, pretty accessories pursued solely for the chase and the drive for sex. For Edward, his love for Bella couldn’t be more opposite. He's in love with her for her beauty and her brain and personality, but is aware that he might not be the healthiest person for her. In fact, he spends much of the first novel and part of the second trying to convince her that he's not good enough for her. Edward knows they can’t sleep together or his bloodlust will take over. Additionally, he strongly believes in saving sex for marriage, and he and Bella save intimacy for their honeymoon. It takes four very thick novels to get Bella and Edward in bed together, and Edward is so worried about hurting Bella that he would’ve been content to wait longer.

It was certainly entertaining and interesting to watch the Twilight movie phenomenon unfold. I'm glad millions of young ladies are swooning over someone like Edward rather than a less "moral" hero, but at the same time, I'm sad that they don't have the same intense longing for Christ. I guess that's why I have a job!

I am a Disney Princess

2008-11-14T15:46:00.009-06:00

It's been about a year since Disney's Enchanted was released, and in that time I've seen it in the theater six times, downloaded the soundtrack from iTunes, bought the DVD the first day it was available, memorized every song and line, and had my hair dyed strawberry blonde so I could be Giselle for Halloween. I didn't make my costume out of curtains, instead settling for the more conventional "fabric bought at a store" idea, but I had so much fun as Giselle that it was bound to have some consequences.

There's a mouse in my office.

I know exactly why, too. After the middle school Halloween party I gave at the parish, I trilled Giselle's "Happy Working Song" as I cleaned up. ("...come my little friends / as we all sing a happy little working song / merry little voices clear and strong...."). It worked! I have a little friend who has come to live in my office. Though he's not a chipmunk, I've named him Pip, after Giselle's littlest friend. He's adorable. I first discovered him last week before religious ed; I was assembling some flyers and heard a peculier shuffling and scratching in the sparkly orange bowl where I keep (wrapped) candy. It's been there since I began working here, and I always provide candy or other snacks to the kids at youth group. However, Pip heard me inviting him in few weeks ago with my singing a few weeks ago and moved right in. He's absolutely precious.

I know mice are not good things to have in houses or offices, but he's so cute I can't bring myself to set a trap. He has big black eyes and huge ears and has pretty soft brown-grey fur. The first time I saw him he was so scared he was shaking. But I told him it was alright; I wouldn't tell anybody. Of course, he's been visiting other offices too and leaving "presents" behind, so everyone's in an uproar about setting traps and poison, but I hope they don't catch him, because Pip hasn't really done anything to hurt anybody.

Now I just have to train him to clean things, learn charades, and rescue me from trolls and dragons the way Pip helps Giselle. Stay tuned.

Does this mean my Prince Edward is around to the corner? A man with James Marsden's blue eyes, cheekbones, and incredible voice would have me swooning and falling out a tree, too.

Armed and Dangerous!

2008-11-07T15:21:00.008-06:00

Unsurprisingly, Jen F. of Conversion Diary gave us another great post today. (seriously, someone give that woman a book deal already!)

Reflecting on her struggles and triumphs with prayer helped me remember my own, and I discovered one of the many reasons I've come to love the rosary: it keeps me focused. I'm more than a tad ADD when I'm talking with people, including God, and I have a tendency to become easily distracted. Wikipedia is like heroin for people like me; I can follow an endless chain of links through a maze of connected information. Sometimes I also have a problem with silence. In my last Integrative Spirituality class we tried out centering prayer and I found it immensely difficult. I love many of the other prayer techniques we experienced this semester, especially Ignatian and Franciscan prayer, but centering prayer was nearly impossible. The litany of internal chattering and list-making simply wouldn't shut up and I didn't experience any actual QT with God.

I've struggled with that for a long time, and when I was first discovering Catholicism, one of the most beautiful things I discovered about the rosary was its ability to focus and deepen my prayer. It's ironic, I think, because many Protestants accuse us of "vain, repetitious prayer" contrary to Jesus' words in Matthew 6:7: "And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words." But if I think about it, many of my extemporaneous prayers (as both a Catholic and when I was a Protestant) fall into that category. I simply loved Jen's "transcription" of her prayers. For me, they often go like this:

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Hi, Lord. Whew, what a day, huh? Thanks so much for keeping me safe when I was driving home tonight- that deer came out of no where. Please keep other travelers driving home tonight safe, too. St. Anthony, send us a few intercessions. Hmm. Why is St. Anthony the patron saint of travelers? I used to know this. St. Christopher disappeared after Vatican II, but no one really can explain why. Ok, I'll look it up later. Lord, I'm so nervous about [insert lots of family-related issues here]. Please, please watch over us. Dad wants me to look for a job at the CDC that pays twice what I make now but isn't working for the Church... what are your thoughts on that, God? I love my job. Oh shoot, I have to make sure I remember to make the Halloween party flyers to give out at CCD this week. And finish the monthly newsletter and finish making the music folders for youth choir. I wonder when I'm getting reimbursed for all my mileage? Oh, gees, Lord, I don't think I'm doing too well in the financial stewardship department lately. I need to get to confession pretty soon. But ugh, I don't know if I have time to go to Stevens Point this week...

Now, if I pray like that for fifteen minutes, most of which is not really dialogue with God but with myself instead, I haven't really accomplished much. Yes, I've thanked God for the good in my day, gone through my failings and asked for help in specific areas, but I've also spent a good deal of time babbling instead of listening. That's pretty much was Jesus warning against in Matthew 6:7.

However, it's an entirely different story when I pray the rosary. Each mystery focuses on a specifically beautiful moment in Jesus' life or the life of the Church, so for the following few minutes as I pray each decade I'm thinking about the Visitation, Jesus' Scourging at the Pillar, Mary's Assumption, etc. Because I'm focusing on a specific event my internal monologue shuts us. It's awesome. I love it. At the same time, I'm honoring Mary as Scripture predicted ("and all generations will call me blessed," Luke 1:48) and reminding myself of the key events in Jesus' life. Pretty sweet! Finally, I'm asking my Blessed Mother to pray for me, and I know she will.

Discipline in prayer life can be a hard habit to master. It's far, far, far, far easier when I have a systematic way to approach prayer. Notice this doesn't mean I make my prayer static or cold or only a matter of fulfilling a duty. This is the beautiful thing about the Liturgy of the Hours. On days when I pray the Liturgy of the Hours, I stop at specific times to focus on God. The handy-dandy Magnificat has the whole month's worth right there, along with a reflection about a Saint or the day's readings.

Using prayer as a weapon is another relatively new concept in my faith understanding. As a child and teenager, prayer was to either ask God for things or thank him for things that happened. It wasn't until college that I became conscious of the true (and sometimes very scary) reality of spiritual warfare waging in our world and learned to use prayer as a tool against He-Who-Really-Sucks-Bigtime (stupid satan. Hate him. Ugh.) When I discovered the St. Michael Prayer and the story of how Pope Leo XIII wrote it, I was so excited. Maybe it's because I have kind of a crush on St. Michael the Archangel, but knowing that angels will rush in to help me if I ask is pretty sweet.

If I were to be a religious sister (note the slight quickening of my heartbeat- because I'm not yet totally sure whether I'm called to marriage or a sisterhood...) I would totally be a Dominican of some sort. More specifically, a Dominican Sister of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist. There are lots of things about Dominicans I love, but one of the smaller details is the reason they wear rosaries on their left sides. Soldiers in medieval times wore swords on their left sides, and the rosary is a great weapon against evil, so religious sisters and brothers often wear them there to signify their fight against evil via Mary's intercession. More on Mary's impact on spiritual warfare here. For a while I kept my rosary in the left-hand pocket of my pants/skirts to remind myself of this, but it kept getting tangled up, so I reverted to keeping it in my purse. The sentiment is still there, though.

I was thinking about this sort of thing today, especially. Beginning Monday is the 72-day Inauguration Novena, inspired by Rosaries for Life. We here on earth are the Church Militant. Not the Church-Sit-On-Our-Haunches. There is real evil in the world - genocide, poverty, hopelessness, abortion, exploitation, disenfranchisement - and one of the best ways to do our part as soldiers is PRAY.

St. Michael and all angels, pray for us!

For dominion is the Lord's

2008-11-04T10:59:00.005-06:00

For the past week I've been having nightmares- literal waking-up-shaking nightmares - about this election. I haven't had nightmares like this since the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in July, 2007, when I was terrified that someone would leak information about the book and the surprises would be ruined. This time the stakes are just a *tad* higher.

I'm nervous about the Obama-mania. Of my 700-odd friends on Facebook, over 2/3 have status updates pertaining to "Baracking the vote" or "voting for change" or "donating their status to spread the word about Obama." I guess that's only to be expected; after all, my generational cohort is particularly obsessed with the One. I'm nervous about FOCA, I'm nervous about the many important referenda also up for vote today. I'm nervous about judges; I'm nervous about marriage.

I'm encouraged, however, by this very excellent post about the wrongness of poll data. I'm encouraged because many people all over the country (including myself) spent the better part of last night/early this morning/today in a vigil before the Blessed Sacrament. A Solemn Novena to Our Lady of Victory, encouraged by Father Corapi, has been prayed all over the country.

Today is the feast of Saint Charles Borromeo, bishop of Milan and council Father of the Council of Trent. Trent was the Church's response to the Reformation; a clarification of doctrine, a time of new growth for the Church. Saint Charles is also the person responsible for organizing the religious education of children in a program called the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine.... or CCD. Saint Charles Borromeo, pray for us! Pray that voters might vote their consciences, not what "feels good" or is popular, but vote as the Holy Spirit directs them, to uphold the dignity of all human life.

I've done all that I can. I've prayed. I've fasted. I've voted. My work is done.

However, my (very wise) mother made a good point yesterday. No matter who wins- if it's Obama, McCain, or Joe the Plumber - God is still in control. Today's readings are absolutely beautiful, especially this part of the psalm:

For dominion is the LORD’s,
and he rules the nations.
To him alone shall bow down
all who sleep in the earth.

To him my soul shall live;
my descendants shall serve him.
Let the coming generation be told of the LORD
that they may proclaim to a people yet to be born
the justice he has shown.

In other words, "He's got the whole world in His hands."

I had a thought last night. My adoration shift was over at midnight, but I was having some pretty fruitful prayer time, so I stayed at the Cathedral until three-ish. During that time, I wondered if we can ask the souls of aborted children to pray for us. I don't see why not. After all, they have immortal souls, just like I do. They're part of the Communion of Saints. And there are over fifty million of them- just in the past forty years! That's quite a prayer army!

So, to all the souls of unborn children unjustly murdered, pray for us. Pray for healing for your mothers. Pray for the doctors who killed you. Pray for our nation.

The Forty Days for Life vigil saved over 400 children this fall. Praise God!

I'm not going to watch television tonight or stay up late feverishly checking my computer for updates. Instead I'll pray and go to sleep early, trusting in the Lord who has rule over everything. I'm pleading for the intercession of all holy saints and angels, but especially St. Thomas More, St. Michael the Archangel, and Our Lady of Victory.

Not my will, but thine. No matter what, my soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.

My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the low estate of His handmaiden,
For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name. And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm:
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and exalted those of low degree.
He has filled the hungry with good things;
and the rich He has sent empty away.
He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy;
As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to His posterity forever.
~Blessed Virgin Mary, Luke 1:46-55)

All you holy men and women, pray for us!

Inalienable Rights

2008-10-22T13:23:00.010-05:00

Lately it’s been really, really hard to keep my chin up when I watch the news/read the paper/drive around town amidst a sea of Obama/Biden signs. The latest polls put Obama solidly – meaning ten-points-plus – ahead of McCain. I’m hoping that the Ace of Spades is right in his assessment; specifically, that “the polls are crap.” I’m praying for a miracle, and I’m very serious about spending the night of November 3rd -4th in a vigil before the Blessed Sacrament with other miracle hopers. However, I’m beginning to feel like an elephant is on my chest whenever I’m online. Whether it’s Facebook, hulu.com, or even Wotmania, election news and election advertising is everywhere, and it’s suffocating. I feel like we're at the part of the horror movie where the whole audience is screaming, “Don’t go in there!” but the characters succumb to the false sense of security in their surroundings and let their guard down. In this post about the current bishop's meeting, Karen over at Some Have Hats nicely summed up the reasons I'm truly scared- not just uneasy or annoyed - with a potential Obama presidency. FOCA pushed through. Marriage ripped apart. Catholic professionals denied legal protection if they refuse to cooperate in laws or actions contrary to their faith.

I'm not saying that John McCain is perfect. I know he's not the ideal candidate, either. I'm against the war, against more drilling, against driving the budget further in the hole with tax policy we can't afford. I know he supports ESCR. I'm not a Republican. Absolutely not. But I'll vote for Republican candidates if they're the only ones standing up for the rights of the unborn. Taxes, gas prices, war, welfare, and healthcare are all crucial issues. But there are more important ones at stake. Once it's no longer legal to murder babies because they've been inconveniently conceived we can talk about taxes and healthcare.

Last week I visited with some old friends from high school. Our visit was lovely and fun until the subject of The One came up. I expressed my disgust for many of his past policies and future promises, but was utterly and incredulously shot down. One of my friends used the old “personally opposed” standby, remarking that, “I would never have an abortion, of course, but the reasoning for that is because it’s in the Bible. It’s religious. You can’t force your religious views on other people. It’s a woman’s body, and it’s her right.” I gently responded that one can arrive at moral conclusions in the absence of religion via natural law; such as: stealing has never been deemed acceptable in any society that we know of. We know, using nothing more than our brains and experience, that taking something from someone else is not a good thing. Same with the inherent evil of murder, and abortion is murder. She hastily switched topics, and we spent the remainder of our time somewhat awkwardly chatting about the parallels between Twilight and Buffy.

I feel a big rant coming on, and since I haven’t ranted in a long time, it’s overdue.

I am so, so, so, so, disgustingly sick of people – especially women- telling me that abortion is a woman’s right. The phrase, “right to choose” was crafted with exceeding cleverness, because in three small words it implies that 1)killing a baby is a choice and 2)if you don’t approve of killing babies you’re against women’s rights and therefore 3)you’re some kind of nut. Well fabulous.

The crux of the situation, though, is not about killing babies or women's bodies. It's the argument over what a “right” is. A human person, no matter how many cells he or she might be composed of, has an immortal soul. A human person is made in the image and likeness of God. A human person, even pre-born, has the same rights and dignity of the other seven billion human people who happen to have made it out of the womb and into the world. However, pro-abortionists would have us believe that human people only acquire those rights if their mother decides that they deserve them. This makes humans the authors of life, which, sorry guys, just isn’t the case. Babies come from sex. These two things (sex and babies) are designed to go together. With the exceptions of rape or abuse, babies do not come into being without a man and a woman choosing to have sex.

Let’s chat for moment about what a “right” is. A right is something a person has regardless of circumstance. For example, racial minorities, as human beings made in the image and likeness of God, have the rights of life, security, safe work environments, legal protection, and civil participation. The tragedies of racism and the need for the Civil Rights movement were ordained because African Americans (and others, of course) already had those rights by virtue of being human beings. Because their inalienable rights were being suppressed by unjust laws, those unjust laws had to be changed.

Every conceived person- no matter the circumstances of his or her conception – has a right to live simply because he or she is a human being and human beings deserve life.
The list of inalienable rights includes life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and some others nicely articulated in both the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights and the Church’s beautiful Gaudium et Spes. Notice that list of human rights doesn’t include something big. Sex.

Sex is a privilege, not a right.

Take a minute to absorb that. Again, excepting cases of rape or abuse, babies that result from sex are not accidents. As Dr. Janet Smith is fond of saying, an accident it crashing your car into a tree or falling on the ice. Accidents are things that happen out of sync with what we’d expect. Babies, however, are a sign that something went right- sperm met egg and a new life resulted. This is a good thing, a sign of health. People don’t get pregnant by accident. Throughout all of history, pregnancy only results because someone made a choice. Even the Virgin Mary had a choice to say “no thanks” when Gabriel brought God's message to her. Had she not been obedient and trusted God implicitly, things might* have been different (*a theological argument far beyond the humble scope of this little blog).

Driving a car isn’t a right, either. Giving the keys to someone who is unable to handle the responsibilities of driving is a recipe for disaster. The DMV knows this, and so there are all kinds of rules about who can drive and who can’t. My youngest sister is fourteen. She might want to drive. She might have the maturity and the dexterity and the judgment necessary to drive. But she’s fourteen years old. She hasn’t passed the driving test or learned how to drive safely. No matter how much she might want to drive, she can’t. Notice that she and her fourteen year old friends aren't holding rallies about it or begging their Congressmen for the "right to drive." Even as a teenager, she understands that driving is not a inalienable right, but rather a privilege.

Sex isn’t something people deserve because they’re over the age of majority. Sex isn’t something people deserve because they’re attracted to one another or because they love each other. Sex is a privilege. Something as powerful and holy as sex is not to be thrown about lightly, which is why the Church has always taught that it is only acceptable between men and women who are married. I am a single woman. Because I’m single, I’m not having sex. I might want to sometimes. Loving someone, being attracted to someone, or have the opportunity to have sex doesn’t change the simple fact that I am not married and therefore unable to participate in the privilege of having sex. Like the laws about driving age, the teachings of the Church about sex are for my own good and the general good of society. I'm not married, so it would be pretty darn tricky to raise a child all on my own. Some women are forced into such a situation and it's incredible how brave and strong they have to be. However, that's not the ideal situation for anyone- emotionally, economically, or otherwise. Even if I didn't become pregnant, the emotional upheaval of becoming one flesh with someone whom I might never see again would be an incredibly difficult burden to bear. Thus, for my own good and the good of others, I don't have the privilege to have sex.

Why is this such a big obstacle for people? I’ve been there. I’ve been in love and deeply attracted to someone. However, I do not have the right to have sex because I am not married. This shouldn’t be a difficult concept to grasp, but I think Christopher West hit the nail on the head. Our culture has taught us that we can’t control ourselves. We’ve (thankfully) defeated the heresy of angelism: thinking that our bodies (and therefore sex and sexuality) are bad or unclean. But the pendulum swung too far, to the heresy of animalism. Now we live a in a world that says that our impulses and instincts ought to rule us; that urges are natural and we should give in.

Paraphrasing Christopher West: If a dog walks into a room and sees a steak, he'll immediately run over and eat it. He won't stop to consider, "Well, I've already had three meals today and I'm not really hungry." Or, "maybe the next dog who comes in the room really needs to eat." Or, "This meat has been sitting out for a while; it might be rancid." Of course not. The dog is instinctual and designed to eat the steak. Cause, effect. Simple.

If we put ourselves in an analogous situation, we can either behave as humans or animals.
Scenario A: A young man and woman are in love and/or just be attracted to each other. They might have met earlier that evening or maybe they've been seeing each other for a while or may even be engaged. They really, really, really want to make love. Everything in their bodies is screaming "full steam ahead!" and so rather than deal with the uncomfortable idea of going home alone, they give in and make love. It might feel wonderful. It might be meaningful. But that doesn't change the reality that outside the confines of marriage vows their intimacy was wrong.

Scenario B: A young man and woman are in love and/or just be attracted to each other. They might have met earlier that evening or maybe they've been seeing each other for a while or may even be engaged. They really, really, really want to make love. Everything in their bodies is screaming "full steam ahead!" However, they know that they aren't married. They know the privilege of sex is denied to them. So with a sigh the separate, say goodnight, and go to bed alone. It might be frustrating. It might feel unfulfilling. But because they've honored each other and the specialness of sex, they'll be better off in the long run for their sacrifice.

Now, which couple is more like the dog with the steak- ruled solely by feelings and instincts - and which is embracing their own dignity and humanity by embracing the greater good by denying the here-and-now?

Postmodern culture sees nothing wrong with Scenario A. If if feels good, do it. And if the couple in Scenario A conceive a child, pro-abortionists see nothing wrong with the woman getting an abortion to rid herself of the inconvenience of a child- a child she said yes to when she and her partner had sex. This is part of a larger argument about why the Church opposes contraception, and I'll probably write about that in more detail someday. But the bottom line is that sex was designed for marriage, and marriage vows have four unbreakable parts: marriage is free, faithful, fruitful, and forever. Because God designed sex and marriage and babies to all go together, sex still plays by those rules even if marriage isn't part of the deal. Every act of sexual intimacy binds a couple into one flesh, sometimes through the conception of a new life. Even if sex doesn't produce a child, the couple has still given part of themselves to the other and that has its own set of consequences.

More central to the pro-life argument, however, is that sex is a privilege, not a right. Actions have consequences. If a couple chooses to have sex, they are choosing to deal with the consequences of sex. Sometimes those consequences include pregnancy. Pregnancy is meant to be a joyful thing: a new life has come into being because of love. A new soul has come into existence, and our human souls are immortal and will exist for the rest of eternity. This is big stuff!

Unlike having sex, having life is a right. Humans do not have the right to kill other humans (possible exceptions: self defense, just war. Again, both beyond the humble scope of my little blog). Sex is not a right. If you don't want to become pregnant, don't have sex. This is not rocket science. If A leads to B and B is an undesirable outcome for you, don't do A.

Rant over. Deep breaths.

I'm still going to be praying for a pro-life and pro-family presidency. Even if Obama wins, I'll pray that he does as little damage as possible. We won't know until November 4th (or 5th? Depending on when they finish counting?), but until then I won't abandon hope. Now that's audacity.

Best of Times/Worst of Times?

2008-10-12T12:51:00.001-05:00

What a week!

Bad things:
The stock market tanked. The Connecticut Supreme Court overturned the state’s gay marriage ban. Obama is leading the polls (despite the connection with Ayers). The Nitany Lions creamed the Badgers last night. I miss my family.

Good things:
It’s fall. Its’ beautiful- an utter symphony of beautiful colors, crisp air, and crunching leaves. Yesterday the final trailer for Twilight was released, and it looks fantastic. Any fears I had about the movie not doing homage to the novel seem to be allayed for now. And yesterday I drove sixty miles to meet a wonderful friend for coffee/dinner/chatting at the halfway point between our respective cities. It was a wonderful four hours of fellowship, laughter, and remembering just how awesome good friends are. Gas is blessedly cheap right now, $3.19. If I go to Fleet Farm and use my 4 cents off coupon it’ll only be $3.15. (aside: how ridiculous is it that $3.15/gal is “blessedly cheap?!”)

This week is my one week a month off from directing the childrens’/youth choir, and I get to go to Madison on Friday, star sewing my Halloween costume, and on Tuesday night I’m dying my hair red. I’m a little nervous about going redhead, but we’ll see how it turns out.

You've come a long way, baby

2008-10-09T14:05:00.015-05:00

I have a love-hate relationship with Google. I love its search engine, applications, and compatibility with seemingly everything, but I abhor its yuppie pretentiousness, new tendancy to stick its nose where it do esn't belong, and the direction it m ight be going (ha!).

But today I discovered this little gem: Google's oldest existing search index (from January, 2001) and have been having a little too much fun searching for people/terms that were not in existence/prominence back when I was a sophomore in high school (!).

Such as:

Horcrux
(no hits. At all. This was inspired by one of Jo's anecdotes in her online diary at jkrowling.com, now archived over at the Lexicon: "SEPTEMBER 29th, 2006
Sitting at my desk trying to invent a word yesterday brought back memories of the last time I did so. I had tried for days and days to hit upon the right name for 'the receptacle in which a Dark wizard has hidden a fragment of his soul for the purposes of attaining immortality.' Finally, after much transposition of syllables, I scribbled 'Horcrux' on a piece of paper and knew it was The One. But what if somebody had already used it? With some trepidation I typed 'Horcrux' into Google and, to my delight, saw what I was looking for: 'Your search - "Horcrux" - did not match any documents.'
So anyway, yesterday I Googled 'Horcrux' again. 401,000 results. As you might imagine, this gave me something of a lift as I went back to scribbling nonsense words on the back of a takeaway menu." )

Barack Obama
(returned less than 800 hits. Think about that. Issues and politics aside, in 2001 he was an Illinois State Senator (and one who was voting to defeat the Born Alive Protection Act, at that).

and that seemed unfair if I didn't include....

John McCain
(who received 226,000 hits, many of them referring to his failed presidential bid a year earlier)

World Trade Center
(whose number one hit was the Towers' official website, http://www.worldtradecenter.org/, which is now an empty domain name for sale from Network Solutions)

High School Musical
(over 800,000 hits, and fewer than 4,000 when the term is in quotes... none of which were about a [then-nonexistent] Disney movie phenomenon. What would Sharpay think?!)

YouTube
(returned zero hits)

Wikipedia
(proudly proclaims that its writers (everyone!) had compiled over 6,000 articles and hoped to one day top 100,000. Web 2.0 was barely getting started. Today Wikipedia has over 2.5 million articles just in English!)

iPod
(the top hit was for Image Proof of Deposit Document Processing System, and in the first fifty links listed (of about 1,300) Apple wasn't mentioned once)

Vatican
(the official website's 2001 archive is nearly identical to today's, except that the Pope's name is different. I'm tempted to turn that into a fable about the Church 's steadfastness in an otherwise transitory culture... but maybe their web designers just doesn't like changing the template. Either way, one small batch of consistancy was nice)

I also appreciated that the 2001-verision's homepage was titled "Google!" rather than today's standard "Google."

Maybe they're less excited nowadays?

Someday My Prince Will Come

2008-10-06T15:28:00.018-05:00

.... or, "Will my prince come someday?"

Jen of Conversion Diary wrote a beautiful post yesterday, and, as often happens when I read her blog, she got me thinking.

It might just be a symptom of being in one’s early twenties, but lately it seems that nearly everyone I know is engaged, married, in a serious relationship, or entering the priesthood/a religious order. Even two college friends who swore on pain of death that they were going to focus on grad school and careers before “settling down” are well on their way toward engagement rings. I’m happy for them, certainly! I’m so glad that they’ve found their earthly partners and are living out their call of life. Several of those friends have started to have babies, and it’s been beautiful to watch young couples grow together as they prepare for a new life. However, there comes a point when smiling and trilling congratulations like a Disney princess can get me only so far.

A wise friend of mine (also single) once said, “It’s especially frustrating when you know what your vocation is but you’re not yet living it.” She’s absolutely right. For a while last year I wondered if my near-perpetual singleness was a subtle hint; I tried very seriously to discern if I’m called to the consecrated or religious life and ---I think--- I received a definite “no.” Rather, I’m confident that I am called to be married and have children. This doesn’t shock me; after all, eight-year-old me was planning her wedding and naming her future kids. Back then I expected I’d follow a path much like my mother: I’d meet someone in college or shortly thereafter, become engaged within eight months, married less than a year later, and live happily ever after. Well, I’m twenty-three, one year out of college, and have no expectations of being married anytime soon. Huh. “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.”

However, as hard as it can be to be single in a world that is essentially designed for married people, I’m glad of it. First of all, I know with absolute certainty that I’m not ready to be married yet; that is, God still has a lot of work to do getting me ready to be someone’s wife. Sometimes my womb literally aches to nurture children, but I also know that I’m entirely too selfish at this point in my life to be a good mother, so that’s an easy one: no children yet, so no marriage yet. (those two do, in fact, go together, despite what our contraceptive culture would teach.)

Why do I ache to be married? Well, there are several reasons, some silly, some substantial. But then, there's also a nagging feeling that maybe I shouldn't be, despite what I might want. I know that if God wants me to be married he'll send me a prince eventually so I'm not terribly worried. However, despite my hopes for a husband and a big family, God might have other ideas. Am I brave enough to accept that? I don't know. Another wise friend (I'm gifted with several of those) noted once that since marriage is an earthly reflection of a heavenly reality (Christ's relationship with the Church), why settle for the reflection when we could instead spend our time preparing for that inevitable future? She's right, up to a point. St. Paul agreed, certainly; advising unmarried persons to remain single as to better focus on affairs of the Lord (1 Corinthians 7). It's also true that I am falling more deeply and deeply in love with Jesus the longer I stay single. In my last relationship I mis-prioritized my beau over my Heavenly Bridegroom, and it showed in my lax prayer life, my focus on unimportant things, and our easily-rationalized/ignored bouts of unchastity. However, I know that doesn't always have to be the case. In fact, husbands and wives ought to help one another grow in holiness and grow closer to God. I've seen this work in the lives of several couples, so I know that my most recent experience doesn't have to be the rule.

Far be it for me to know the mind of God, but I suspect there are two key reasons why I'm single right now. Firstly, the work I'm doing is more easily done by a single person. Many awesome youth ministers are married, but I don't know if I could be married and do a good job at work as well as a good job at home. Some women can do two things at once, but I'm not sure I can.

If I'm honest with myself, one of the biggest reasons I want to be married is pride. Not the good sort of pride, either. I'm an ardent practicing Catholic (and not the Nancy Pelosi kind), so I get very passionately fired up about chastity, marriage, natural family planning, and respecting life. It's easy to talk oneself blue in the face about why the Church is teaching the truth on these issues, but living out the Catholic Faith is a much more effective means of witness--- and a much harder one (look at many Sunday-only Catholics who contracept, condone abortion, support the death penalty....etc.) Because I'm single and therefore am not having sex or children, it can be incredibly hard for people to take me seriously about NFP and chastity. I told a co-worker that when I'm married my husband and I will practice NFP and seriously discern whether or not God is really calling us to postpone another pregnancy or not. I was dead serious when I said that I'm open to as many children as I'm called to have (*note: not "as many children as possible" but "as many children as God thinks we should bring into the world, decided through careful prayer, discernment, spiritual direction, and openness to life). Her response was a snorted, "Well, honey, just see how you feel after you've had your first couple kids; you won't want anymore." This is coming from a devout Catholic woman who works at the parish, loves Jesus and the Church, is fiercely pro-life, and helps minister to people in the community! And still she's plagued by the brainwashing of our contraceptive culture! It makes me crazy.

That said, if the main reason I want to be married is so I can have an intensely beautiful Catholic wedding, be open to life, raise lots of children, and write books and blogs about Catholic motherhood, then it's just pride. It's "See, look at our family! We follow the Church's teaching and things are great! We love being open to life! Chastity rocks!" Pride. "Look at us, doing it the right way. Aren't we fabulous?" Satan is so sneaky! These desires- for good things, like marriage and family- are so easily corrupted into a selfish "I am ~~Woman~~ Catholic, hear me roar!"

These feelings remind of the way I often felt in junior high. I wasn't the most popular kid back then, a bit awkward and nerdy with horrible fashion sense. I desperately wanted to be well-dressed and popular and pursued by the boys, but it wasn't to be. I was also deeply infatuated with Prince William at the time, convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that we were going to fall in love and get married. I couldn't wait to show up at my ten-year reunion with the next King of England on my arm, able to gloat and lord it over my seventh grade nemesis that I had married the ultimate popular guy. See the resemblance? Clearly, middle-school-me didn't want to marry Prince William because I loved him or because I wanted to help him grow into a more Godly man; rather, I was using our [imaginary] marriage to prove a point and show off. Pride!

"Speak the truth in love," St. Paul tells the Ephesians. When and if I do marry, I'll have to be very careful to remember that. Chastity and children are good things, but if I twist those concepts around for prideful ends it's still sinful. I need to learn how to detach "ha! told you so!" from witnessing an authentic Christian life. Until then, the wedding gown I've designed will just have to stay confined to the sketchpad.

So perhaps my prince will come, someday when I've leared to be less selfish and prideful and more giving. Or maybe I'm gifted with singleness and will be able to fully focus on the "affairs of the Lord" forever. Either way, I need to be at peace with what God wants and not fall into self-pity like Kate Monster at the beginning of Avenue Q:

I'm kinda pretty
And pretty damn smart
I like romantic things
Like music and art
And as you knowI have a gigantic heart
So why don't I have a boyfriend?
{expletive deleted}!
It sucks to be me!

Because it doesn't! My life is pretty peachy; I just need to trust God a little more.

One Man, Twice

2008-09-18T15:00:00.021-05:00

Due to a ridiculous comedy of errors I won’t be able to visit my beloved Madison this weekend. This is a triple-crushing blow, as there are three wonderful events in which I can no longer participate. Tonight is the monthly Theology on Tap at the Essen Haus, one of my favorite bars in Madison. Thomas Peters of the American Papist will be speaking and I’ll be missing both his talk and a chance to grab a beer and catch up with many dear friends. Tomorrow evening several of my girlfriends are heading out on the town to celebrate life, and more specifically, how one of our friends rocked the Praxis II last week; I'll no longer be joining them. And most crushing of all, Friday afternoon is the final recording session for The Garden demo album and I can’t be there.

I’ve been trying to avoid writing about personal things here, and The Garden is such an important part of me that I’m sort of breaking that rule right now. But alas.

About ten years ago, an amazing woman named Sandra K. Kruse began playing with the idea of a musical telling the story of salvation history. Sandy and her husband Tim are beloved members of the Madison Catholic community, and Sandy is a busy mother of eleven beautiful children. Consequently, it took her a while to get all her ideas on paper. The result of this hard work was The Garden, a three-hour rock opera which tells the story of fall, redemption, love, temptation, and salvation from the time of Lucifer's heavenly rebellion through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Last year James Carrano, a choral conducting graduate student and my former boss at St. Paul's University Catholic Center, began putting Sandy's beautiful libretto to music with some input from brothers Mike and Charles Jadin and Jason Gantzer. The result was an intense rock opera performed for the first time this past April. As a Peer Minister and Director of Theatre Arts at the time, I was privileged to participate in the show as both a cast member and member of the production team. The four-ish months of rehearsal, set construction, frantic costume sewing, and papier-mâche-ing the golden calf came to a beautiful climax for six performances that form some of my best college memories.

As wonderful as the show was, Sandy and James are both evangelists at heart and The Garden is more than music and lyrics. It's meant to convey a message, and uses the theatre medium to do so. God willing, the show will not remain a memory of a few splendid days in April, but will take on a life of its own as more colleges, theatres, and companies produce it. The long-term goal is performing the show at World Youth Day in Madrid, 2011, or Houston, 2014, but lots of things need to happen first. One of those things was the demo CD being produced right now. This CD, an eight-song sampler of The Garden's most heart-stopping numbers, is what Sandy and James can send to people interested in the show. It's a big deal. Last weekend I spent many hours with a half dozen friends in the cavernous music room singing and recording and listening as Mike coordinated things. The day might have been tedious, but I had so much fun seeing friends and reliving the show that I barely noticed.

I think what makes The Garden so special is that is focuses on the Great Story rather than just the smaller vignettes that contribute to it. As fun as it was to do Joseph... and Jesus Christ Superstar, neither story goes as deep as The Garden. Granted, JCS is wrought with Judas' inner conflicts and is still a good show, but it's not a good vs. evil saga. Joseph is even weaker, story-wise; after all, the show is essentially Joe's biography. Obviously, the guy had more than a few rough spots in his life, but every really good story needs a really good villain. There just isn't one in Joseph. Most Bible stories have the same problem. If ripped out of context and taken as just quaint tales of long ago it's nearly impossible to understand their significance. What's the deal with Issac's near-death, David's selection as king, or even Jesus' temptation? They fit together like fragments of an immensely complex puzzle, and don't do much for us standing alone. I'll leave the specifics to Jeff Cavins and Scott Hahn, but overall, the saga of salvation begins in Genesis and isn't over until Revelation.

In its own way The Garden tries to show the connectedness of big events in salvation history, such as Lucifer's rebellion, Adam and Eve's Fall, the chaos of the pre-Flood world, Abraham's Covenant, Moses's liberation, and Jesus' perfect fulfillment of the Law and Prophets and His ultimate victory over Satan. Whew! That's a lot to cover in less than three hours, especially singing and dancing! Some aspects of the Great Story are skipped or glossed over for time's sake, but the gist of the show is the overwhelming love the Trinity has for humanity and Lucifer's overwhelming hate for us. Every time humans are at a crossroads and make poor decisions, it's Lucifer who eggs them on. Sometimes his influence is obvious, such as in Eden, and other times it's more subtle, like the violence that Lamech's tribe wreaks. Regardless, The Garden makes it very obvious that evil events and tragedies are not random happenstances but casualties of a War that has been raging since before time began and will continue until Jesus finally wins at the end of time.

A musical might seem an odd format for such a message, but sometimes music does what other media can't. For instance, theologians have written about Jesus as the New Adam and Mary as the New Eve for centuries, but this theological reality is delicately conveyed through music. The music playing while Lucifer convinces Eve to eat the fruit ("Seduction") is hauntingly familiar to the song playing as he tempts Jesus in the desert ("Temptation"). The theme weaving through the music as humans are created ("The Big Bang") repeats when Gabriel visits Mary and the Incarnation brings Jesus to earth ("Emmanuel"). When Jesus sings to his followers about the coming Kingdom ("I AM II"), his song echoes strains that played as the Trinity gave the Ten Commandments to Moses ("I AM"). And on and on. Through music, The Garden, like St. Augustine, reminds us that, "God, the inspirer and author of both Testaments, wisely arranged that the New Testament be hidden in the Old and the Old be made manifest in the New."

This is crucial. As humans, our time is linear, and it's hard for us to step out of that paradigm. But God transcends time. He's outside of it. Thus, it's not unexpected that the first explicit reference to Jesus (Genesis 3:15) occurs before any mention of the multiple pre-figurations of Christ elsewhere in the Old Testament. I'd take it back further. Since humans were created in the image of God-- a Trinitarian God who is Father, Son, and Spirit-- the Son is a crucial part of the story before humans are even aware of him. Humans fell from perfect communion with God because Adam and Eve chose to defy God (note, however, that the Fall doesn't happen until *Adam* eats. Eve makes it possible; she is the vessel for the fall, but not the perpetrator herself). It is a perfect mirror, then that Mary and Jesus are the new Adam and Eve who redeem humanity. Mary doesn't do the redeeming, just like Eve didn't do the falling. Adam did the falling, so Christ did the saving. However, Mary's "Yes" in her Fiat made such redemption possible. She is the vessel in which salvation arrives. This, of course, is why Mary is given the oft-controversial title of Co-Redemptrix.

The most rocking-out-awesome song in The Garden is most certainly "War," in which Lucifer taunts Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and the two lay the cards out about spiritual warfare. However, I think the most beautiful and theologically significant is "One Man, Twice," a duet Mary and Eve sing while Jesus is being buried. The text is lifted almost exactly from Romans 5:12-18 but Mary and Eve's lines overlap and weave together so beautifully I nearly cry each time I hear it.

One of my novena intentions is for the growth and success of The Garden in whatever way is best for God's plan. The demo CD seems to be an answer to that, and I hope that things continue to move forward. I won't be there to record tomorrow, so the tract of War will be short a soprano, but such is life. I'll do my darndest to be there (and maybe on stage?!) when we perform in Madrid. Until then, I'll try to remember Act II scene viii when Jesus sings,

"Look at all the lilies of the valley
Look at all the birds of the air
Are not you worth more than they?
But for them, look how your father cares.

The birds do not sow nor do they reap
Nor put food into barns to keep.
Yet your Father feeds them every day.
And are you not worth more than they?

Can any of you by worrying add to your life even a single hour?
Does it have that power?"

There's the rub

2008-09-16T10:24:00.005-05:00

I really didn't want to write about the election again. I detest election season, where very little real work is accomplished and horrible things are said about various people (in both parties) in the interest of stimulating enough tabloid-style press to swing votes one way or another. But November 4th is fifty days away and things are starting (starting?) to get ridiculous.

When McCain first announced that his running mate would be Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, I was initially pleased. I love that she's a woman, but it's more than that. I love that she's a Christian woman, a mother of five, and is fiercely pro-life. I love that she shatters the modern feminist stereotype of what a successful 21st-century woman ought to be (pro-choice, against large families, liberal, etc.) I also love the irony of a woman from the Republican party making it to the White House before Hillary. I really don't like McCain at all, but I said to myself, "Hey, he's old. He might not survive the first term or run for a second. She could be president!" This line of thinking would have had me voting not for McCain per se, but more for Sarah.

However, my enthusiasm quickly dampened when reports came about her alleged nepotism and other unpleastantries starting creeping up. I personally couldn't care less about her daughter's pregnancy, and I'm glad that the Palin family is being so supportive of Bristol and her boyfriend Levi. I'm glad she supports traditional marriage and opposes embryonic stem-cell research. But I'm incredibly uncomfortable that she wants creationism to have equal billing in science classrooms alongside evolution. "Drill, baby, drill" makes me want to tear my hair out, or at the very least crawl over to GM headquarters and beg that they release the Chevy Volt tomorrow instead of in 2010.

So I'm just as uncomfortable voting for McCain as I was a few weeks ago. Where does that leave me? I can't vote for Obama. Both cadidates support intrinsic evils: Obama on abortion/infantacide, ESCR, redefinition of marriage (possibly); McCain on ESCR, war, and torture, poor stewardship of the earth, and uncharity toward the poor (possibly).

This excerpt is from a quite excellent post over at Erin Manning's Red Cardigan blog.

"The formulation which seems to be developing among those who think that Catholics should not vote this way might be stated as follows:
Catholics must never support intrinsic evil

Catholics must never vote for someone who supports intrinsic evil
Catholics must especially not vote for someone who supports killing innocent humans
Obama supports this intrinsic evil (abortion, infanticide, etc.)
McCain supports this intrinsic evil (ESCR)
Therefore, Catholics must not, from a moral perspective, vote for either of these candidates.

I'm sympathetic to this viewpoint, but unfortunately, my mind working in the odd way it does, I soon came up with a dilemma, which is this:

If Catholics must never vote for someone who supports intrinsic evil, and
If contraception is intrinsic evil, and
If Catholics must especially never vote for someone who supports killing innocent humans, and
If many if not most forms of contraception are abortifacient, and
If every candidate running for President, including 3rd party candidates, supports the continued federal government funding of abortifacient contraceptives through Medicaid and other federal programs, then
Catholics may not morally now vote for any person who is running for President, and
Catholics will be unlikely for the foreseeable future to be able to vote for any person who is running for President without objectively doing that which is immoral."

And there's the rub. Of course, as Erin points out in the rest of her post, the USCCB has given us this guideline: "When all candidates hold a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, the conscientious voter faces a dilemma. The voter may decide to take the extraordinary step of not voting for any candidate or, after careful deliberation, may decide to vote for the candidate deemed less likely to advance such a morally flawed position and more likely to pursue other authentic human goods."

In 2008, the second case is relevant. Catholics ought to vote for the candidate who is less likely to advance a morally flawed position. Obama promised the NOW and other pro-abortion agencies that he would sign the Freedom of Choice Act into law. FOCA would supercede all state restrictions on abortion, making it available to everyone regardless of age, marital status, circumstance of conception, and would deny legal protection to doctors and nurses who refuse to perform abortions.

Whoa. Scary stuff.

I hate American politics. If it weren't for the abortion and marriage issues, I'd be a solid Democrat, no question. How would Jesus vote? On the side of the disenfranchised, the less fortunate, the marginalized, the maligned, the poor, the sick, the elderly, the disabled. The Prince of Peace probably wouldn't support invading countries without reason. Clearly, given the GOP's history favoring businesses and lobbyists and war hawks rather than the poor, I'm willing to bet Jesus would be a blue state supporter on most issues. Why, oh why, did the Democrats decide that the only way to be a true liberal was to support the murder of 40 million unborn children and try to mess with marriage and family, the building blocks of society? Given the monumental importance of both issues, so-called values voters are almost guilted to support Republican candidates, despite the fact that apart from the defense of life and marriage the Republican party platform is not very Christian at all.

Both candidates support or have supported things that directly defy Catholic Social Teaching, specifically provisions about upholding the dignity of the human person. What am I to do? Cast a blank ballot? I still don't know. I have fifty days to figure it out. However, I'll probably end up voting McCain-Palin, even if it makes me sad and fiercely uncomfortable.

No matter what happens, I'm going to be disappointed. Thank heaven I still have Melissa Anelli's book to look forward to on November 4th.

"...not to win but to take part..."

2008-09-02T11:37:00.003-05:00

The 29th Olympiad is over. Ho-hum. To be honest, I wasn’t all too excited when the Games were going on. This is partially because I don’t have my TV hooked up in my new apartment yet, so I only watched Olympic events at friends’ houses or online. However, it's more than that. Last week I was at dinner with a friend and I explained why I really don’t like the Olympics all that much. Just like everyone else, I cheered for Michael Phelps (eight times!) and watched in anguish as the U.S. women’s gymnastics team lost the gold by 2.375 points. But beyond that, I shrugged. I don’t hate the Olympics; I don’t want them to stop. But I’m not a big fan. I have three main objections to the Olympics: gratuitous displays of puffed-up nationalism, an epidemic of corporate sponsorship, and magnified hero-worship of sports stars.

Mission ~~Accomplished~~ Failed
The IOC’s mission statement includes the phrase, "to promote a positive legacy from the Olympic Games to the host cities and host countries.” The Olympics are supposed to accomplish a few things. First, the Olympics ought to help citizens of the world appreciate the diversity and strengths of other cultures. The Games also (supposedly) foster sportsmanship and the appreciation of athletic achievements and help close spatial and cultural chasms between countries. These are all admirable goals. I would argue that the modern Olympics, especially these Beijing Games, did little to accomplish any of them. The opening ceremony was undeniably very cool (except for the poor little girl whose self esteem was probably irreparably damaged….more on that later). There was a feeling of hope in the air, maybe from all the fireworks. But it didn’t last. Some of the comments traded back and forth in Internet forums and TV commentaries in the last two and a half weeks are hardly the sort of nice things that foster cooperation among countries. Rather, I detect fierce streaks of hyper-nationalism, we Americans included. Some of that’s natural; people usually cheer for their neighborhood team, Alma mater, or home country. But trying to prove that one country is better than another because of its superior medal count is ridiculous. This is where we cross the line from honoring fellow countrymen to being disdainful of others. Sportsmanship is another big problem. True, I loved seeing the broken-hearted American women’s gymnastics team giving congratulatory hugs to the Chinese women, and many other stories of sportsmanship are just as positive. But overall, I don’t think the Olympics encourage sportsmanship. The last several Games have been plagued by doping scandals, cheating, judge tampering, and now the gymnastics age question. These instances hardly celebrate to a world where athletes just want to give it their best shot and see what happens. My perspective is tad limited (I’ve been alive for twelve Games, though only old enough to appreciate maybe six or seven of them), but it seems like this sort of cheating is only getting worse. Not a very encouraging thought. I wonder, too: how much of it comes from nationalistic pressure? We all heard the stories on NBC about various Chinese athletes and how the pressure on them was unbelievable. This isn’t unlike the medal-winning machine of the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s, and it was probably worse for the Chinese men and women because they were on their home court this year. If your personal worth is determined by how much metal hangs around your neck, you’re pretty vulnerable to exploitation. I still can’t get over the stories of young children taken from their families at three and four years old to be trained for sports. There’s so much more to life! Governments and athletes obsessed with demonstrating their worth and advancement by winning medals have some serious issues. Ugh. And speaking of "ugh"...
Sing, sweet nightingale?
Time for the opening ceremony rant. I was utterly incredulous when I read that the “Ode to the Motherland” hymn from the ceremony had been lip-synced. And not just lip-synced; "totally falsified" might be a better way of describing it. The things that were done to achieve a picture-perfect moment make photoshopping Emma Watson last year seem like nothing at all. I'm not naive; I know that film directors and marketing representatives make decisions like this all the time. There's a reason there aren't that many frumpy people in commercials (except maybe those awful Geico cavemen). But the government made the call. What they said, essentially, was, "Yang Peiyi, you may be only seven years old and your self-image may still be forming, but we've decided that you're not attractive enough to appear on international television representing China. Your voice is great though, so we're going to let the far cuter Lin Miaoke stand in front of the cameras and dub your voice for hers." What lessons does this teach? "If you're not a beauty pageant type girl, you're not beautiful. And if you are a stereotypically "pretty" girl, we'll exploit your physical appearance but keep you un-mic-ed so no one will hear you." Fabulous. (this is similar to why I abhor beauty pageants... I'll rant about that some other day).
Brought to you by...
Corporate sponsorship: another necessary evil when it comes to professional, college, Olympic sports. Obviously, without money from Nike, AT&T, or Raymond James, many athletes wouldn’t have the resources to invest in expensive coaches, equipment, and facilities. It’s been that way for a long time. But it still makes me crazy. I’m not sure why, but I hate that so much of the Olympics seems to have an incredibly manufactured, false feel to it. However, it does seem to be getting worse; that corporate sponsorship is encroaching on even more aspects of modern life. I don't know what the answer is for this one. One the one hand, I don't like all the corporate money being poured into Olympic sports, but the alternatives are to either not be competitive on the international level or use government money for Olympic training as China does. Neither of those is really an option, so I guess we're stuck. But I don't have to like it.

You’re my hero!
I grew up in Green Bay, WI, where church services are shorter (or cancelled) when there’s a Packer home game and little kids dream of becoming the next Brett Favre. I get it. Sports stars are cool. But I’ve always been uncomfortable with the degree of admiration we heap on men and women who achieve athletic success. No doubt- they’ve worked hard. They deserve their props and applause and maybe a promotion deal with Wheaties. But it’s a little ridiculous to me that an Olympic superstar or pro football player has more heroic appeal to people than, say, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta or St. Maximilian Kolbe. Why is an athletic star a hero? If it’s because he or she worked hard and sacrificed a lot to achieve goals, that’s fair. If it’s because he or she is famous, earns ridiculous amounts of money and can get away with things others can’t (ahem, OJ Simpson), that’s not as fair. Olympic athletes work hard, no question. I feel a little sorry for the athletes who earn medals in unpopular sports, though. Who won this year’s gold for badminton? Anyone? Rhythmic gymnastics? Didn’t think so. I don’t know, either.

This summer has been chock-full of media spectacles, the Olympics and Democratic National Convention among them. But for me, I’m glad the summer’s TV dry spell is over and soon we can back to watching Reaper and How I Met Your Mother.

Indecision 2008

2008-08-25T17:31:00.021-05:00

Way back in January, an editorialist wrote on catholic.org, “This election is going to be a nightmare for Catholics.” I wish I could remember who it was so I could quote him or her accurately, but alas. Way back in January, I read the article and shrugged. The election, almost a year away, was hardly a topic of importance; I was more focused on my last semester of college and finding a job. Of course, as the [ridiculously long and dramatic] primary season drew to a close I became more invested in learning about candidates, policies, and voting histories. The 2000 version of me would have been a straight ticket Republican, no exceptions. The 2004 version was more a mixed ticket, unhappy with the President but equally unhappy with John Kerry. However, this time around I’m truly in agony as November 4th draws closer. I’ve seen the USCCB’s DVD about “Faithful Citizenship” and read Archbishop Chaput’s excellent book, Render Unto Caesar . However, even the guidance of the bishops isn’t helping all that much. Whoever it was who said this election would be a nightmare was right on the money.

It’s even more fun now, since Obama has selected Joe Biden as his running mate and we’re off to the conventions. The pundits are all pretty confident that this smiling elder statesman from Delaware will help Obama draw the “Midwestern lunch-pail” vote, i.e. people who don’t own a Prius, Mac Book Air, or stock in Google. More specifically, Biden is a Roman Catholic (or claims to be, at least), and it seems logical, then, that the Catholic vote will turn for Obama/Biden. I’m not so sure. First of all, what is the “Catholic vote,” exactly? The “Catholic vote” is about as descriptive as “the brunette vote.” There are several broad constituencies that could fall into the "Catholic vote" category. There are “cultural Catholics” like Senator Biden, perhaps better known as cafeteria Catholics. There are lapsed Catholics. There are traditional, old school Catholics. There are moderate orthodox Catholics. So which group are the pundits talking about?

Cultural/Cafeteria Catholics were often raised Catholic and like the comforting rhythm of Catholic life- Mass, baptisms/weddings, those nice feast days, fish fry nights, bingo. But when it comes to following Church teaching on important issues of morality, forget it. Contraception? “Stay out of my bedroom, old celibate men in Rome!” The death penalty? “Fair crime and punishment, like in Leviticus (only the nice parts of Leviticus, though; that part in chapter eighteen isn’t relevant anymore).” The Iraq war? “That whole Jesus, Prince of Peace thing? Just marketing.” Abortion? “Psalm 139 is simply nice poetry. People aren’t people until* they’re born.” (*maybe not even then, if you agree with Barack Obama). To be fair, there’s a sizable subset of cafeteria-goers who are legitimately in love with Christ and His Church. However, for whatever reason (tough life situations, poor catechesis, etc.) they aren’t on board with everything the Church teaches. By no means am I condemning these people, most of whom are wonderful, loving folks trying to do the best they can in a crazy world. But the point is that Cafeteria Catholics don’t fit into either party’s platform, so I’m not sure which way the pundits expect their vote to swing.

Then there are the lapsed Catholics. I’d guess these are folk who might go to Mass at Christmas and Easter, or when someone gets married. They might even try out a Protestant church or two, especially if those denominations fit more nicely with their own personal version of right and wrong. The religion in which they were raised has little bearing on their decisions. Like their friends in the cafeteria, lapsed Catholics don’t fit into either party’s platform, so I’m not sure which way the pundits expect their vote to swing.

Next up are the traditional old school Catholics. These are the sort of people who hated Vatican II, who cringe when the choir sings anything by Dan Schutte, frown when they see girls as altar servers, and not-so-secretly want us to go back to the Tridentine Mass. God love them, I’m sure they’re nice people, but seriously. As far as November is concerned, I’m betting they don’t like either candidate. Historically, the Catholic vote was a sold bloc for Democrats, especially for Kennedy. But that really isn’t the case anymore, especially since the Democratic Party decided that the only way for politicians to hold a membership card was to condone the murder of 40 million children since 1973. The GOP doesn’t have it much better, given that their version of health care and social concern doesn’t quite jive with “caring for the least of these” as Jesus would like. Really, traditional old school Catholics don’t fit into either party’s platform, so I’m not sure which way the pundits expect their vote to swing.

Moderate orthodox Catholics are just as perplexed. I (speaking as one myself) don’t like either candidate. McCain is apparently pro-life, but I’m not quite sure I believe him. I strongly dislike his Iraq policy, economic plan, firearm position, and health care plan. I like Obama’s health care plan, education policy, willingness to repair our shattered international image, energy plan, and stance against the Iraq war, but I don’t like his abortion record. Moderate orthodox Catholics don’t fit into either party’s platform, so I’m not sure which way the pundits expect their vote to swing.

Let’s Hear it for the Rainbow Tour
Just as disturbing is the apparent cult of personality that’s gathered around Obama. It seems like a lot of talk and little substance; a lot of “hooray for us!” sentiment going around. I don’t think that a nice smile, charisma, and popularity entitle someone to be president. He’s also getting a tad cocky; on his recent European Rainbow Tour (à la Evita) he seemed to be acting as though he’s already been inaugurated. “Fake it till you make it” might work to impress classmates at a high school reunion, but I’m not sure it’s the best strategy for someone running for president.

I’m really torn here. I have no desire to cast a vote for either one, but if I abstain (courteously) I’ll feel like a washed-up, pathetic, poor excuse for an American citizen. The only reason I would vote *for* John McCain (instead of just *against* Barack Obama) would be the judges thing. In the next eight years there might be two to four seats open on the Supreme Court. There are big issues coming up in the next few years, stem cell funding and same-sex “marriage” among them. As much as I dislike some most of McCain’s policies, I’m pretty sure that he’s more like likely to appoint judges who will uphold traditional marriage. However, I don’t know if that’s a good enough reason to vote for him. Even when I try to make myself feel better about (maybe) supporting Obama, I cringe when I think about his votes on the Born Alive Protection Act. I truly wrestle with whether or not I can vote for someone who shows that much contempt for life.

In the end, though, does it matter? I don’t know. There’s a sense of inevitability about Obama’s candidacy (granted, I watch Jon Stewart for my news, so maybe that’s why). Even though latest polls show that the country is evenly divided, I still have a hard time believing that a nation coming off eight years of presidential ineptitude will elect another old white man from the same party. I have a feeling it’ll ultimately be Obama. Maybe I should just pray that if he does become President he’ll change what needs to be changed and otherwise leave well enough alone.
In the end, there really isn’t a Catholic vote. There are perhaps seventy million self-identified Catholics in the United States, but the gradations of who’s a “practicing Catholic” and what that even means splinter off from there. The best I can hope for it not getting too angry when CNN or MSNBC shows snippets of Nancy Pelosi claiming that we don’t know when life begins.

Way back in January, I already had a feeling of ennui about November. It’s August now, and not much has really changed.

St. Thomas More, pray for us!

Overture

2008-08-24T12:27:00.003-05:00

I wrestled for a long time with the desire to write a blog and the conflicting notion that I don't say anything interesting or insightful enough to warrant one. Time will tell, I suppose. I've finally given in to this long-standing idea . I'm not quite sure why I chose today.

Ah, I've thought of reason.

It's been a little more than two months since I've moved away from all that I know and love in Madison to work in Waupaca. I absolutely do not regret that decision in any way, mainly because my job is wonderful and I'm excited about the potential next several years hold. But I still miss Madison, and especially my friends there. If I were still surrounded by close friends and a vibrant, young community, the thoughts that will inevitably end up posted here would have instead been discussed with friends at a coffeehouse, walking along the tree-lined streets of my beautiful former neighborhood, or over a pitcher of Spotted Cow at the Terrace. Since those opportunities will be sparse, I'm resorting instead to writing them out.

Here we go! I'm not sure how long I'll even keep this up or how regularly I'll write. But for now, I'm excited to let loose some of the thoughts that keep sloshing around in my head.

Quick note of substance (maybe):

Today is the twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time. Often the readings and Gospel on ordinary Sundays can be quickly forgotten because they might not point to a great feast day or holiday or memorable miracle. That is definitely not the case today. Check them out here. I'll wait.

Even though today is an "ordinary" Sunday, these readings are a big deal. They point to one of the fundamental, crucial things about the Church: she is apostolic. Scott Hahn (to whom I'll refer a lot, since he's one of my intellectual heroes) explores the connection between the Isaiah 22 and Matthew 16 passages especially well in two of his books, A Father Who Keeps His Promises and Rome Sweet Home. When I was deciding whether or not I should become a Catholic, it took a lot for me to swallow the whole "one holy apostolic church" business, since Protestants can be (in)famously pluralist. The difference between a church and The Church is a big one, but it took me a while to get there. However, these two passages help lay it out. Jesus was a king in the line of David; the perfect, long-hoped for Davidic messiah king who fulfilled all the prophecies. Davidic kings, as evidenced in Isaiah 22, had ministers to help them run things. Twelve ministers, in fact. Above the other eleven, one was appointed prime minister, like Eliakim in this case. To the prime minister were given the keys to the kingdom, and the ability to speak with the king's authority if he happened to be out of town.

Fast forward a few millennia.

Jesus selects twelve of his many followers to help him run things. Later, he appoints one of the Twelve to hold the keys to the kingdom. To speak with the king's authority if He happened to be out of town. His name? Simon bar-Jonah. But we know him as St. Peter, apostle, martyr, and first Pope. There are two really important things I draw from this reading & Gospel. The apostolic succession of the Church wasn't some power grab invented in the dark ages to manipulate people and acquire wealth. Rather, the Church was set up and guided by the Holy Spirit to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all nations. Given that there were less than twenty people at the Last Supper and there are more than one billion Catholics today, I'd say she's succeeding. More work lies ahead, of course. But we toil on. Equally important, "the gates of the netherworld (hell) shall not prevail against it." (verse 18) This Church has another big job: fighting against the forces of evil that "prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls." By no means does this imply that bad things can't happen within the Church herself. There have been more than enough sketchy bishops and poor papal decisions to refute that. However, the funny thing is this: (note: I'm paraphrasing Dr. Hahn again, though I forget which book this point is from) The Church's history isn't pretty. Any other organization, company, or charity that had such a terrible legacy of violence, bigotry, abuse, and corruption would have a hard time surviving/ flourishing for over two thousand years. But Holy Mother Church prevails. Why? Because she is guided by the Holy Spirit. The Bride of Christ is protected by her Spouse, Jesus, who has proclaimed that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

It's a good time to be Catholic. You might take issue with that, protesting that the post-Vatican II Church is slipping into postmodernism. For some people, that might be true. Call it post-adolescent idealism or youthful optimism, but I see a springtime; a return to orthodoxy even as the world rages against it. But more importantly, it's always a "good time" to be a Catholic. It might have been easier in the 1950s, it might have been the cultural norm in the 1400s. But the Church is the Church. When I remember that, it's a little easier to swallow disturbing news about women's' "ordination" or pro-abortion "Catholic" vice presidential candidates. The gates of hell will not prevail against it. If Roman emperors couldn't get a few hundred first-century Christians to hush up by threatening lion-feedings and burnings-at-the stake, I'm not really too fussed about a few misguided women in Canada who want to be priests or a handful of prominent politicians who claim they can still be Catholic while denying inherent human rights and dignity to unborn children. Of course, I'm still upset about these things, but I'm not clutching my heart in fear that the Church will fall apart because of them. She won't. Especially with Papa B at the helm.

Curse you, loquaciousness! I set out to write a simple "Hello, this is me" sort of post, but here we are many paragraphs later... ah well.

On an entirely unrelated note, exactly five years ago today my parents, sisters, and I loaded up the minivan and drove to Madison to set up my new life as a college student. Whew, that does not seem like it was five years ago. Ridiculous. I have a feeling there will be more "n years ago..." sentiments coming. I give fair warning.

So, hello there. Welcome :-)