Unearned Luck

Having eyes, do you not see, and having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember?    -St. Mark 8:18 The Midnight Mass is the most beautiful liturgy of the year for me. For the most part, the people attending Midnight Mass have made the choice to be there, possess the willingness to participate, and bring with them an eager anticipation upon which comes a peace, a joy, and an energy rarely, if ever, seen at that dark, lonely ushering of the Eve to the Day. At the Midnight Mass, we are there with the shepherds in the fields and join them as the first witnesses of the miracle of the Incarnation, walking into that cave and falling to our knees in silent, fearful adoration. We see St. Joseph, the Blessed Mother, and the Christ Child and are quickly overcome with a joy and a peace we have never known before, but unlike the shepherds on that first Christmas, we know the reason for our joy and peace. We know that the Word of God has become Man, so that through His pass...

  I made known to them thy name, and I will make it known, that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.    -St. John 17:26 A friend and I were talking about living the Christian life and I used the term "radical Christianity," then corrected myself. "Radical Christianity" is a term I've heard many, many times used to describe the lives of people like St. Francis of Assisi and St. Theresa of Calcutta. What hit me in our conversation was that we were talking about the kinds of life every Christian should be living, so there shouldn't be any "radical Christianity." We should all be living a radical life, but radical only because we are daring to live it as authentic Christians, true followers of Christ. St. Francis and St. Theresa were living their lives in response to the call of Christ. They were doing exactly what God had called them to do. We are no different, though, perhaps, not called to live the charisms to...

Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet all kinds of trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.    -St. James 1:2 People annoy the daylights out of me at times and it is the hardest thing for me to keep from responding to their insensitivities and intrusions in ways demonstrative and even violent. Most of it comes from their mistaken understanding of their own importance, a selfishness deeply rooted in their personalities. Short of a miracle or their deaths, nothing will ever cure these people of doing exactly what they want when they want without any regard for anyone's regard. What I want to do is to lay out in a very logical fashion why they are wrong and what they need to do to become better people and leave me alone. Unfortunately, their own behavior makes it clear that they are impervious to logic or pleas to anything higher than their own egos. Then I fantasize about battle axes and dungeons, but that wouldn't really get...

God doesn't always make sense. Neither do I. I often wonder why I do some of the things I do. A friend of mine tells me that God guides me to do those things, because whatever I've done or said needed to be done or said. I'm not so sure. There are so, so, so many times, when God was nowhere near the decisions I have made. I have made some horrible decisions and they have hurt others so, so, so deeply. Now I'm scared to approach anyone. I don't trust myself anymore. I don't ever want to be that horribly selfish ever again, but can I keep the loneliness at bay or will I succumb and make other bad decisions in another vain attempt to cure my loneliness? It's almost easier to suffer with the loneliness than to risk hurting someone else. But then there is someone standing there who has never been there before and I don't know what to do. Confused and scared, there are just too many emotions and thoughts. They're overwhelming. Too many handicaps...

Ashwin Vaswani on Unsplash The proof of love is in the works. Where love exists, it works great things. But when it ceases to work, it ceases to exist.      -St. Gregory the Great Do you wish to discover the mysteries of God? Ask a man who, for the love of God, lives in evangelical poverty with joy. He knows the mysteries of God better than the wisest theologian in the world.                                    -St. Albert the Great True power is service. The Pope must serve all people, especially the poor, the weak, the vulnerable.                                    -Pope Francis It seems everyone is getting all in an uproar about the work Pope Francis is doing. It's what got Mr. Ben Shapiro into a dither. From whence comes such madness? Someone, perha...

  Juan Luis Ozaez on Unsplash Be not afraid! Open, indeed, open wide the doors to Christ! Open to his saving power the confines of states, and systems political and economic, as well as the vast fields of culture, civilization, and development. Be not afraid! Christ knows 'what is inside a person'. Only he knows!   -St. John Paul II Today, Breitbart 's Ben Shapiro demonstrated in his post , "Pope Francis' Disturbing Cuban Manipulation," how dangerous it is to view everything through such a narrow perspective that you miss the reality of the situation. In the fire service, we call it tunnel vision and it can get those for whom you are providing care killed. After all, when political ideology or winning the argument becomes all important, at that very moment, you have made yourself dangerous in your prejudiced irrelevance. There is so much wrong with Mr. Shapiro's piece, it is not possible to hit all of the problems. Let's look at two lowlights....

And the angel said to them, "...And this will be a sign for you; you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger."    -St. Luke 2:10, 12 And Jesus answered them, "...[T]hey will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory; and he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from one end of heaven to the other."    -St. Matthew 24:4, 30-31 Jesus said to him, "...But I tell you, hereafter you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven."    -St. Matthew 26:64 And Jesus said, "I am, and you will see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven."    -St. Mark 14:62 "The Father judges no one, but has given all judgement to the Son, that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father."    -St. John 5:22-23 "For...the Fat...

  Praise the L ORD ! Praise, O servants of the L ORD , praise the name of the L ORD ! Blessed be the name of the L ORD from this time forth and for evermore! From the rising of the sun to its setting the name of the L ORD is to be praised! Praise the L ORD !    -Psalm 113:1-3, 9b Many have no regard and less respect for Contemporary Christian Music (CCM), because, they claim, it is vapid, heretical, profane, unoriginal, and inappropriate. There is much within the genre that deserves such criticism, but there is much within CCM that offers Christians the opportunity to praise God with intelligent, thoughtful lyrics that do not offend orthodoxy. Much of this intelligent CCM may not be appropriate for the Holy Mass, but it is better than much of what is being played every week around the country. Due to the brevity of a blog post, we'll cover a few examples with the encouragement to explore CCM yourself. Third Day Prior to being given Third Day's 1999 r...

  Daniel Seßler on Unsplash One thing I have asked of the LORD, that I will seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple. - Psalm 27:4 For from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator.    -Wisdom 13:5 Think about the hard and cruel times in your life and how dry, desolate, and ugly everything seemed. There was no joy to be had, only pain and despair. Remember the way in which the suffering and loneliness ate away at your heart and mind and nearly drove you crazy, if it didn't. Such horrible times seemed to claw their scars into your heart. Among other constructive reasons, times like these give us a glimpse into what an eternity in Hell may be like, so we may be much less inclined to sin. Do we really want an eternity of such pain without any relief and of an infinite magnitude? Think now of the on...

Federico Respini on Unsplash "Foxes have lairs, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."       -St. Matthew 8:20 "I wonder sometimes how many times we despise good people in our hearts, good people who praise the Lord as it comes to them, so spontaneously, because they are not cultured, because they do not follow the formalities? [I mean really] despise [them]?"    -Pope Francis Yesterday's conversation presented as a solution to the dying Catholic parishes in the United States the evangelization of those under 40 in a manner similar to what is being successfully accomplished at the local non-Catholic, Christian megachurches. One part of that solution was the inclusion of weekly praise and worship services that include upbeat, uplifting, orthodox teachings on the core tenants of the Catholic faith. Another part of this solution that must be in place, when the praise and worship services begi...

Praise the L ORD ! Praise God in his sanctuary;     praise him in his mighty firmament! Praise him for his mighty deeds;     praise him according to his mighty greatness! Praise him with trumpet sound;     praise him with lute and harp! Praise him with timbrel and dance;      praise him with strings and pipe. Praise him with sounding cymbals;      praise him with loud, crashing cymbals! Let everything that breathes praise the L ORD ! Praise the L ORD !    -Psalm 150 Take heed often to come together to give thanks to God and show forth His praise. For when you assemble frequently in the same place, the powers of Satan are destroyed, and the destruction at which he aims is prevented by the unity of your faith. Nothing is more precious than peace, by which all war, in heaven and earth, is brought to an end.            ...

"There are friends who pretend to be friends, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother."  -Psalm 18:24 "A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity."  -Psalm 17:17 If you are trying to turn your life around and get into a relationship with Jesus, the best thing you can do at the outset is to find a circle of people who share your pursuit of holiness and will support you in your journey. This will not be easy. It is very difficult to leave old friends and even more difficult to find new friends, but even one or two very good, dedicated people will make it much easier to grow closer to God. Of course, they will help you with accountability, but they will be people on whom you may rely in the valleys and the peaks, both of which are inevitable. Avoid getting all down on the state of the world, though. It is very easy for your conversations to turn to that, but avoid such depressing discussions at all costs. Yes. Things are wor...

  "And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, by what they had done" (Revelation 20:12). The Church is squarely into the first week of Advent. Advent and Lent are the two seasons of penance in each liturgical year, both of which provide useful opportunities to ponder the four last things: death, judgement, Heaven, Hell. Since Lent precedes the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Our Lord, Lent seems to lend itself to meditating upon the eventuality of our own deaths, that certainty we cannot escape; upon the indescribable joy of Heaven, to which we've been made co-heirs and to which Christ precedes us; and the reality of Hell, from which Christ's humiliation and death has freed us. Advent, though, as it leads us into the celebration of Christmas, seems to be a time to mediate almost exclusively upon...

Eric Mok on Unsplash   "Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, 'Peace be with you.'"    -St. John 20:19b Yesterday's post was about avoiding the trap of fearing the devil. The more we know Jesus and the more we love Him as both Our Lord and Our Brother, we lose our fear and have an easier time living out the lives to which God is calling us. As with any relationship we have in our lives, the more time we spend with the special people in our lives, the more we know about them and the more deeply and the more intensely we love them. Many couples set aside date nights for just this purpose. The same is true with our relationship with Jesus. We have to spend time with Him alone. The most personal way to spend time with Jesus is by visiting Him in the Blessed Sacrament. Just go to your parish church and sit before the Tabernacle or the Monstrance, if it is a perpetual adoration chapel. Start talking to Jesus as you would talk to your best friend. Then s...

  "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell."    -St. Matthew 10:28 One night, as young teenagers, a friend and I watched a horror movie involving something to do with the devil possessing one of the protagonists of the film. That movie terrified me, but the dreams I had later that night terrified me more. Upon awaking the next morning, I knew that I didn't want to ever be possessed. What the movie had presented coupled with my profound ignorance of parts of my own faith and an irrational fear led me to an incredibly stupid and dangerous conclusion. I figured that to get into heaven, while avoiding any from the devil, I would be just a little bad. I had taken the devil's bait and I was never just a little bad. Have you ever done something similar? Christ teaches us that we are not to be afraid of Him nor of His Gospel. The fear that God and His angels inspire in the Sacred...

  Amy Welborn does an excellent job of raising questions about the situation in the Catholic Church in Germany in a post to her blog, Charlotte Was Both. Ms. Welborn's article is apropos of our earlier discussion about the political nature of the Catholic Church in the United States. Whether in Germany, where Catholics are leaving the Church to avoid taxation, or in the United States, where Catholics strive to be better Americans than Catholics, the politicization of the Church is any country only destroys it through the willing self-imposition by both the Church hierarchy and of the laity of masters other than Jesus Christ. If the Church trusts in Jesus Christ, the gates of Hell shall not prevail. When the Church trusts Satan in any of his various guises, eventually, the gates of Hell slam shut on it. I don't know. I keep thinking of that small band playing on the deck of the Titanic.

Sam Moqadam on Unsplash   If the members of ISIS, who are beheading Catholics in the Levant, are extremist Muslims and the Hindus, who are beheading Catholics in India and Pakistan, are extremist Hindus, then were the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes, who crucified Jesus extremist Jews?

  A friend and I were talking today about events around the world and in our own country and how very little of it seems to affect the lives, thoughts, or actions of those we know and observe in our daily travels. It struck us that the Holy Father's view of all of this must be fairly distressing. To wit, in one half of the world Catholics are being slaughtered physically by the hundreds or even the thousands every day. Just a daily reading of the news blurbs coming across the Missio app makes clear the sheer horror these people are facing as they are being identified, culled, and killed. The Catholics in the other half of the world are being slaughtered spiritually. Consumerism, cynicism, self-hatred, incredibly poor catechesis, complacency, and countless other evils either have pushed Catholics out of the Church or have left them in the Church as cultural Catholics with no real attachment to the faith. While not as dramatic, so not the fodder of news editors, this slaught...

  Today is the feast of St. Peter Claver. Below is a quote of his. It behooves me always to imitate the example of the ass. He never complains in any circumstances, for he is only an ass. So also must God's servant, the priest, be. May God grant all of our bishops, priests, and ourselves the humility to imitate the example of the ass.

  The 1944 musical, Going My Way , is considered a classic. Many Catholics view the movie as indicative of the way the Church used to be back in the good old days. A more careful look at this film seems to reveal this movie as propaganda for the idea that it is better for Catholics in the United States to be Americans first and Catholics second, a mindset that heavily influenced my upbringing. The movie features two priests. Father Fitzgibbon, an old, Irish priest, is pastor of St. Dominic Church in New York City. Father Fitzgibbon has lost touch with the times and control of the parish, especially its finances. While presented as very kindly and lovable like any doddering old relative might be, he his steadfast in his faith and the practice thereof. He believes that a priest should act with decorum and in a way that doesn't bring scandal or disrepute and behaves accordingly. Father Fitzgibbon has relied for years on prayer to get his parish the funds it needs for even basic r...