Shhh!

The eternal God, who is the longing of each soul created in his image, desires to arrive in our lives as our giftedness and joy. My homily for this weekend is posted here.

Overheard In The Monastery

(On the Friday after Thanksgiving)

Friar with cell phone on speaker: "Why aren't you at work?"

Unknown interlocutor: "It's Saturday."

Martyrs

Today's Gospel, Luke 21: 12-19

Jesus said to the crowd:
“They will seize and persecute you,
they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons,
and they will have you led before kings and governors
because of my name.
It will lead to your giving testimony.
Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand,
for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking
that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute.
You will even be handed over by parents,v brothers, relatives, and friends,
and they will put some of you to death.
You will be hated by all because of my name,
but not a hair on your head will be destroyed.
By your perseverance you will secure your lives."

The world is the courtroom, and God is on trial, put to the test by those who either won't or don't know how to believe. We who are Christians are called to be the witnesses at this trial where we will give our martyrion, or "testimony," as Luke says.

Unlikely Source

I was listening to metal internet radio the other day and I was reminded that even Slayer, widely regarded (and rightly so) as pretty occult and Satanic, can deliver the stark and obvious anti-abortion message. Here's some of the lyrics to their 1988 song, "Silent Scream."

Nightmare, the persecution,
A child's dream of death.
Torment, ill forgotten
A soul that will never rest*

Guidance, it means nothing
In a world of brutal time
Electric, circus wild
Deep in the infants mind

Silent scream
Bury the unwanted child
Beaten and torn
Sacrifice the unborn

Shattered, adolescent
Bearer of no name
Restrained, insane games
Suffer the children condemned

Scattered, remnants of life
Murder a time to die
Pain, suffrage toyed
Life's little fragments destroyed

Silent scream
Crucify the bastard son
Beaten and torn
Sanctify lives of scorn

*Of course we know that the Lord is close to the broken and wants always to save the victim of society's injustices. So we trust that God does give rest to the souls of those who are robbed of their lives on earth through abortion.

Destination and Destiny

The movement toward the cosmic kingship of Christ, first explicitly revealed in his Resurrection, is the true history of the world. Let's get with the program. My homily for this weekend is posted here.

From My Confessor

It's lonely to be a priest. It just is. But in a certain and very real sense this is necessary. The priest has to know something of the loneliness of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, because this is where we see the classic expression of the perfect unity of his human and divine wills.

For us who are mixed in our motivations, it will be our daily practice and cooperation with grace that will bend our will to the divine. As with Jesus in the garden, it is in our own loneliness that we see this task before us most clearly. Our experience of alone-ness can be either the occasion of the sin of turning back on ourselves and indulging in loneliness, or turning from ourselves in the solitude that reaches out to the One who is.

Pro-Choice, or Pro-Me at the Expense of You?

So is the title of Historical Christian's latest post. Read it here and believe it.