October 31, 2009
Catholicity
The great observances of All Saints and All Souls which we begin to celebrate tonight are a perfect opportunity for us to recall, reflect upon, and give thanks for the catholicity of the Church, which includes both Heaven and earth. Follow this link for my homily for this weekend.
Happy Halloween
This wonderfully complicated day cannot pass without some tribute to the greatest of Rock and Roll's guilty pleasures, the Misfits, and their eponymous song. Here it is (sort of) in German:
October 30, 2009
Discoveries
Imagine my delight when I was setting up for a wedding today and came across this box hidden away in our sacristy:
What could be in it to help me understand such a historic and exciting time?
A hard hat, a piece of slate, some crumpled notes, and a bunch of rubber bands.
What could be in it to help me understand such a historic and exciting time?
A hard hat, a piece of slate, some crumpled notes, and a bunch of rubber bands.
October 29, 2009
Advice to a Young Vocation
I had an email recently from a young man discerning a vocation to the religious life and the priesthood, asking for some advice. So I wrote something and sent it to him. I thought I would share it here:
First of all, pray in thanksgiving for your vocation, which is precious, no matter where it leads in the future. Expect opposition from friends and enemies alike and even from family. This is nothing out of the ordinary.
Be sure to have a good spiritual director, especially one who is mature enough in the Lord to be indifferent to your discernment process. If your director is a priest or religious, ignore his advice to join the diocese or community that he is a member of himself. (Not that you can't do this; you only have to discount biased advice to do it.) At best you need someone who is removed enough to help you discern impartially.
Go to college and finish before entering. Developmentally and spiritually, I think it just makes sense in our culture. Plus, if you decide on religious life and are called to study for the priesthood, having already done your undergraduate study removes cumbersome extra steps that a lot of guys have to deal with. So, go to college and study philosophy, as a minor at the very least.
Take your time. Communities everywhere are looking for applicants. It's a sellers' market. You are young, devout, and bright--every vocation director's dream. So when you meet them many will be trying to sign you up right away. Don't let them rush you. Seven or eight years from now you would still be a young candidate by current standards. Many vocation directors are looking for numbers, but the question for you is not which vocation director calls or pays the most attention to you, but where God wants you to be. There's a reason why vocation director is one of the ministries from which religious most often leave.
In that same spirit, visit different communities. This isn't a consumerist, 'shopper' attitude, but the accumulation of food for discernment. Always look at what the particular group or province does for their ministry--this is a realistic view of what you might be doing. Pay attention to your heart on visits, especially to what attracts and gives spiritual delight to your heart. On the other hand, If you are ever scandalized or confused by what you see, don't second guess yourself about it. Both of these are the Spirit working on you.
Look for a group that has others interested as well, and with whom you feel like you have something spiritually in common. If there are no other candidates or aspirants, walk away. There is probably a reason. If all of the other candidates or potential applicants seem like fanatics, lunatics, unorthodox Catholics, or deviants, walk away. Again, there is a reason.
Be ready for an adventure, both inside and out. I can't stress that enough.
First of all, pray in thanksgiving for your vocation, which is precious, no matter where it leads in the future. Expect opposition from friends and enemies alike and even from family. This is nothing out of the ordinary.
Be sure to have a good spiritual director, especially one who is mature enough in the Lord to be indifferent to your discernment process. If your director is a priest or religious, ignore his advice to join the diocese or community that he is a member of himself. (Not that you can't do this; you only have to discount biased advice to do it.) At best you need someone who is removed enough to help you discern impartially.
Go to college and finish before entering. Developmentally and spiritually, I think it just makes sense in our culture. Plus, if you decide on religious life and are called to study for the priesthood, having already done your undergraduate study removes cumbersome extra steps that a lot of guys have to deal with. So, go to college and study philosophy, as a minor at the very least.
Take your time. Communities everywhere are looking for applicants. It's a sellers' market. You are young, devout, and bright--every vocation director's dream. So when you meet them many will be trying to sign you up right away. Don't let them rush you. Seven or eight years from now you would still be a young candidate by current standards. Many vocation directors are looking for numbers, but the question for you is not which vocation director calls or pays the most attention to you, but where God wants you to be. There's a reason why vocation director is one of the ministries from which religious most often leave.
In that same spirit, visit different communities. This isn't a consumerist, 'shopper' attitude, but the accumulation of food for discernment. Always look at what the particular group or province does for their ministry--this is a realistic view of what you might be doing. Pay attention to your heart on visits, especially to what attracts and gives spiritual delight to your heart. On the other hand, If you are ever scandalized or confused by what you see, don't second guess yourself about it. Both of these are the Spirit working on you.
Look for a group that has others interested as well, and with whom you feel like you have something spiritually in common. If there are no other candidates or aspirants, walk away. There is probably a reason. If all of the other candidates or potential applicants seem like fanatics, lunatics, unorthodox Catholics, or deviants, walk away. Again, there is a reason.
Be ready for an adventure, both inside and out. I can't stress that enough.
From My Confessor
Some strong and encouraging words on prayer from my confessor today:
Penance: the old ten and ten.
Father's counsel reminded me of one of my favorite quotes from John of the Cross:
Por ninguna ocupación dejar la oración mental, que es sustento del alma. (Grados de Perfección, 5)
"Don't give up your mental prayer for any other activity, for it is the sustenance of the soul."
Notice how you form your confession, because it displays exactly the insight you need to keep in mind: You begin your confession with the irregularities and missings of the mark you have committed in your prayer life. Lack of vigilance and failure in right effort in this area is the source of all of the other sins and voluntary faults you have confessed today.
Our morning meditation is vitally important. It is our daily contact with the Mystery Itself. Without it we will not have the strength we need to face the work and difficulties of the day. On the positive side, it is from our morning meditation that we have the contact with God that enables us to notice, name, and celebrate the grace that is working in the lives of the people we serve. Without that, we are sacramental bureaucrats at best, and this is a recipe for our own misery and the discouragement of the faithful.
The same goes for the Office. It is called the Hours because its prayers--along with our Mass and meditation--are supposed to frame our days, to structure everything else around our habitual contact with God. In the busy life of ministry it is all too easy to begin to recite our breviary as an extra obligation appended to all the things we 'have to do' in the course of a day. It becomes one more chore. When this happens we will find that our devotion fades and we start to rationalize our prayer away. We begin to say that the daytime hour or night prayer don't bind under serious sin or grave obligation, so we begin to forget about them. But this kind of desensitization to the obligations of our state is very dangerous and you must strive to avoid the beginnings of its patterns in your thoughts. We all know the scandal and tragedy of priests who seem to have built up an internal insensitivity to the obligations of the clerical state.
So be about your prayer!
Penance: the old ten and ten.
Father's counsel reminded me of one of my favorite quotes from John of the Cross:
Por ninguna ocupación dejar la oración mental, que es sustento del alma. (Grados de Perfección, 5)
"Don't give up your mental prayer for any other activity, for it is the sustenance of the soul."
Rant Follow Up
After writing yesterday's rant I went to offer Mass for some of our high school freshmen on their day of retreat. Returning to the parish office, I took care of a couple of random things before the late afternoon quiet set in. I had a wedding rehearsal to do at five o'clock--the visiting priest who was supposed do it having sketched out--and went into the church early to do a couple of things before the happy couple and their wedding party started to show up. I had plenty of time to do what I needed to do: pray None, empty the candle and poor boxes, switch out the holy water in the stoups, and finally pray Vespers, as the wedding rehearsal would take me away from Evening Prayer in common.
When I had finished all of that, I still had about fifteen minutes before the rehearsal was supposed to show up. The church was wonderfully dark because of the rainy day outside. I knelt down in the front pew of the church before the Lord's sanctuary--the same spot where I sat as a newly professed friar and where my parents stood as I was ordained priest on the sanctuary steps. As I looked up at the tabernacle, the crucifix, the great Cor Iesu Sacratissimum Miserere Nobis and Amoris Victima that speak insistently from the sanctuary, the message of the crucifix of San Damiano to St. Francis came to me:
"Francis, go and repair my house, which you see is being totally destroyed."
As the gift of my quiet time and prayer in church it came upon me insistently. If I discern and become aware that the Catholic faith is falling apart, its most basic teachings and tradition evaporating from the hearts of the baptized--well, here is my chance to become a son of St. Francis, to be the friar I have desired to be since I first met Francis in History 232 all the way back in college.
So, ranting has its place, so long as it helps to shock the ranter and audience into a discernment of what can be done. My prayer forces the question upon me: what am I doing, in my example, my stewardship of the sacred mysteries, and my preaching to rebuild the Church in the neighborhood that the Holy Spirit has put into my vicarious care?
When I had finished all of that, I still had about fifteen minutes before the rehearsal was supposed to show up. The church was wonderfully dark because of the rainy day outside. I knelt down in the front pew of the church before the Lord's sanctuary--the same spot where I sat as a newly professed friar and where my parents stood as I was ordained priest on the sanctuary steps. As I looked up at the tabernacle, the crucifix, the great Cor Iesu Sacratissimum Miserere Nobis and Amoris Victima that speak insistently from the sanctuary, the message of the crucifix of San Damiano to St. Francis came to me:
"Francis, go and repair my house, which you see is being totally destroyed."
As the gift of my quiet time and prayer in church it came upon me insistently. If I discern and become aware that the Catholic faith is falling apart, its most basic teachings and tradition evaporating from the hearts of the baptized--well, here is my chance to become a son of St. Francis, to be the friar I have desired to be since I first met Francis in History 232 all the way back in college.
So, ranting has its place, so long as it helps to shock the ranter and audience into a discernment of what can be done. My prayer forces the question upon me: what am I doing, in my example, my stewardship of the sacred mysteries, and my preaching to rebuild the Church in the neighborhood that the Holy Spirit has put into my vicarious care?
October 28, 2009
Wherein H1N1 Reveals and I Rant
I'll develop this post more later, but I have to go preach to kids in a few minutes. I don't want to risk taking anything out on them, so I just have to get something posted now because I'm so upset.
I've had several conversations with folks lately regarding their concerns about Holy Communion and the H1N1 virus. The conversation starts like this:
"Father, I have concerns about the flu. When are we going to stop giving out the wine?"
To which I immediately respond, "We don't give out wine."
"But Father...the wine is given out at every Mass!"
Then I go for it: "Perhaps you mean to say that we minister the Precious Blood at each Mass?"
Having pointed out the telling error, I usually get a response like, "Ok, you know what you mean," or even a "whatever" from otherwise observant Catholics!
No, I don't think I know what you mean. No, not whatever! Do we really believe that this is not wine but the Precious Blood of Christ poured out from the Cross in the ratification of the New and Eternal Covenant?
Stop wondering why people don't come to church. Here's your answer. Catholics have ceased to believe in the Real Presence. I wouldn't bother either. Even more disturbing, most of the people with whom I have had this conversation have been older Catholics who were taught better. Who has untaught them the doctrine of the faith? Who?
And woe to us friars too! This is why we forsake our own chapel where we might pray in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament and with images of the Capuchin saints on the windows to recite our office around a fake fireplace. It is an intense privilege to live under the same roof as the Blessed Sacrament! People go out of their way to pray in the Presence! But for us it is 'too far away' even though it's the same building!
Who has untaught us the faith?
< /rant >
Extra credit to someone who caught the Merton quote.
I've had several conversations with folks lately regarding their concerns about Holy Communion and the H1N1 virus. The conversation starts like this:
"Father, I have concerns about the flu. When are we going to stop giving out the wine?"
To which I immediately respond, "We don't give out wine."
"But Father...the wine is given out at every Mass!"
Then I go for it: "Perhaps you mean to say that we minister the Precious Blood at each Mass?"
Having pointed out the telling error, I usually get a response like, "Ok, you know what you mean," or even a "whatever" from otherwise observant Catholics!
No, I don't think I know what you mean. No, not whatever! Do we really believe that this is not wine but the Precious Blood of Christ poured out from the Cross in the ratification of the New and Eternal Covenant?
Stop wondering why people don't come to church. Here's your answer. Catholics have ceased to believe in the Real Presence. I wouldn't bother either. Even more disturbing, most of the people with whom I have had this conversation have been older Catholics who were taught better. Who has untaught them the doctrine of the faith? Who?
And woe to us friars too! This is why we forsake our own chapel where we might pray in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament and with images of the Capuchin saints on the windows to recite our office around a fake fireplace. It is an intense privilege to live under the same roof as the Blessed Sacrament! People go out of their way to pray in the Presence! But for us it is 'too far away' even though it's the same building!
Who has untaught us the faith?
< /rant >
Extra credit to someone who caught the Merton quote.
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