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Preparing The Altar - Part One: The Proper Place of Preparation

4/21/2019

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+JMJ+
​I had already taken a few steps in the wrong direction before I realized that no one was following me. There were some loud whispers (alas, I do not have eyes in the back of my head), and then some meaningful glances before it registered that I had forgotten a rather important prerequisite to my movement. It was Good Friday, three or four years ago, and I was completely certain that I had to lead Father and the other servers over to the altar of repose. . . unfortunately, I had skipped right over the quite critical preparation of the vessels on the altar of sacrifice to receive the Eucharist, which we were retrieving from the altar of repose. Happily, after I had been made aware of my gaffe, we then prepared the altar as we should have and continued with no further mistakes. At the end, following a bashful apology from me, Father simply joked, “We need to set the table before we can have the feast.”

It was a simple observation, probably meant as a throwaway remark, but it has been in the forefront of my mind more and more in recent months. We pay very little attention to those few moments when the priest or deacon opens the missal to the proper place and arranges the chalice and paten, usually because we’re so caught up in pulling out our wallets for the collection. It is a foregone conclusion that it must occur, completely disruptive and immediately evident when it has not taken place, yet places no demands on our attention during the Mass. And this is as it should be, for preparation is a humble event, yet a necessary one. Indeed, the two Latin roots of “preparation” reveal something of its nature: first, that it comes “prae” - “before”, it precedes something in the proper order of things; second, that it is oriented to something that comes after, it is when we “parāre” - “make ready” for something. Too often, however, we forget these roots, and in doing so, we forget the proper place of preparation in the hierarchy of values. To understand preparation correctly, however, we must recognize that the something that preparation precedes, the something for which we make ready - is to act.

“For whether it be the lightly armed desire of youth which it is presumed will press forward to victory, or whether it be the mature man’s determination that will fight its way through life, they both count on having a long time at their disposal. They presuppose, in the plans for their efforts, a generation or at least a number of years, and therefore they waste a great deal of time and on that account the whole thing so readily ends in delusion.” - Soren Kierkegaard

Several years ago, I went on a retreat with a number of good men I still admire deeply - practically older brothers in my eyes. On a whim, a few of the more exuberant fellows decided we should go for a run, and I, being young and naive and caught up in the excitement, decided I would come along. Suffice it to say, that these men were incredibly active and fit - and I was not. It was sobering to realize how much I held them back from the pace they wanted to set, and for all my bravado, I spent at least fifteen minutes after we returned to camp feeling light-headed and trying desperately not to throw up. My youth notwithstanding, it was a humbling experience, and a needed reminder of my pride and overconfidence in my abilities, as well as my laziness and apathy regarding the continued development of my skills. Given his infamous physique, it’s unlikely that G.K. Chesterton had fitness in mind, but he was certainly onto something when he said, “You cannot grow a beard in a moment of passion.”

Because of its hiddenness, it is sometimes easy to assume that preparation is of little necessity. Yet how often do we see a deadline far off in the future, put the task aside, and then find ourselves in a panic when it finally arrives? Or find ourselves running late and caught in traffic, cursing our unwillingness to depart ten minutes earlier? Or spend a break from school dawdling when we should be studying for an exam just on the other side of the week? Surely, those men I had accompanied on their run had had months, if not years, of continually challenging themselves to go higher, faster, further. When we forget the chronological hierarchy of things - that preparation precedes action - we find ourselves believing things such as, “I’ll get around to it eventually,” or, “I’ll just wing it,” or, “it won’t be that hard.” These are fallacies that will cripple our ability to take action when the time to act comes upon us - and the time to act will come.

It’s funny: the thoughts behind this piece were first sparked around St. Patrick’s Day last year, then began to come together in a cohesive fashion over last summer, then I began to think of publishing an article for the beginning of Advent, which then slipped to Christmas, then New Year’s, then Ash Wednesday, and now here we are in the midst of Easter day. I’ve put it off again and again for a myriad of reasons - some better than others: not enough content to write about; not being able to finish it in time for a particularly significant day or season; not having studied the topic enough to write about it well; too many other things to take care of - and on and on the excuses have gone. I let myself become so wrapped up in contemplating preparation in the abstract that it took me far too long to remember that there should be a time when the preparatory phase comes to an end and finds its fulfillment in action.

There are a dizzying amount of reasons to remain in the preparatory phase: perhaps we’re afraid of the irrevocability of what we are about to do, or that the end result will look nothing like the perfect vision we have conjured in our head, or we prefer the supposed freedom of not having committed ourselves to a firm course of action, or the comfort of our current situation is simply too tempting to give up. We wait for New Year's to make a resolution, or a birthday to get in touch with a friend, or a deathbed to say what we’ve been longing to say - but it has been months since we were made aware of the change we need to make, or days since we’ve wondered about how our friend is doing, or years since we recognized that we want to have that important conversation. It's true: there is no perfect time, nor ever a perfect result - but what peace have we ever found by ceding our agency to the currents of the world and the whims of others? Perhaps we will never reach a point at which we are completely equipped and ready for what is to come. This does not mean that preparation is useless or unnecessary, but we must remember that preparation is not an end unto itself. We must learn to be at peace with doing the best that we can in the time that is given to us. 

A lack of preparation implies that some action is taken, even if imperfect. This is the realm of deadlines, the arena of work and school. Deadlines give us a time in which we must act; we may or may not choose to prepare ourselves adequately for that time, but there must be an act, whether it’s submitting an assignment or not, or taking an exam or skipping it. Once that time has passed (late submissions notwithstanding) the opportunity is over and behind us. The majority of things in life, however, including the most important things, rarely have set deadlines. There is no predetermined age at which one is required to have fully entered into their vocation, or to have had children, or to have become a saint; no one knows when they need to be ready to die. As a result, we focus on our seeming inability to deem ourselves ready for those things, to commit ourselves to those great and terrible choices that will impact the entire course of our lives.

Both approaches - whether a carelessness with respect to preparation or an undue emphasis on it - are disordered. We cripple our ability to act if we ignore the groundwork that must be laid; we make preparation barren if it never finds its fulfillment in action. It's a balance then, between ensuring that we do strive to prepare as we must, yet not becoming so obsessed with preparation that we fail to take action when called upon.

Preparation is ordered towards, only understood in light of, and finds its proper end in action; just as potency is ordered to act; just as an acorn is meant to grow into an oak; just as vows spoken in a moment are meant to be consummated in a gift of self throughout one's entire life. Because the proper end of preparation is action, however, a failure to act is far worse than a failure to prepare; at least the one who may be heedless of preparation has yet the courage and the willingness to answer the demands of the moment and act when called upon.

Perhaps we may not always be able to prepare for specific situations, but by the very act of living, we have been preparing in some fashion for our actions. It is both sobering and encouraging to realize that we do nothing “on a whim” - none of our choices are isolated from each other, or exist in a vacuum. They inform and build upon each other, whether we like it or not, whether we are aware of it or not. By the time we reach college, we have some 150,000 hours of training behind us. 150,000 hours in which we built habits: to act or not to act when the situation demands, to ready or nor to ready ourselves for the choices that we know we must make, to trust or not to trust in the goodness of God and His plan for us.

This is the crux of the matter: do we trust that God will direct our works - the best that we can make of that with which He has blessed us - and perfect them in His wisdom and grace? If we understand and truly believe the Kerygma - that God created us for loving relationship with Him; that our relationship with Him was broken by sin; that Jesus Christ took upon Himself the death resulting from sin to restore our relationship; and that we have the opportunity to respond to that love and be reunited to God - what is there to fear? "Be not afraid!" Pope Saint John Paul II reminded us often.

How fitting, then, is the forty days of Lent when considered in the light of the fifty days of Easter: Lent - the ascent up the mountain - found us casting off the unnecessary attachments to passing things and making room, increasing our desire and capacity for Christ. Easter - the peak of Christian life - in its fifty days of celebration vs. Lent's forty days of sacrifice, reminds us to trust that that which we receive is so much greater than that which we give up; the joy of Easter is something that we can only fully enter into when we have emptied ourselves to receive the superabundance of love and grace that God desires to pour out upon us. Indeed, happy are those who have taken the opportunity to properly set their table, and then joyfully received what has been given in its proper time!

The response God asks of us is to act in trust, to take a leap of faith in His loving providence. Through the little decisions of each moment, we can prepare ourselves to make each subsequent action an act of faith, an act of hope, an act of love. And the greatest of these - the specific and ultimate action towards which all our preparation and prior action is ordered - is love.

It is the subject of love, then, that shall next be considered in our further contemplation of what it means to prepare the altar.

Author
​
Paco Patag
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Physicality and Faith

6/3/2018

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+JMJ+
When we think of those heady moments in which we lose all sense of time and are swept away in breathless exhilaration, which situations come to mind? Though it’s certainly easy to lose track of time while lazily daydreaming, or scrolling on one’s phone, or wandering around aimlessly, it takes something special to “wake us up” - to make us forget ourselves, to draw us fully out. It could be any number of things - perhaps it’s different for each person - it could be a few friends cozily enjoying tea and each others’ company on a stormy day, or a fierce game of Ultimate among brothers, or the busyness of rushing around to assist at one’s local food pantry - it matters not exactly what causes it, but that it happens.

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“The glory of God is man fully alive,” says St. Irenaeus. In those moments when both our body and soul are awakened in unison, there’s a sense that we almost begin to see behind the curtain of fleeting things, into the stage of eternity, and grasp most tangibly the wonder of the life with which God has blessed us.
“The body, and it alone, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine. It was created to transfer into the visible reality of the world the mystery hidden since time immemorial in God, and thus be a sign of it.”
The above is an excerpt from Pope Saint John Paul II’s Theology of the Body that has been echoing in my mind since I began volunteering to help lead Ruah Woods’ High School Kenosis program this past school year. The thought is striking because we have a bit of a complicated relationship with the body in our day and age. In some situations, it seems the body and its pleasure are the be-all and end-all of life – that the ultimate evil is being deprived of sensual delights. In others, it seems that the body does not matter at all – we are quite free to ignore objective truths of biology should we feel strongly enough about it.
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And yet both perceptions of the body, ultimately, leave us unsatisfied. Why? In either case - on the one hand, elevating the body, and on the other, denying it - it is the body that is the focus, and the rest of the person falls by the wayside. Pope Saint John Paul II says something illuminating once more: “There is no dignity when the human dimension is eliminated from the person.” It is this drive to divorce what ought to be inseparable, this failure to behold the wonder that is the entirety of the human person – persons, “towards [whom] the only proper and adequate response is love,” – that causes such a dissonance within ourselves and our society.

What we often fail to truly grasp is that our bodies exist to reveal the person. How staggering to think that those around us only know who we are through our bodies! If my closest friend knows who I am, it is because his ears have heard the words from my mouth; it is because his eyes have borne witness to my actions; it is because our hands have reached out to clasp the other’s. Our interior life remains completely invisible and incomprehensible to others until we translate it through our bodies into the physical realm. Who doesn’t delight in seeing that small quirk of an exasperated smile on a friend’s face after one tells a particularly bad pun? Or in feeling the lingering warmth of a wordless embrace before a long separation? Or in hearing the absent-minded out-of-tune humming of an old friend? Such events aren’t significant because the sensations in themselves are particularly meaningful, but because they reveal the humor, the affection, the personality of an Other. When we allow the body and its appetites to take precedence over the person, we are left empty; when we deny our body entirely, we become unanchored from reality. Only when the body is regarded in the context of the person, with the measure of dignity appropriate to it, does its power properly reveal itself.

And here we come to the point: Corpus Christi – the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. We have a fleshy, bloody, intensely physical Faith: we sit, and stand, and kneel; prostrate ourselves before the altar; anoint heads and hands with oil; sign the cross on ourselves with water; kiss the cross; light candles and incense; consummate marriages through the marital embrace; run beads through our fingers; raise our voices and sing; ring bells; extend hands over bread and wine; consume body and blood. And on and on it goes. Why? Because, “The body, and it alone, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine.” Through the Faith, we find peace - the tranquility of order that allows us to glorify God through our body, while also not being enslaved to its appetites. We fast because we were made for more than merely physical goods; we feast because God, in his goodness, has given to us in abundance. The physical reality of our Faith grounds us in our humanity, which God has deemed, "very good."

Just as with any other friend, we come to know Christ through a physical experience with a person. A relationship with Christ is a spiritual thing to be sure, but it is through the tangible medium of listening to our parents passing on the Faith, of seeing our friends witnessing to the Truth, of being moved ourselves by the beauty of the Mass, that we first come to know Him. It is no accident that half of communication is body language. It is no accident that the language of the body is an integral part of our Catholic Faith. And beyond all this, we, the Church, are the Body of Christ. The Church was not meant to be a mere gathering of peoples, a body for its own sake; rather, She exists to reveal the person of Christ as His hands and feet – even as His heart, as St. Thérèse of Lisieux declared she would be.

​
We are neither puritan nor hedonist – we are Catholic: Just as we reject the belief that the body is evil, so too do we reject the belief that mere bodily pleasure is the aim of life. Rather than repressing our desires for physical goods or allowing ourselves to be enslaved by our hunger for physical comforts, we subordinate and direct those desires towards the good. We’ll never truly understand what it means to live until our body and soul cooperate in harmony - a successful integration of body and soul orients us to the reality that we are made for self-gift. You and I, through our every action, are meant to bring others to an encounter with the person of Christ, and we impoverish the world if we forget this mission.

Author

​Paco Patag
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Living Loudly

9/26/2017

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+JMJ+
There's always something rather exciting about clean slates and fresh starts, whether it's the chance to redefine yourself on the first day of a new job, or that wonderful feeling of freedom after receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation, or even writing the first line in a just-opened notebook (oh, is that last one just me?). A couple of weeks ago, I was joking with a few close friends about how I had missed the opportunity to create an entirely new persona immediately after transferring to UC from Cincinnati State: "I could have become the super-social transfer student who wears a cloak everywhere, or the dad-joking gets-involved-in-everything kid with the mad scientist hair, but alas, the window of opportunity is quickly closing. . ."
Amusingly enough, however, what began as a joke has since turned into a point of serious contemplation. After all, what is it that I am presenting to the world? The idea of personal branding comes up quite often during Intro to Co-op. While the idea of "selling oneself" sounds fundamentally abhorrent, the use of the word "branding" is interesting: "Branding," as in when ranchers would mark their herd of cows so as to identify them after allowing them to wander and graze freely; "branding," as in when grooms would once brand the name of their bride into their palm as a sign of their eternal union; "branding" as a sign of permanent belonging to another. Perhaps the question should be, "To what - or better yet - to whom does my life reveal me to belong?"

Against the backdrop of Prof. Amy Barrett's nomination hearing, the question becomes even more urgent. During Sen. Dianne Feinstein's questioning of Prof. Amy Barrett after her nomination to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Sen. Feinstein said something striking:
Whatever a religion is, it has its own dogma. The law is totally different. And I think in your case, professor, when you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you, and that's of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for for years in this country. - Sen. Dianne Feinstein
Sen. Feinstein likely meant nothing complimentary by her observation that, "The dogma lives loudly," within Prof. Barrett, but I can think of few statements that I would rather have said about me. The question that this puts before all of us is, "what is it that I live loudly?" In lieu of a brand-new persona, what is it that I witness to in my life, day in and day out? Could it be said that integrity, or honor, or peace lives loudly within me? Do I make visible the joy that should inspire my every action, or the charity that is needed of me in trying situations? Through my actions, my disposition, my work - do I bring inspiration to others?

Last Sunday, St. Paul wrote in the second reading:
None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself. For if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord; so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's. (Romans 14:7-8)
And this Sunday :
I am caught between the two. I long to depart this life and be with Christ, for that is far better. Yet that I remain in the flesh is more necessary for your benefit. Only, conduct yourselves in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ. (Phil 1:23-24, 27A)
If we lived in a vacuum, or as islands, perhaps these questions would not matter so much. Perhaps we would be free to hold our private convictions, and not have to worry about the discomfort and conflict involved in living them out in the public sphere. But we do not, and cannot, live with such a luxury. We do not belong merely to ourselves, but to Christ, and by extension, to each other. That we still remain on earth is not merely for our own benefit, but for the good of the whole Body of Christ. Every act of the will, whether public or private, informs who we are. And who we are shapes the direction of our family, our community, and the whole world.
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So, I put the question to you, dear reader: "What do you choose to live loudly?"
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Author

Paco Patag

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Good Catholics Go to Public Colleges

2/27/2015

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It’s college-picking season. And that means several facebook statuses about school acceptance and new affinities for the colors (insert new school colors here).  
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Whatever you do, don't be that guy.
As somebody with a lot of Catholic friends, every year I will hear at least a few people comment about going to a Catholic school. The comments will often go as follows:

  • My faith is too important to me to go to a Public School
  • I’m going to a Catholic School because I value my faith
  • Being able to live out my Catholic faith is worth the extra money
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Because nothing says Christianity like avoiding conflict.
Now, I get the message people are trying to get across, but often times the “Public School vs. Catholic School” comparison is made into a shining example of a false dichotomy. Catholics go to Catholic school, where the Catholic faith is fully embraced and lived out, and heathens/lame Catholics go to their public schools, where hopefully they can resume being Catholic again after graduation.

In short: No.

Before I address this, let’s be clear that I’m not going to spend time (except for this sentence) on the fact that many Catholic universities today are Catholic in name only, and are a cause of great scandal for the Church. Somebody else can write a blog on that. Instead I’m going to focus on the fact that Public Universities can and are in several circumstances fantastic places to live out one’s Catholic faith.

A couple of years ago I was interviewed by a Catholic news agency for a story on (as I was told) practicing Catholicism in a secular school setting. I was asked the questions you might expect, covering the who, what, where, why, and how bases. I was also asked if I ever experienced people or settings which were against the beliefs of the Catholic Church. As a human being living on Earth, of course I had – I named a few times that professors or even members of other Christian groups on campus were not quiet about their negative opinions of the Church. I also mentioned the unique evangelization opportunities these gave me. If the apostles and saints could spread the Gospel message to nations who had never heard of Christ or were explicitly against him, surely I could do this too (perhaps not with the same zeal or success rate) – especially since martyrdom at the hands of these people was not likely (although sometimes you wonder).

I was disappointed when the article was published the following month under the pretense that Catholic schools are so much better than secular colleges, and proceeded to use the rest of the article to state why Catholics should go to Catholic universities. 

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I remember the last day of classes my senior year of High School – my physics teacher was saying goodbye and then suddenly got pretty serious. “Listen up guys,” he started. “You've heard I don’t know how many times that you’re 'going out into the real world’ now. That couldn't be further from the truth. College is the most non-reflective example of what the world is actually like. It’s a completely different lifestyle that doesn't exist anywhere except during your 4-year stretch there. Be responsible and don’t lose sight of the real world.” This has stuck with me. Colleges are mini-cities. Or just plain cities, depending on where you go. Things fly on college campuses that would get you arrested anywhere else, like the unfortunate genitalia poster display on UC’s campus two years ago. Lifestyles revolve around student schedules and social events. Catholic schools and public universities with Catholic/Newman groups can fall into the “college-Catholicism” trap where living out one’s faith is done in a way you will never be able to reproduce after graduation. Most notably is the redefining of “Church” and “Mass” as places made up of the young, exclusively for the young! Sorry grandma – I get that we’re all a part of the body of Christ but your oxygen tank is just a little bit harshing my style right now.

This problem is not unique to Catholicism – several Protestant groups also take this sort of approach to target the college audience. Separating pieces from something that was never meant to be separated results in destruction, dysfunction, and disunity. This is as true in the spiritual sense as it is in the physical sense.

What happens is often a significant or total redirection away from the notion of Parish Life.
If you came from a practicing Catholic family, you were probably a part of a parish before you came to college. After college, you’ll move somewhere, settle down, and find a parish that will then be your home parish. 

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In college, it’s very easy to go to your on-campus Mass/Church event while being a member only of the school – not as a member of a parish. Because of this we lose sight of who we are – our identity as Catholics as part of The Universal Church that greatly expands beyond the confines of college walls.

The fact of the matter is, your school’s religious affiliation does not determine whether or not you live out your Catholic faith. You do. This post is titled “Good Catholics go to Public Colleges” – and this is true. But good Catholics go to Catholic colleges too. As Catholics, college should be a time for growth, community (both in and outside of the campus walls), evangelization, and an overall deeper entering into the life of Christ, wherever you go.

Pray and discern about which college is best for you - but don't let the fact that a college is "secular" scare you away.

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50 Shades and the Need for Death

2/17/2015

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Well the opening weekend for 50 Shades of Grey was massively successful, grossing more than $81 million.  That speaks for itself, the state in which we find ourselves in the modern world. I wonder what future generations will look back and think about us. They’ll probably just scratch their heads in dismay and give up on the prospect of making sense of the early 2nd millennium.
I think we’ve hit a milestone; we’re bored, and we’re showing it. This movie, and the $81 million it made, makes that clear. I just spent about an hour trying to get worked up enough to research all the bad reviews and painfully awkward co-star interviews and think of all the smart insults like “drivel” and “insipid” to make a profound statement against the banalization of evil. Instead, I leaned back in my chair to rub the sleep from my eyes and the back of it broke. I did a few crunches on the broken chair, then I realized… I’M BORED.
I find myself in the peculiar place of wanting to sign a contract with 13 dwarves and a wizard to go recover lost gold from a fire-breathing dragon. Like Bilbo Baggins, I basically feel like running towards almost certain death with a guarantee of pain in the process. 
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Smaug image public domain, taken from: http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101121131547/lotr/images/8/8a/Drag%C3%B3n_Smaug.jpg
If there’s anything, anything at all that this movie speaks to, it’s our culture’s growing desire for self-destruction. We have been sedated with so many warm and fuzzies; we’ve sated our minds and our bodies with so many drugs, be they narcotics, pain killers, food, healing herbal teas, ideologies, pleasure, casual sex, or what-have-you; we’ve been told to flee from pain and suffering; we’ve been told and accepted the message that we deserve, nay, have the right to everything we think we want. And what we’re finding is that we’re bored of it all.
We’re hungering for cold, hard reality, to be like a granite mountain that stands and weathers every force that beats against it. We’re bored of being closed in on ourselves, isolated in our existence, going nowhere and doing nothing. We want to lose our ‘self’, just drop it all together, and be so totally taken over by something, or someone, outside of ourselves to finally touch reality. We want to go on an adventure!
So, naturally, we’ve turned towards more sex. It’s all we millennials have been given to do. But it’s become a bit boring, hasn’t it? The usual sex scenes don’t cut it anymore. Maybe if we make a whole movie about sex and add a little pain and bondage to it, that’ll make it interesting again. Right? Then we’ll be able to feel something. Maybe then we’ll wake up to reality as we come out of our isolated, lonely existence and give ourselves over to another.
In all of this, I’m reminded of another story:
When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” A second time he said to him, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go.” (This he said to show by what death he was to glorify God.) And after this he said to him, “Follow me.” (John 21:15-19)
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Jesus handing the Keys to the Kingdom, image public domain, taken from: http://www.marysrosaries.com/collaboration/index.php?title=File:Jesus_Entrusting_the_Keys_to_the_Kingdom_to_Saint_Peter_01a.jpg
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Crucifixion of Peter, public domain, taken from: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Caravaggio_-_Martirio_di_San_Pietro.jpg
What is the difference? There’s love. There’s loss of free will. There’s bondage. There’s pain. There’s even death. 
It is the object of our love and desire. The object in 50 Shades is the desperate grasping at an awakening from our isolated existence, to touch upon some feeling of reality, only to be further sedated into isolation by our desire to please ourselves. 
The object for Peter, for any Christian, is to die to ourselves to live in Jesus, and in Him, to love others. “Feed my sheep.” Your life is not about you. You are no longer the owner of your body, your soul, your self.  You are no longer free to do as you will. We balk at that. It sounds so dangerously close to 50 Shades, doesn’t it? Because 50 Shades exists and has been put in our minds, we immediately think of disgusting images and link them with Jesus and squirm at the thought. But 50 Shades is the perversion of that great truth. In 50 Shades, the object is pleasure and the end is pain, suffering, and death. In the Christian life, the object is to pass through the suffering, pain, and death of our life here on earth, laying ourselves down for the sake of others, experiencing the true, cold, hard reality of losing our ‘self’ in the other, and being brought out on the other side of death to fullness of life lived in the God who is completely and gloriously Other to us, in order that we might continually fall in love with Him for eternity.
St. Paul says it this way, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”


Written by:
Marty Arlinghaus
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This Was Something Real- My Journey Into Catholicism

2/5/2015

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“I recently became Catholic and it was easy,” said no one ever.

To say the least, I have had quite the unexpected year that started with a conversation with a Catholic guy that grew into a full exploration of the Catholic faith and lead me to become a fully confirmed Catholic. And it feels like God punched me in the face (lovingly) and I am still reeling from the blow.

Sometimes I still think to myself “Wow, wait… Did I really do that?” I’m not exactly the type of person to make a huge stink about every opinion and belief I have- make no mistake, I stand proudly for Truth and Truth alone- but how did I end up making the decision to become part of the type of Christianity that makes the boldest and most controversial statements on just about every thinkable issue? Well, like I said, it all started with a conversation with a Catholic guy.

For most of my life, I have viewed Catholicism as the quirky superstitious Christianity- that as long as Catholics believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and is “the way, the truth and the life,” they’re cool, but you just shouldn’t ask them too much about those weird crackers they think are God, the Pope who they think is almost God, Mary who they think is the female God, and the saints who they think are other cute little gods.

So when Andrew (my now boyfriend) started talking to me a year ago about my faith as a non-denominational Christian and we found that we actually agreed on a lot of points of Christianity, I thought that maybe there was something more to Catholicism. We kept coming back to interesting and deep discussions on many different topics and I wanted to know more about this side to Catholicism I never knew of.

I shared with him my questions and convictions of Christianity. He told me once “Wow, you sound like a Catholic.” I was a little taken aback by this because the whole time we had been talking I was thinking Wow, you don’t sound like a Catholic. He invited me to go to Mass with him, which I attended out of curiosity and expected nothing but an interesting cultural experience. The building was incredible but the mass itself was quite confusing and foreign to me and I was honestly more drawn to only discussing Catholic beliefs and attending a church with a style I was more accustomed to instead. We started dating and I began to grow deeper in understanding Catholic beliefs.

I began to attending mass at Annunciation Parish in the fall and even signed up for RCIA at St. Gertrude Parish to explore more. A few months later, I attended adoration with Andrew and a few friends at a parish I had never been to. I was amazed at the sheer beauty of the place adorned with dazzling stained glass from far above me that shone down on the flowing curves of the architecture, immaculate paintings, candles, icons, symbols, sculptures… etc. It was overwhelming and seemed to never end.

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Annunciation, my home parish
As I wandered in awe about the church, I came across a sculpture of St. Therese “The Little Flower” and read a small plaque that told the story of her “little way” and included her novena. I was interested but skeptical of what it all meant. There was something attractive yet overwhelming about the complexity of the Catholic Church including the incredible art and architecture, the colossal number of people who were part of the Catholic Church, the history it clung so closely to, the millions of books and documents on Catholic doctrine, the magisterium, the militant attitude that follows Catholics, and even the smell of a Catholic church. And yet in the midst of it there was this story of a young woman whose little deeds done with great love changed the world. I felt connected to her and wanted whatever it was that made her so special, but was skeptical of this little poem that was supposed to grant me some request by a dead person. Andrew encouraged me to give the little prayer a shot, so after some time I decided to just try. I prayed with an earnest heart and said to St. Therese, “You know, I really don’t know about all this Catholic stuff, but if I really am supposed to be here and learning this stuff and it’s convenient for you… I don’t really want anything for myself, but it would be nice if I could get a sign of some sort.” I forgot about it for the next eight days and was very doubtful that I would actually get anything, but on the ninth day I received exactly what I had ordered: coming home from classes, I found a box of a dozen roses on my front porch addressed to my roommate with a note that said “God bless you. Praying for you. Always and forever. Have a good day!” It took me a few minutes to put everything together, but when it hit me, it rocked my world. I realized that in Catholicism, saints are not meant to be little gods that magically grant wishes for fun. Rather, as St. Therese did for me, saints give us exactly what we need at exactly the right time that points us directly to God. This couldn’t have been a coincidence. This was something real. It wasn’t that St. Therese put the roses into existence just the way I wanted them for funsies- I know where they actually came from and why they were addressed to my roommate on that day. But it wasn’t a coincidence that I had been compelled nine days earlier to complete this novena at a time that I was seriously searching for truth in Catholicism and needed a straight answer from God to tell me whether or not I was doing this right. This was something God wanted for me and allowed for St. Therese to be a friend and give me something to better understand Him. I understood that the role of saints (including Mary) is not to be gods to glorify themselves, but their purpose is to point people to the one and only God.
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My flowers from St. Thérèse
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Her lovely note to me
Around this same time, I was introduced to the Catechism. It amazed me I had never known that there was a book like this. I remember that when I was going through a difficult time in my faith in high school, I wrote down every question that I had that related to religion that ranged from questions about evolution, to demonic possession, to cultural relativism, to sexuality. I had many thoughts and ideas about these many different things, but had no idea where to start to get my answers. I thought that there should be some great big book that explains everything about religion. Since I had never heard of such a thing, I decided I would be the honored one to write it. I titled it “Principles of Religion.” The first and only line I completed was something along the lines of “there must be only one truth.” I was then immediately overwhelmed by the vastness of my task and gave up. Of course there are many different books that address any topic imaginable- a plethora of them being Christian views- but no one book that started logically from the beginning of everything imaginable about God and addressed every pressing issue and how it follows that one take a certain action in response. This was something that one could logically argue. The Catechism was literally written to fulfill this need: to give the logical explanation for everything Catholicism stands for and to give the basic Catholic stance on many current and pressing issues.

I began asking even more questions that further challenged Catholicism, trusting that God was leading me towards something important. And I cannot deny that with nearly every question or issue I had with Catholicism, within about a week I would hear some kind of explanation that struck me in either a homily at mass, at RCIA, or in a discussion with friends. But it never stopped. It still happens to this day and cannot be a coincidence.This was something God wanted me to know about.

The most profound example of this was in the winter when I had been frustrated with and seriously struggling with a lot of Catholicism and was feeling very alone in my circumstances and beliefs. I had just completed a class of RCIA with Andrew and my sponsor Kelly that I had struggled to pay attention in and was lighting a candle for prayer for my struggles that were weighing me down. As I finished, Andrew waved me over to where he and Kelly were talking to one of Dominicans of St. Gertrude. He introduced himself as Brother John Paul and explained that he felt called by God to come into the building after his evening prayer and started making small talk with Kelly and Andrew and reveled that he had actually gone through RCIA only a few years ago. Andrew, Kelly, and I immediately realized that this must have been another one of those circumstances where God answers my questions and struggles in the exact way that I needed at that very moment. They both looked at me and I laughed and went “Yeah, I know… Well this is annoying…” Brother John Paul proceeded to share with me his testimony that struck me deeply of how he was a passionate non-Catholic Christian en-route to becoming a minister or sorts when he was introduced to Catholicism and it seemed to fill the parts of his life he felt were lacking. He spoke about his testing of Catholicism in RCIA and how he now felt unique in his vocation as a non-“cradle-Catholic”. In a lot of ways, Brother John Paul’s story was just a male version of my own. At this time I realized that this isn’t something anyone should do alone, rather this was something God wants people to do together.

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Brother John Paul
Finally one stressful night in adoration, I was struggling to shake the worries of my life away to focus only on God and I prayed fervently to God asking Him to reveal to me what I was supposed to be doing. I felt lost and weighed down by the busyness of everything around me. Even though a great deal of the truth that Catholicism stood for was something that had become very important to me, I still struggled occasionally with the smells, bells, and overall feel of Catholic culture. I was looking around at the paintings inside Annunciation and was again overwhelmed by all the beauty of my surroundings. These things weren’t bad, but it was frustrating that I didn’t feel that comfortable and at home where I was. My soul churned in a way that made me feel as though there was something I just about to discover about myself at the tip of my tongue.

I felt compelled to close my eyes and close myself up until it was just God and myself. I waited for a few moments to clear my head when I realized that that was really what I needed more of- to clear my head and take what I have learned and figure out what Ipersonally believe. I opened my eyes and began to write down everything I believe about religion, myself, and how the two fit together. At the end of it, I found that most of what I had written was the same as the Nicene Creed and even further, my personal beliefs lined up with what the Catholic. I went home that night and stayed up late talking to Andrew about the possibility of getting Confirmed.

Then came the oddest moment in my journey of exploring Catholicism. There suddenly was a smile that grew across my face and I could not wipe it off. There was so much more that I wanted to confirm before I decided to get Confirmed. But God lead me to understand that you don’t have to understand everything perfectly to believe and that no such person exists. Rather, my desire to know Him is good and that all I have to do is look back upon the evidence he provided for me and those who helped me along the way. It was that moment that I announced I wanted to become Confirmed.

And that is what lead me to get Confirmed. To say yes. To become part of the people of the Eucharist. Peter Kreeft really spoke to me in his talk called “Socrates Meets Jesus” (link posted at the end) when he spoke about how “feelings are only the sugar on top”. I find that sometimes the most difficult part of searching for the most important truths in life is the feeling of the jumping off point. It doesn’t feel good to put yourself out there. But again, I think Kreeft found words that explain it perfectly: “One of the few things in life that cannot possibly do harm in the end is the honest pursuit of the truth.” It doesn’t always feel good, but truth most definitely outweighs the feeling. This is how I found myself to be Catholic.

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After being confirmed on Easter with my sponsor, Kelly, and Andrew
Written by:
Annie Elizabeth Therese Seiple
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The Secret to the Rosary (Part 2)

1/27/2015

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If you’re like me, then you struggle quite a bit to say the Most Holy Rosary with devotion and regularity. With that problem in mind, and continuing from my last blog The Secret of the Rosary (Part 1), I would like to offer some of St. Louis de Montfort’s words of encouragement in perseverance. So without further ado, here’s what St. Louis has to say.
“Being human, we easily become tired and slipshod – but the devil makes these difficulties worse when we are saying the Rosary. Before we even begin he makes us feel bored, distracted or exhausted – and when we have started praying he oppresses us from all sides. And when, after much difficulty and many distractions, we have finished, he whispers to us: ‘What you have just said is worthless. It's useless for you to say the Rosary. You had better get on with other things. It's only a waste of time to pray without paying attention to what you're saying; half an hour's meditation or some spiritual reading would be much better. Tomorrow when you're not feeling so sluggish you'll pray better; don't finish your Rosary until tomorrow.’ By tricks of this kind the devil gets us to give up the Rosary altogether or else hardly say it at all, and we keep putting it off or else change to some other devotion.”

“Always remember that the best Rosary is the one with the most merit, and there is more merit in praying when it is hard than when it is easy. Prayer is all the harder when it is (naturally speaking) distasteful to the soul and is filled with those annoying little ants and flies running about in your imagination, against your will, and scarcely allowing you the time to enjoy a little peace and appreciate the beauty of what you are saying.”
“Even if you suffer from dryness of soul, boredom and interior discouragement, never give up even the least little bit of your Rosary – for this would be a sure sign of pride and faithlessness. On the contrary, like a real champion of Jesus and Mary, you should say your Our Fathers and Hail Mary’s quite drily if you have to, without seeing, hearing or feeling any consolation whatsoever, and concentrating as best you can on the mysteries.”
But don’t let this become an excuse to not concentrate when you’re feeling lazy because as St. Louis says, “the Rosary said without meditating on the sacred mysteries of our salvation would be almost like a body without a soul: excellent matter but without the form which is meditation – this latter being that which sets it apart from all other devotions.”

And he also says, “You ought not to look for candy or jam to eat with your daily bread, as children do – but you should even say your Rosary more slowly sometimes when you particularly find it hard to say. Do this to imitate Our Lord more perfectly in His agony in the garden: ‘Being in an agony, He prayed the longer,’ so that what was said of Our Lord (when He was in His agony of prayer) may be said of you too: He prayed even longer.”

And maybe sometimes we think, for whatever reason, we don’t need to say the Rosary but it was our Blessed Mother herself at Fatima who told us that Jesus wants the world to come to Him through a devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And this makes sense when you think about how He revealed himself 2000 years ago – being born of Mary: He uses Mary to come to us – and as imitators of Him – we use Mary to come to Him. 
St. Louis says “If priests and religious have an obligation to meditate on the great truths of our holy religion in order to live up to their vocation worthily, the same obligation, then, is just as much incumbent upon the laity – because of the fact that every day they meet with spiritual dangers which might make them lose their souls. Therefore they should arm themselves with the frequent meditation on the life, virtues and sufferings of Our Blessed Lord – which are so beautifully contained in the fifteen mysteries of the Holy Rosary.”

Lastly, I’d like to leave you with this bit of awesomeness, “Somebody who says his Rosary alone only gains the merit of one Rosary, but if he says it together with thirty other people he gains the merit of thirty Rosaries. This is the law of public prayer. How profitable, how advantageous this is!”

 So do what Pier Giorgio would do and take your Rosary everywhere you go, say it daily, and when you can, invite your friends and family to say the Rosary with you!
P.S. – With your next Rosary remember to ask for the whole world to come to Jesus through a devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and ask that those like me, who struggle to keep up with a devotion to the Rosary, be given the great grace to persevere in this holy devotion. St. Louis de Montfort, pray for us! Bl. Pier Giorgio, pray for us! “Verso l’alto!”


Written by:
Jesse Badinghaus
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A New Year and New Beginnings

1/4/2015

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We’re at the start of a New Year, and we’re probably beginning to feel some of the post-holiday blues. Take heart though, because until next Sunday, January 11th, we can still wish each other a Merry Christmas!
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It’s early in the game, but I bet many of us have also already broken a New Years resolution or two (myself included). We all know why that is, too. It is extremely difficult to make a change or start a new good habit. It requires commitment and faithfulness to see it through to the end. 

As a very close friend of mine likes to point out, “why does January 1st make any difference? If you need to make a change, do it now, don’t wait to make a resolution for the New Year!” I find myself in complete agreement with her. But, if there is a date to make a resolution, I think it should be the old date that the West celebrated the New Year, March 25th, the feast of the Annunciation when it all started with Mary’s ‘yes.’ That would be a good date for us to learn how to say “yes” to the change of all changes to our lives, welcoming the living God into our very being, our bodies and our souls. 
I’m not holding out hope that the civil New Year will one day go back to March 25th, but I do think there is merit in setting a New Year’s resolution on January 1st. 

In no way can this era in history be classified as a Christian one. That being said, the postmodern Western culture that’s being tossed about on the open seas of every conflicting philosophy, desire, and disorientation still expresses the desire for conversion in the tradition of setting a New Year's resolution. No matter how far Western secularism tries to push away Christianity and its influences, it can’t deny the human yearning to make an about-face, to do away with the bad in our lives and choose the Good. We want to have a new beginning.

The place where making a resolution misses the mark is in the conversion process. The American mindset on resolutions comes, I think, from its deeply Protestant roots. “Once saved, always saved” as I’ve heard many a time from the sign-holding, fire-and-brimstone-preaching messengers on campus. At one certain point they say they “accepted Jesus into their heart” (not actually a bible verse or biblical tradition.) and now they sin no more. It’s not difficult to point out their hypocrisy, because even when someone has converted to Christ, they still sin. We are all sinners. The only time when we no longer sin is when we’ve made it to heaven for eternity. Just ask St. Peter by reading the Gospels. (Mt 16:13-20 and Mt 26:69-75)

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I would like to propose to you, then, instead of setting a New Year’s resolution, set a New Year’s policy. A resolution, once it is broken, is practically impossible to go back to. When we have a policy, however, we have it in our mind that the next day we’re going to get back to it. 

The difference is that, in the Catholic understanding, conversion is continual. Each day we turn ourselves around to the Lord. Each day we must die to ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Jesus. Do we fail a lot? Yes. Do we fail every day even in some small way? Yes. Does that mean we despair of our goal to carry the cross and follow Christ? No! Our conversion policy is that we follow Christ with the cross, and when we fail, we get back on it, every moment of every day. The Catholic mindset calls us to the ideal of complete and total conversion to the Lord, but we’re realists, recognizing that for practical, every day people, it is a daily struggle. The Grace of God given through His Son, Jesus Christ, is that in that struggle, we are sanctified and perfected.
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I hope you all are having a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and a Happy Epiphany of the Lord! 

Written by:

Marty Arlinghaus
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The Secret of the Rosary (Part 1)

12/30/2014

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I would like to, in this Marian season of Christmas, give honor to and promote the great devotion of the most Holy Rosary (a favorite devotion of our patron Bl. Pier Giorgio). To do this I’m not going to be using my own words but the words of this guy…

St. Louis-Marie Grignon de Montfort. He lived in the late 1600’s and was one of the greatest advocates of the Rosary. You may have heard of him: he wrote, among others, the spiritual classic titled True Devotion to Mary. But I haven’t read that one (yet!) so the quotes I’ll be using come from his book The Secret of the Rosary (which I have read). 

I’d actually like to start with the words of Our Lady herself to Bl. Alan de la Roche, which will probably make you want to drop everything and say your Rosary right now…

“When you say your Rosary the Angels rejoice, the Blessed Trinity delights in it, my Son finds joy in it too and I myself am happier than you can possibly guess. After the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, there is nothing in the Church that I love as much as the Rosary.”

I’ll be perfectly honest here, the first time I read that my heart just melted…    


When St. Mechtilde was trying to think of a way to express her love of Our Blessed Mother better than she had before, Our Lady came to her in a vision saying…

 “My daughter, I want you to know that no one can please me more than by saying the salutation which the Most Adorable Trinity sent to me and by which He raised me to the dignity of Mother of God. By the word Ave, I learned that in His infinite power God had preserved me from all sin and its attendant misery which the first woman had been subject to. The name Mary which means ‘lady of light’ shows that God has filled me with wisdom and light, like a shining star, to light up heaven and earth. The words full of grace remind me that the Holy Spirit has showered so many graces upon me that I am able to give these graces in abundance to those who ask for them through me as Mediatrix. When people say The Lord is with thee they renew the indescribable joy that was mine when the Eternal Word became incarnate in my womb. When you say to me blessed art thou among women I praise Almighty God’s divine mercy which lifted me to this exalted plane of happiness. And at the words blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, the whole of heaven rejoices with me to see my Son Jesus Christ adored and glorified for having saved mankind.”


            Can you imagine that? The “whole of heaven” rejoicing – simply as a result of us saying one Hail Mary. Just take a moment to reflect on that…



“With this in mind put yourself in the presence of God and imagine that Almighty God and His Blessed Mother are watching you and that your guardian Angel is standing at your right hand, taking your Hail Mary’s, if they are well said, and using them like roses to make crowns for Jesus and Mary. But remember that at your left hand lurks the devil ready to pounce upon every Hail Mary that comes his way and to write it down in his deadly note-book. And be sure that he will snatch every single one of your Hail Mary’s that you have not said attentively, devoutly and with reverence.”

But don’t let that frighten you because it is only the willful distractions that can make a prayer badly said. As St. Louis puts it, “To be guilty of willful distractions during prayer would show a great lack of respect and reverence; it would make our Rosaries fruitless and would make us guilty of sin.….. How can we expect God to listen to us if we ourselves do not pay attention to what we are saying? How can we expect Him to be pleased if, while in the presence of His tremendous Majesty, we give in to distractions just as children run after butterflies?”

So when it comes to saying your Rosary, just avoid being this guy…

So keep in mind, “One single Hail Mary that is said properly is worth more than one hundred and fifty that are badly said.” And remember, “[Mary] would never let us honor her with love and respect without repaying us one hundred fold.” Not even Billy Mays (R.I.P.) could offer you that!

So take up your Rosary this Advent and allow Our Holy Mother to prepare you to receive Our King, (baby) Jesus Christ!
But for real though, I love this painting…

PS – I could not fit all the quotes I wanted to share with you in just one blog, so look for part II soon with more from St. Louis-Marie de Montfort on the Rosary, how to recite it properly, and exhortations of perseverance in this great devotion.

PPS – As Pier Giorgio asked of his friends, so I to you: “I beg you to pray for me a little, so that God may give me an iron will that does not bend and does not fail in His projects.”



Written by:
Jesse Badinghaus



For more help in praying the Rosary, visit our Rosary page by following this link!
http://www.ucssp.com/the-rosary.html
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Advocating Advent

12/9/2014

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 Ah, Christmas. That magical time of year when one takes down his/her Halloween decorations to the tune of Deck the Halls and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. The feel-good time of year about good will, generosity, and holiday Starbucks drinks.

Except… You are doing it wrong.
By this point, it’s no secret to most religious and non-religious folk alike that Christmas (as most other holidays with religious origins) has become highly secularized.

Christmas is celebrated without recognizing the Christ part, Easter without Jesus, and Groundhog day without 99% of people realizing it’s a secularized Candlemas.


Now, this isn’t a blog on “KEEP CHRIST IN CHRISTMAS” – if you aren't Christian and decide to engage in gift giving and a spirit of generosity, cool. Christians should realize that’s a Christ-like thing anyway. But I digress - my point for this blog is aimed at Christians – people who should be staying true to their name.

Parents, people who one day may be parents, and people with imaginations – I present to you a scenario: Your kid wants to open their birthday presents weeks before their birthday, or their Christmas presents weeks before Christmas. Do you let them? Most people would rightly say no. And why not? Because of patience! There is a time and place for everything, and sometimes we have a hard time dealing with that.

That’s where Advent comes in. Advent is the neglected middle-child of Church Seasons by most Catholics. Ordinary time is fittingly ordinary, Christmas time is Merry and Bright, for Lent we all give something up and head to McDonalds for our Filet-o’-Fish, and we break out the Easter Eggs for Easter. What do we do for Advent? Sing Christmas Carols? Put out the 3 purple candles and 1 pink candle, and then sing Christmas Carols? Catholics seem to understand that Lent is a time of fasting, reflection, and uniting ourselves to the passion of Christ – advent, in the same way, should be a time of preparation for the season to come.

The importance of Advent that is lost by so many today is the joy of anticipation. We celebrate Christmas as if it’s already here without taking the time to reflect on Jesus, his coming, and what it means for us. Replacing songs with lines such as “People look east, the time is near!” with “Joy to the World! The Lord is come!” denies any chance of an eager anticipation and welcoming for our Lord. 
When a hospitable host is anticipating a guest, they prepare for their arrival. They tidy their homes, make themselves presentable, and take all necessary steps to make sure their guest is welcomed, comfortable, and appreciated. When a military spouse awaits the return of their beloved, they do so with joy and eager anticipation. A mother awaits the birth of her child with a knowledge of the change it will bring to her life. When we wait for the birth of Christ, why would we not do the same? Advent is about Jesus in the sense that our joy is focused towards Him and His arrival, but it is also about us in the sense that it is a time to make ourselves ready! At the risk of sounding like a motivational poster, we must tidy the home that is our heart, make ourselves presentable, and prepare ourselves to welcome the Lord with joy on Christmas morn.

Let this Advent season be a time of prayer, penance, and preparation. Ready the way of the Lord!

1. People, look east. The time is near 
Of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able,
Trim the hearth and set the table.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the guest, is on the way.

2. Furrows, be glad. Though earth is bare,
One more seed is planted there:
Give up your strength the seed to nourish,
That in course the flower may flourish.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the rose, is on the way.

3. Birds, though you long have ceased to build,
Guard the nest that must be filled.
Even the hour when wings are frozen
God for fledging time has chosen.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the bird, is on the way.

4. Stars, keep the watch. When night is dim
One more light the bowl shall brim,
Shining beyond the frosty weather,
Bright as sun and moon together.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the star, is on the way.

5. Angels, announce with shouts of mirth
Christ who brings new life to earth.
Set every peak and valley humming
With the word, the Lord is coming.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the Lord, is on the way.

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