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Good Catholics Go to Public Colleges

2/27/2015

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).

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

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.

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.

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.

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)

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

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.

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.

My flowers from St. Thérèse

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.

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.

After being confirmed on Easter with my sponsor, Kelly, and Andrew

Written by:
Annie Elizabeth Therese Seiple

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