Ascension Press is creating a lesson guide and materials for small group discussions Follow Me: Meeting Jesus in the Gospel of John. Authored by the great Edward Sri.
Robyn Lee, a former Managing Editor of the CatholicMatch, posts her story about what led her to the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist.
Now the jokes kind of write themselves. “When the dating scene is tough there is always Jesus”. Forget blind dates, Jesus cured the blind.
Still it does get me thinking about what people do when they discern a religious vocation and try to determine what charism of an order attracts them.
Really there should be a “Catholic Religious Order Match”. There is a lot of commonality between seeking a religious order and seeking a spouse via a dating site.
Filling out a questionnaire, an online, profile, etc. Both the aspirant and the religious order are looking for a good match. A “come and see” period to help discern compatibility. Whether it is concerning a vocation for marriage or the religious life there is the question “What is God calling you to”. With hundreds of religious orders out there having matching online profiles in one place could be useful.
While news always trends towards the depressing, it seems like it is just one damned thing after another this year. A presidential election gone insane, a President issuing PC diktats, people trying to get on the right side of history instead of the right side of truth. There is just so much that is unnerving and the pace of the insanity seems unmatched.
Yet as an optimistic-pessimist I can see the bad and the good. The political craziness dissuades me from any utopian vision of politics. If only such-and-such is elected, if only some party has the majority, all the empty lies that sustain the status quo of government bloat and inefficiency. Put no trust in princes.
So much to grip about, and yet to realize that there is no environment where we can not grow in holiness. So these thoughts have been churning away in me and Fr. Dwight Longenecker crystalized these feelings for me.
Why blame the world for being corrupt and venal when I also am too concerned about money and material possessions? Let me simplify my life and seek detachment. Let me live more by faith, be more generous with my money and be happier. Why blame the world for immorality and lust? God grant me the grace to live chastely, to seek purity of heart and innocence of mind, and let Sodom and Gomorrah go where it will. Why blame the world for being duplicitous, manipulative, power hungry and cruel? Instead let me look to my own life and seek always to be transparent in all my doings, concerned only for others and not myself and to never stoop to being manipulative or cruel.
In other words, I want to live local and love local. Let the politicians do their worst. I have a job to do, a life to lead, a Lord to worship and a people to serve. I do not ask of the courage to stand up to the evil in Washington or the world. I simply ask for the courage to stand against the evil in my own life, in my family, my parish and my community. As a citizen I will be involved and vote where I can for local politicians who share my values and principles. As a priest I will seek to serve those who God has given me as my flock and family.
If we seek perfection in the world, first imitate Jesus and grow in perfection via grace – sheer grace. I find it easy to complain about the corruption of government, but want to find another topic to discuss when it comes to my own corruption and moral laziness.
“These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye may have peace. In the world ye have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” Jn 16:33
So if such tribulations make me ponder my own cross and my own need for Jesus – then Lord help me pick up that cross.
This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week from From 3 May 2016 to 18 May 2016.
The Weekly Francis is a compilation of the Holy Father’s writings, speeches, etc which I also post at Jimmy Akin’s The Weekly Francis. Jimmy Akin came up with this idea when he started “The Weekly Benedict” and I have taken over curation of it.
Daily Homilies (fervorinos)
- 3 May 2016 – Making our way
- 6 May 2016 – With joy and hope
- 9 May 2016 – A perfect stranger
- 10 May 2016 – For nobles causes
General Audiences
Homilies
Messages
Regina Cæli
Speeches
- 7 May 2016 – Audience with “Doctors with Africa – Cuamm”
- 7 May 2016 – To the Pontifical Swiss Guard
- 12 May 2016 – To the International Union of Superiors General [UISG]
- 13 May 2016 – To participants in the International Conference of the Centesimus Annus pro Pontifice Foundation
Papal Tweets
- “Dear Religious: wake up the world! Be witnesses to a different way of thinking, acting and living!” @Pontifex 12 May 2016
- “If our hearts and actions are inspired by charity, by divine love, then our communication will be touched by God’s own power.” @Pontifex 13 May 2016
- “To communicate with mercy means to help create a healthy, free and fraternal closeness among the children of God.” @Pontifex 14 May 2016
- “Come, Holy Spirit! Free us from being closed in on ourselves and instill in us the joy of proclaiming the Gospel.” @Pontifex 15 May 2016
- “The gift of the Holy Spirit has been bestowed in abundance so that we may live lives of genuine faith and active charity.” @Pontifex 16 May 2016
- “The world needs the courage, hope, faith and perseverance of Christ’s followers.” @Pontifex 17 May 2016
- “The Jubilee is the party to which Jesus invites us all, without excluding anyone.” @Pontifex 18 May 2016
Papal Instagram
A couple of weeks I listened to an episode of Catholic Answers Focus where Patrick Coffin interviewed Father Douglas Joseph Shimshon Al-Bazi, a Syriac-Catholic Priest who was captured and tortured by Islamic State terrorists. Quite a harrowing story. What got to me most about the interview is how Fr. Al-Bazi described what happened to him in such a calm manner. He mentioned having his teeth knocked out by a hammer as I would talk about falling and skinning my knees. While he is raising a rallying cry about the situation in the Middle East, he talks with zero malice towards his captures.
From a new article in the National Catholic Register about him:
“I don’t speak out now to complain or look for pity, but, rather, to confront the world, which has turned a blind eye to the violence that is meant to wipe us out completely,” explained Father Al-Bazi by phone on May 2.
“Look at what has happened with ISIS to my people. We must discuss this. We cannot ignore it. We must put an end to this before it destroys us,” the priest explained of the atrocities.
“It is obvious to anyone who will look at the facts that ISIS and other Muslim terrorists are specifically targeting and killing Christians. They attack others, certainly, but 80% of their efforts are against us. They want us out or dead.”
Listen to or download Catholic Answer’s Focus interview
In other news, yesterday the Same-Sex Attracted pastor who had accused Whole Foods of baking a cake with an anti-gay slur apologized – kind of.
Today I am dismissing my lawsuit against Whole Foods Market. The company did nothing wrong. I was wrong to pursue this matter and use the media to perpetuate this story. I want to apologize to Whole Foods and its team members for questioning the company’s commitment to its values, and especially the bakery associate who I understand was put in a terrible position because of my actions. I apologize to the LGBT community for diverting attention from real issues. I also want to apologize to my partner, my family, my church family, and my attorney.
I remember when this story first broke and pretty much everyone on my Twitter feed nailed this as another hate crime hoax. Soon after Whole Foods said they would countersue him and they had video to back them up.
The psychology of hate crime hoaxers is hard to understand. When you have to gin up your own hate crime to illustrate discrimination you kind of miss the point. It is easy to psychoanalyze these acts as attention getting, especially as center of attention getting. But people are complicated and guessing at motives is just guessing.
Still this particular case is odd on several levels. First off if you are creating a hate crime hoax, an Austin Whole Foods has to be the dumbest target ever.
What gets me is that a Christian pastor decides to order a “Love Wins” cake and then adds a slur himself. Wow love really won there. Bearing false witness is such a great idea as long as it is for a cause. He had so much love for the staff at the bakery and other employees. Well if you are going to falsely accuse bakers, you have to break a few eggs as the saying goes.
In this case “Self Love Wins” as he demonstrates the art of the non-apology without the slightest hint of contrition, besides being caught. Still while he actions pretty much aggravate me, I still have managed to pray for him. It is easy to fall in to the same trap of demonizing others who disagree with you.
With the Supreme Court sending the case involving The Little Sisters of the Poor back to the lower courts, I saw lots of people calling this a win. Perhaps it is, but I will wait to see what “accommodation” is made. After all the Obamacare mandate has going through several “accommodations” without ever actually being accommodating. Still the government undermined it case in statements made to the court to such an extent EWTN asked for a rehearing based on it.
So while this is not exactly a win yet, it is certainly not a loss and it was a unanimous decision to return it to the lower courts. The whole thing has been in bad faith from the get go since those involved in the government tightly focused the mandate in the first place to target Catholic institutions. Administration targeted Catholic groups for contraceptive mandate. So we shall see what actually happens with The Little Sisters of the Poor and other Catholic institutions.
I haven’t done a podcast spotlight in a while and there really are some excellent new entries. I am always looking for intelligent Catholic podcasts that I have some heft to them. Something that goes beyond just the apologetics that I can get from other quality shows.
Father Spitzer’s Universe
Fr. Spitzer answers viewer questions on a wide range of subjects, including: Reason, Faith, Suffering, Virtue, and the Existence of God.
I loved his book New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy and Finding True Happiness: Satisfying Our Restless Hearts (Happiness, Suffering, and Transcendence) and how well his navigates and integrates science, theology, and philosophy. These tendencies are also evident in this podcast that goes deep on various subjects while also answering viewer questions.
Unfortunately I could not find an RSS feed to subscribe to for this show other than the EWTN podcast feed that includes all of their shows. This page lists feeds for individual shows.
The Word on Fire Show
Bishop Robert Barron’s longtime homily podcast “Word on Fire” has been a long time favorite of mine. Added to this is a new show where show host Brandon Vogt and Bishop Barron discuss a wealth of topics along with answering a viewer’s question. This roughly 30 minute format makes for great conversations that often lead me to adding books to my wish list.
Catholic Production Podcast
As a podcast name, this one would be easy to pass over. Appears to be named after the Catholic Productions site which seems mainly to be maintained by Scripture Scholar and Theologian Dr. Brant Pitre.
The focus of this podcast is an examination of the Sunday readings at Mass. Shows average from roughly 20 to 30 minutes and give tons of insight into the readings on multiple levels. I so look forward to this show weekly as Dr. Pitre’s palpable excitement in discussing scripture and theology is inspiring. I so hope this show never pod-fades as I find it indispensable now.
Laudet Dominum
This is a homily podcast from Fr. Cory Sticha. A pastor of several parishes in Montana who I got acquainted with via social media and his appearances on podcasts for SQPN.
I have been known to complain about the quality of homilies I often hear. But instead of just complaining I found it better to subscribe to the good homily podcasts out there. I totally enjoy Fr. Sticha’s homilies as they are filled with the spiritual wealth from the Church. I also like that in fairly short homilies that he can pack in so much. Another bonus is that these homilies are often available in a very short turnaround after he has recorded them. So whether it is Sunday or a Solemnity you can count on them being available. I can’t say the same for EWTN’s homily podcast.
So I saw an article at Slashdot regarding a list of the longest featured articles on Wikipedia. First here is a definition of what Wikipedia considers a featured article to mean.
Featured articles are considered to be the best articles Wikipedia has to offer, as determined by Wikipedia’s editors. They are used by editors as examples for writing other articles. Before being listed here, articles are reviewed as featured article candidates for accuracy, neutrality, completeness, and style according to our featured article criteria.
The top ten longest featured articles is a rather eclectic list while also containing topics you would expect to be there.
1. Elvis Presley
7. Michael Jackson
The interesting mix contains:
History of Poland (1945–89), Manhattan Project, Military history of Puerto Rico, Byzantine navy, Maya civilization, Spanish conquest of Petén, Air raids on Japan.
The summary Slashdot article referenced that one of the articles concerned a pope. At first I expected it to be on Saint John Paul II, but was not really surprised it concerned Pope Pius XII – coming in at #5.
What surprised me though is that the article really fit the definition of featured within the metrics Wikipedia described. This article is well worth reading and I loved the picture of Eugenio Pacelli at six. There is a wealth of information regarding his career in the Church before becoming pope along with his close to 20 years as pope. I already knew the date he died, as it was one day before I was born.
I certainly found it interesting that he was consecrated Bishop on the on May 13th, 1917 the exact date of the first Marian apparition at Fátima and was buried on Feast Day of Our Lady of Fátima, 13 October 1958.
While this article did address various controversies from critics, this was done in a balanced way and the counter-view to the critics was aptly presented. The book “Hitler’s Pope” was mentioned, but was not given much credence in the larger context. Plus there is mention of Josef Müller of the German resistance who Venerable Pope Pius XII worked with extensively in moving against Hitler. The excellent and fascinating book Church of Spies details the Pope’s attempts to have Hitler removed.
Just a very good article all-around with many highlights concerning Venerable Pius XII contributions to the Church and interesting details. For example I found out that he was the first Pope to move away from the predominance of Italian Cardinals and making selection from around the world. Considering that he was born in Rome adds to this.
While it is well known that Pentecost is often referred to as the birthday of the Church. So the idea of a Pentecost Cake seems like a natural idea.
♫Happy Birthday Catholic Church, Happy Birthday to you♫
Online you can find pictures of attempts of a Pentecost Cake.
But I couldn’t find what I think would be the obvious example of the ultimate example of a Pentecost Cake.
Really there should be wax candles in the shape of the Apostles and disciples that you can light up on a Pentecost Cake.
This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week from 29 April 2016 to 11 May 2016.
The Weekly Francis is a compilation of the Holy Father’s writings, speeches, etc which I also post at Jimmy Akin’s The Weekly Francis. Jimmy Akin came up with this idea when he started “The Weekly Benedict” and I have taken over curation of it.
Daily Homilies (fervorinos)
General Audiences
Letters
Regina Cæli
Speeches
- 2 May 2016 – To participants in the General Chapter of the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy (Mercedarians)
- 4 May 2016 – Greeting to participants in a Colloquium with the “Royal Institute for Interfaith Studies” of Amman, promoted by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue
- 5 May 2016 – Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy: Prayer vigil to “Dry the tears”
- 6 May 2016 – Conferral of the Charlemagne Prize
Papal Tweets
- “There is the grave problem of labour, because of the high rate of young adults unemployed, but also for the issue of the dignity of work.” @Pontifex 2 May 2016
- “Jesus Christ, the incarnation of God’s mercy, out of love for us, died on the cross, and out of love he rose again from the dead.” @Pontifex 3 May 2016
- “May the challenges in the ecumenical journey encourage us to know each other better, pray together and unite in works of charity.” @Pontifex 4 May 2016
- “Christ is our greatest joy; he is always at our side and will never let us down.” @Pontifex 6 May 2016
- “Love, by its nature, is communication; it leads to openness and sharing. #ComMisericordia50” @Pontifex 7 May 2016
- Tweet is picture of letter. @Pontifex 8 May 2016
- “Jesus, ascended into heaven, is now in the lordship of God, present in every space and time, close to each one of us.” @Pontifex 9 May 2016
- “May today’s challenges become forces for unity to overcome our fears and build together a better future for Europe and the world.” @Pontifex 10 May 2016
- “What we say and how we say it, our every word and gesture, ought to express God’s compassion, tenderness and forgiveness for all.” @Pontifex 11 May 2016
Papal Instagram
““You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel! (Matthew 23:24)
It has always been the case that people will support somebody who personally violates or goes against one of their deeply held beliefs as long as they support another one. That they will go to great extent to suppress that there is any tension at all in their support.
With ex-President Bill Clinton back in the news cycle it is easy to remember his scandalous personal activity as President and before that. Also easy to remember that it was an extremely rare feminist who called him out on his behavior. This certainly did not happen with national feminist groups. Patricia Ireland, then President of NOW, had much harsher words to say about the impeachment proceedings than about Bill Clinton’s scummy actions. Rape victims must be believed unless they are Juanita Broadwick.
If Bill Clinton had ever wavered on abortion, it would have been a totally different story.
I point this history out not as something unique, but as an obvious example of how the support of the “ONE THING” excuses everything else.
Self-deception is also nothing new and anybody who has done any examination-of-self will find obvious examples in our own lives. I don’t have to search far myself to wonder “What the hell was I thinking” and why was I so willing to suppress the obvious (“Shut up conscience”).
The pro-life community is also often capable of this “ONE THING” thinking. Voting for people not because we think they are actually pro-life, but that they promise they will vote pro-life. We believe the panderer when we want to believe the panderer. Being a Floridian Charlie Crist comes to mind.
We also often get “ONE THING” thinking where Supreme Court vacancies become among reason to suck it up and vote for the awful candidate. Not that this aspect isn’t a valid consideration. Voting for the greater good when there are two bad candidates and it is possible to discern this, is perfectly valid. But let us not minimize for a second the evil there is. Maintain your caveats and don’t gloss over them. Advance the greater good by doing good yourself and work to not ever explain away or trivialize evil.
In the spiritual life it is important to do a daily examination of conscience to be able to grow in holiness. Our political lives should certainly be a part of this examination especially as it is one area especially prone to Self-deception. At least I find this true for myself.
This election cycle I have found this more so. There are so many people who will excuse anything for the “ONE THING”. Trump supporters see him achieving for them the “ONE THING” whatever that might be. No facts of his past actions or his constantly changing opinions will put a dent into their support. Trump support is a projection of what they think he will successfully achieve. It just isn’t falsifiable since it was never based on evidence – really despite all evidence to the contrary.
Although I could have written the last paragraph using Hillary’s name instead of Trump and it would have been just a true. They share much in common. Really this election is like an old episode of Mission Impossible. At the end Hillary rips off her mask and it’s Trump, and Trump rips off his mask and he’s Hillary. The major difference is that Hillary in public has more self-control. Hillary is much more coldly calculating.
So this election I will be going full Cervantes and tilting at the voting booth with a write in. I think I dislike Trump all the more since I have to take arguments seriously that Hillary would do more for the common good than Trump. In conscience I can not vote for either of them – ever.
I deeply relate with Mrs Darwin.
… But thanks to Trump virtually clinching the nomination by winning Indiana, I’m freed from the tyranny of the party. I don’t have to identify as a Republican anymore. When someone asks me if I’m a Democrat or a Republican, I can say neither! And for the first time, I can vote for someone I like for president. Who gets my write-in vote? Which person do I actually think would be best suited to run the country? It’s almost overwhelming.
Free, free, I’m free at last.
Picture licensed under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license.