Historical Christian

On Pride, Catholic Orthodoxy, and the Catholic Blogosphere

A very good and respected priest I know in the seminary here, extremely learned and orthodox as well as deeply prayerful and holy (I am so glad he is helping form our new priests), once told me that he had observed that "liberal Catholics" tend to be better at loving, but not so good at truth.  "Conservative Catholics,” however, in his opinion though adhering to truth, are not always very loving.  With regard to the latter, I've had the same downfall myself - thinking I knew a lot about the Faith, and looking down on those who didn't know as much as I did.  I moved in conservative Catholic circles where that was very much the mode.  And we could get into a lot of hairsplitting and judgment over all sorts of small details - lending truth to the scriptural precept that "knowledge puffs up." 

In time, it began to dawn on me that that is not really how we are supposed to be as Catholics, and started trying to pull away from that way of being.  And so encountered a different kind of trouble: some that I had associated with began to perceive me as weak, began to look down on me.  Was that ever a blow to my pride.

But blows to the pride are exactly what we need, if we are ever to be made soft and malleable in the hands of God.  We must not only adhere to the truth, we must also be changed by it, allow it to soften and season us, so we learn to express it with gentleness and love.  Truth is not just a set of intellectual dictates to take pride in, and beat others up with if they don’t live up to it - it is God, who means to enter us and change us – and who does so by humbling us, bringing us to our knees, breaking up our big egos and cleaning us out on the inside so He can come in and do His restorative work.  If we are proud, think we already know it all, we prevent Him really working in us.  But if we allow Him to humble us, to pour acid on the deep root of self-love that so often motivates us, then in time we may be able to “handle the word of truth rightly,” with the “love that builds up,” not the knowledge that puffs up.

Another word for pride, one of the ways that it manifests, is a critical spirit.  I have had a critical spirit myself.  I still struggle with it.  My blog, in truth, has turned out to be a wonderful tool for me to practice expressing myself with gentleness – and I still worry that I am not always gentle enough, and so continue practicing. 

To be honest, I see a critical spirit in the orthodox Catholic blogosphere quite a lot, a ready tendency to criticize, fault-find, finger-point, make fun of, put down – and expound on one’s superior understanding of how things really ought to be.  Now, certainly there is a way things ought to be, and we should be working toward that.  And sometimes problems need to be exposed, so they can be dealt with. 

But consider this: not long after I started my blog, I got an e-mail from a woman who told me that she had wanted to enter the Catholic Church for some time, having become convinced of the truth of its claims.  But after spending time in the Catholic blogosphere, she changed her mind, because of all the negativity and criticism and judgment she found there.  She was afraid that the whole Catholic world was like that – and as a gentle Christian, a Baptist lady from the South, she didn’t want any part of it.  She was afraid it would destroy, not build up, her faith.

Reading my blog, however, made her change her mind.  She told me it was the first place she’d found in the blogosphere where the beauty of Catholicism was really expressed, and it was so inspiring to her that not only her, but ultimately her husband with her, who had initially been opposed to converting, entered the Church the following Easter.

The way we speak, write, talk about our Faith and our Church is a very important witness.  More, it is a very important way that we ourselves develop and learn to live by the virtues we espouse.  Even more, it affects how the very reality of the Catholic Body itself is formed, and so is experienced by others.  If all we do is complain and criticize with bitterness, then the Body itself turns bitter, not sweet – and the Lord Himself is shut out, and does not truly dwell in us, and so cannot be seen in us.  All that is seen is our bitterness, our anger, our pride.  Is that the image and likeness of God that we were created to be?

I used to have a coffee mug, that I kept on my desk at work as a constant reminder, that said, “CHARACTER: Who You Are When Only God Can See You.”  Perhaps I should call all Catholic bloggers and combox commenters to an examination of conscience as to how we express ourselves in the blogosphere.  Because even if we express ourselves anonymously, God Himself sees our words, sees the state of our hearts that they come out of, sees who we said them to and what effect they had.  And as Jesus tells us, we will be held accountable for every careless word we speak (Mt 12:36).  A fearful thought, in this world of easy words, thoughtlessly flung around the world in the heat of the moment.

Scriptural Literalism in the Council of Trent

As a former Protestant who converted to Catholicism, I feel entitled to say that I sometimes think former Protestants who converted to Catholicism are like former smokers, myself included.  I try not to harp on Protestantism too much, but it's hard not to see what sometimes are glaring contradictions in Protestantism.

I just found another one, which I mentioned in comments on a previous post and then just had to throw out here for the general hilarity of it.  Protestants - especially Evangelical and Fundamentalist Protestants - claim to take the bible literally, and accuse the Catholic Church of not taking it literally, and making up stuff.  The Council of Trent is especially anathema (pun intended) to them - just filled, in their opinion, with lots of hocus pocus.

But it turns out the Council of Trent takes the bible more literally than Protestants do.  Speaking of Jesus' words in scripture, "This is my body, this is my blood," it's the Council that deems them literal, calling them "plain, unmistakable words . . . [which] have the proper and obvious meaning" (from the Decree on the Most Holy Eucharist), while Protestants protest, "Oh, no, they're only symbolic!  The words don't really mean what they say!"  If only I had a nickle for every time I heard an evangelical pastor insist on that very point when I was still in that world.

I just really get a kick out of that.  Sorry.  I'm being an obnoxious ex-smoker - er, Protestant - again.  Mea culpa.

On Language, Theology, and Communicating the Faith

After uploading my first recording of my gospel presentation, an interesting dialogue sprang up in the comments section with a reader regarding my use of the phrase “physically present” with regard to Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist.  In dialoguing back and forth, he was expressing concern that I use the more theologically precise term “sacramentally present,” and I was expressing concern that I use language that is understandable to my hearers, most of whom have no theological training or background.  In a way, both of us are concerned about possible misunderstandings, lack of comprehension on the part of hearers, and how best to communicate with people.

For me, it brought up a deeper issue: how the Church uses language in developing, explaining, and communicating the faith.  Over the centuries, the Church has developed increasingly technical language in order to express precise doctrinal formulations, especially in response to heresy, to precisely define particular doctrines - and for good reason.  “Hypostasis” and “transubstantiation” are good examples of this kind of language.  They are very precise terms with very precise meanings, which are very needed in the life of the Church, given by the Magisterium of the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and are very meaningful when understood.

Problem is, they are not a part of anyone’s normal vocabulary, and when sharing the faith with people, what technically is termed “primary proclamation of the gospel,” we need to use language people can understand.  Thus my concern in my gospel presentation to use ordinary language – not in the sense of “dumbing down” the faith, but for the purpose of expressing the deep, profound truths of the gospel in what I hope is beautiful, evocative language that people can understand, and that they won’t forget.  If they respond to it, precise definitions can come later, as they study and learn the Faith – in what is technically termed “catechesis.” 

To arrive at this language, I’ve done a huge amount of research into very heavy, technical theology of all kinds, to deepen my own understanding and make sure that what I am expressing, I am expressing correctly.  But my purpose is not to simply to repeat theological language, but to communicate the truth about God and life to my hearers, so that they can hear, understand, and, I hope and pray, respond to it.

I’ll share with you one of my “secrets:” In my own theologizing, I’ve developed a very important prayerful step: to take everything I’ve studied and learned and “think I know” (intellectual pride being one of the great temptations of the theologian), and regularly in prayer hand it all over to Jesus, let go and submit and surrender it all to Him – so that He can take it, blow and brush off all the dust and chaff with His Divine Breath, reorganize what is left with His Divine Wisdom, polish it all up with His Divine Life, and hand it back to me shining, beautiful, and, I hope, inspirational in a way I could never make it on my own.  Without that step, I could never do what I do – or at least what I am attempting to do.  I got the idea from St. John of the Cross, who teaches that, among other things - and this is something for theologians to keep in mind - the intellect itself must be purified in order to free us from attachment to ourselves or the world, and attain to union with God.

The issue of language is one I’ve run into again and again – and it has been noted by some of the best theologians, too.  There is a difference between the language of theologians, who due to the nature of their task must use very precise, technical terminology, and the language of saints and mystics.  The difference is that the former are developing precise doctrinal formulations as one aspect of the life of the Church; the latter are attempting to describe their experiences of union with God – union with God being the whole goal of the life of the Church.  Precise doctrinal definitions require precise technical language – but descriptions of encounters with God require beautiful, evocative prose, even poetry.  There is a reason why St. John of the Cross is considered the greatest poet in Spain.  He was describing in beautiful poetry the most inexpressibly beautiful experience one can have in life: the overwhelming experience of intimacy with God. 

And while we are not all called to be theologians, we are all called to be saints and mystics, and so using the beautiful, evocative language of the saints in sharing the faith, with technical theological language included and explained as necessary, is, in my opinion, a very appropriate way to share the faith.

I remember a conversation I had with a theology professor about the use of language in how we communicate the Faith to others, in which he said, “Well, you don’t expect astrophysicists to translate their terms into ordinary language, do you?”  Setting aside for a moment that many do translate their terms, in popular books on physics for lay readers, not only did he miss my point, but reflecting on the implications of his statement it seems to me that there could be a danger that theology itself, if too isolated and specialized, can almost become a form of gnosis (ironic, given the Church’s history of combating Gnosticism in all its forms), specialized knowledge only for the few, the initiated – when really the gospel, and so also theology which explains the gospel, is for everyone.

Fr. Garrigou Lagrange, the great 20th century Dominican and theologian of the spiritual life, wrote about the difference between the language of theologians and that of saints in the introduction to his great work The Three Ages of the Interior Life, and goes so far as to say that one does not need a technical vocabulary or elaborate intellectual framework in order to become a saint.  There is only “one thing necessary:” to hear and respond to the Word of God. 

It is also common knowledge that theologians in the process of doing theology, if they get too caught up in the intellectual work and neglect their prayer life, can become so dry and abstract that they actually lose their faith.  I heard a story once that this actually happened for a time to the theologian Avery Cardinal Dulles, though he later recovered his faith.  Just recently, a friend of mine told me that he used to subscribe to a lot of Catholic journals, but found that for the most part they were too heady, dry, and abstract in discussions of the Faith, not inspiring, so he wound up canceling them. 

This is a danger if we get too caught up in the intellectual side of our Faith (which is considerable in Catholicism, and appealing to those of us who are intellectually inclined), and don’t focus it on what it is really for: developing the interior relationship and union with our Lord. The sacramental and prayer life, developing a close, intimate, interiorly transforming relationship with the Lord, is indispensable to the work of theology, and to the work of evangelization.  It is indispensable, period, in the whole life of faith.  In fact, I would say that intellectual work is subordinate to the life of faith, and in support of it.

Another of the my favorite writers on the spiritual life, also a Domincan, Fr. John Arintero, in his great work The Mystical Evolution in the Development and Vitality of the Church, speaking directly of the work of theologians, said,

This mysterious evolution in which Christ Himself is formed in us is the principal purpose of divine revelation and the basis for all growth and development.  To this evolution is ordained the divine light of faith, to it the entire gospel, to it the institution of the Church and even the incarnation of the divine Word . . . . The dogmas of our faith, as a modern apologist puts it, are not so much for finding intellectual satisfaction as for motivating us to seek the gift of God, the living water of the Holy Ghost, and the power of His vivifying grace.  The Gospel was written ‘that believing, you may have life in His name,’ and the purpose of the church is the sanctification of souls.

. . . [We must learn to speak] frankly in accents of love and sincerity, like that of the apostles and Fathers.  For theirs was a vital and pulsating language in which they said what they experienced and which came from the depths of their hearts.  They seemed to infuse into the hearts of others the very spirit which they themselves possessed. (vol. 1, pp. 2, 8-9; emphasis mine)

I agree.  Precise doctrinal definitions are indispensable in the life of the Church, and play an indispensable part in continuing her in truth.  They are in no way counter to the life of faith - rather they undergird and help support it.  But they do not exist for their own sake, as merely intellectual constructs, as if all we are to do is memorize and be able to repeat precise definitions to each other.  They exist for the sake of protecting the real life and purpose of the Church, which is communicating, conceiving and forming Christ in souls, even as a skeleton supports the body and protects the vital interior organs, without which we would die.  And for that, we need language inspired in us by God through our own intimate encounters with Him, Who alone has the power to speak and communicate Himself directly into the hearts of our listeners – and Who does so through us, when we are immersed in Him, and He is truly formed in us.

God's Country

I’ve had house guests the past few days, and the last one left this afternoon.  Friday, a spectacularly beautiful day, we decided get out of the summer heat in town and take a drive up into Rocky  Mountain National Park, up Trail Ridge Road to the top of the Continental Divide.  It rises above tree level to 12,000+ feet.  Here’s the proof, in a picture I took myself:

In order to get to the sign I had to hike up this trail from the visitor center parking lot, no easy feat in the skinny air at that altitude - I had to keep stopping to catch my breath:

But the views are beautiful.  It's a high, open country; you can almost see God pacing around up there, ruminating on the beauty of His creation:

Here's me, also ruminating on the beauty of His creation (can't help but do that up there):

On the way down, we had beautiful views of Longs Peak, a Fourteener, hazy with smoke from the California fires, which though sobering gave it a lovely soft effect:

Of course, hiking around at that altitude makes you tired and hungry, so we had to stop in the little town down below for some grub and a beer.  No trip to the mountains is complete without grub and a beer.  I had a Longs Peak beer, brewed in the little town right at the foot of Longs Peak, and my friends had Moose Drool from Montana:

It was a really fun day - I just had to share it with you!  All that heavy-duty Catholic theology really comes alive when I go hiking in the mountains and share good food and drink with my friends!

New Feature

Typepad has been adding some new features to the service, one of which is something I asked for awhile back and am delighted to discover they've added (thanks, Typepad): the ability to subscribe to comments!  Means you don't have to keep checking back to follow a conversation or see if someone replied to something you said.  Makes it a lot easier for readers.  You'll see the link for it at the top of the comments section when you click on comments.  So subscribe away, and have fun!

Meet My Friend, Bible Scholar Mark

Meet my friend Mark, a Catholic bible scholar currently working toward his doctorate in scripture.  Very cool intelligent guy, he was a classmate of mine at the Augustine Institute, was the first person to arrive at the first party I had when we were all new students (which forever won him a place in my heart), graduated last year with his master's in scripture.  I just discovered that he has a very cool blog, Catholic Bible Student, and is currently working on a very big project, writing a study bible for eCatholichub.com.  He also writes nice Lectio Divina meditations.  Be sure to check them all out.  Like I said, a very cool guy!  So cool, he even referenced my blog on his blog (said tongue in cheek), so I'm returning the favor!  :D  Thanks, Mark!

What is the Catholic Gospel? A Talk by Aimee Milburn

Here, as promised, is my first podcast of the Catholic gospel presentation I’ve been developing for the past year.  It started out as a door-to-door program, which I am also continuing, but has also turned into a more extended talk that I’ve been giving to Catholic groups and audiences here and there.

This version turned out to be very extended, about an hour long, the longest version I’ve done so far.  It’s a quiet, relaxed explanation of what our core Catholic belief, or story, or gospel message is, based on quite a bit of research and distillation of a wide range of teachings from the Magisterium, Sacred Scripture, saints, doctors, mystics, and theologians across the ages, including the best of the profound theological developments in the 20th century, including the writings of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.  It is not an explanation of doctrine; rather it is the Catholic gospel message itself, in the context of which I hope that doctrine itself can be more easily understood and explained.

For the background to this program, please see this post.  To listen to the Catholic gospel, pick a nice quiet time when you have no distractions, get a cup of tea, and listen to what I hope will be a very beautiful way of explaining the meaning and beauty of our Catholic faith, which I do believe is the authentic gospel, and the truth about the meaning of life, as best as I have been able to come to understand it after this past year of study, reflection, and practice.

Also please be aware that this is a work in progress, not a finished product, and I welcome feedback and questions.  So feel free to leave a comment here, or send me an e-mail through the e-mail link on this page.

The link is below; to listen to it streaming just click on it; or, if you’d rather download it, you can right-click on the link, then click "save link as" to save it to your computer.  It's in mp3 file format, so you can transfer it to your mp3 player if you want.

Download aimee_milburn_gospel_podcast_july_8_2008.mp3

First Podcast: What is the Catholic Gospel? - An Introduction

A few days ago I alluded on this blog to a big project I wanted to unveil here, and I'm now taking my first step in doing so.  As readers of this blog know, for the past year I've been working on an evangelization project, developing a door-to-door training model for Catholics, as my thesis for my degree at the Augustine Institute, where I just graduated from.  I've written about it here and here.  The project went really well, and I am continuing it.  Along the way I've developed a very beautiful way of describing the basic message or story of Catholicism, which people seem to really respond to, and which I'm continuing to develop and refine.

I hadn't planned on publicly sharing the gospel presentation yet, as it is still under development, but I've found that the process of developing it has so changed and deepened how I think about the Faith that I'm finding it very difficult to write at all without referring to it!  I need to put everything into the context of the gospel.  So I think I need to make it public, even in its present developing form, so that I can resume writing in the way I need to.  It's not really mine, you know, it's the Lord's, the Church's, the result of the cumulative efforts of the apostles, saints, doctors, mystics, members of the Magisterium and theologians across the ages, under the influence and guidance of the Holy Spirit, to continue developing and enunciating our understanding of our beautiful Faith - with my own efforts now thrown into the mix, to sift it down and refine it into a concise, yet beautiful, explanation of what Catholicism is really all about - the Catholic gospel message.

As scripture says, faith comes through hearing, and my gospel presentation is an oral presentation, not yet in written form (though eventually I plan to develop that, too).  So I've decided to make a good recording of it in it's present form, and share it with all of you here, so I have it to refer to if I mention it in the rest of my writing. 

But before I share it, I wanted to make an introductory recording to give the background of the project, how it all got started, what the Church is asking for in terms of evangelization, how I've incorporated the Church's teaching into my project, and the different forms and opportunities for sharing it that have developed in the course of the year.  I think it's interesting, and I hope you find it interesting too!  It's about 30 minutes long, and you can listen to it here, in mp3 format:

Download what_is_the_catholic_gospel_introduction.mp3

My next recording will be of the gospel presentation itself, which I hope to have recorded and uploaded by the middle of this coming week.  So if you're interested, keep checking back!

In the meantime, have a happy, safe, and blessed Fourth of July weekend.  May we all come to know and love God, Who is our true independence, who alone gives us true freedom!  Amen.

A Time of Thanksgiving

Well, I've moved.  The time of transition has begun.  My home of the past three years is now past, and I am in between places for the next couple of months, house sitting for the present for one family member, going to stay with another in a few weeks, all my things either in storage or spread out between the two family homes.  Talk about up in the air!  And my fiancé and I have begun house hunting - and when we find a place, I'll be moving all my things again, to get set up in time, we pray, for the wedding.  But it is a good time, a time of preparation, a time of reflection, a time of thanksgiving for all the wonderful things God has brought into our lives.

Things I am especially grateful for:

• Nine years ago, after I entered the Catholic Church, I began praying for a graduate school of theology to be founded in my area, so I could fulfill my dream of studying theology without having to move away from family.  God answered my prayers by founding the Augustine Institute, and providing for me so I could attend.  I just graduated from there.  For that, I am very grateful.

• Three and a half years ago, I prayed that God would send me my own personal St. Joseph, a husband to care for and provide for me, so that I could do what I felt the Lord calling me to do in my life.  He sent me Joe, and we are about to get married.  For that, I am extremely grateful.

• Three years ago, I prayed that God would find me a good place to live in a neighborhood close to my school, and He did, providing me with a lovely, quiet apartment with a study, in which I've done all my studying, writing, and reflecting of the past three years.  For that, I am extremely grateful.

• Now, I am praying that He will find Joe and I a good home, in which to conduct a holy marriage, dedicated to Him, in which we can work, study, reflect, entertain, and enjoy the life He has given us.  I trust that He will find us the right place.

And, I believe I have finally settled on a new design for my blog!  At least for the time being.  It suits my present reflective mood, and in the sidebars I've even included a few little photos of my own, from times when I was near the seashore. 

The image in the banner of the man walking along the shore is full of theological meaning for me.  The sand is the world, the ocean is God, the shore is where they meet and mingle.  The man is walking alongside God, having come from the world.  If you look closely, you can see that his pant legs are rolled up, and he is carrying his shirt.  In the presence of God, he is beginning to relax, and gradually his worldly clothing is beginning to come off, to let in the fresh air and sunshine of God. He is becoming detached from the world, and falling in love with God, becoming attached to God.

Soon, he will wade into the shallows, and enjoy the feel of the cool water.  He will fall in love with that, too - and want to go deeper.  Soon the rest of his worldly clothing will come off, and he will plunge into God, swim deeply into God.  If he is true to God, and is not lured or seduced back into the world, he will swim deeper into God for the rest of his life, coming out only once in awhile to rest on the shore and enjoy the sunshine - Sonshine - before plunging in again.  He will be like a dolphin in the sea of God, a child of God playing in the waves of God.  He will be loved by the Father, embraced by the Son, held by the Holy Spirit.  In the end, he will come completely alive in God, and live with Him forever, in eternity.

That's what I see when I look at that image.  It reminds me of my life - searching for God, finding Him in Christ, losing all my worldly things so I could plunge more and more deeply into Him, coming out only once in awhile for the sunshine and fresh air.  That is my life, and I pray that that will be all of our lives, living more and more in and for God, for the rest of our lives, into all eternity.

I thank you, Lord, for the gift of the past three years, for the gift of knowing You, for the gift of entering Your Church, for the gift of Joe, and for the gift of all that is yet to come.  I am yours.  May we all be yours, gift ourselves to You, so that we may receive from You the great gift You intend for us: all creation, and Yourself, for eternity.  Amen.

Wecome, Xt3 and World Youth Day Pilgrims

There's a new social networking site for World Youth Day pilgrims called Xt3, and I joined up a few days ago because I so love the World Youth Days, and love to meet young people on fire for the Church.  So, welcome, any of you from there come to visit here!  Browse around!  I hope you're inspired, and I hope you carry the inspiration all the way to Sydney, and share it!  I'm praying for you - Lord bless you all!

Packing and moving, packing and moving . . .

Taking a break from packing up stuff all day for my move.  Yes, I'm moving.  My lease is up on my treasured little home of the past three years, a block from a beautiful park in town and my study window looking out into the shady back yard with its grape arbor and maple tree.  Okay, it's only a duplex, but it's a lovely place for a busy graduate student to call home.

But now I've graduated, and am engaged, and I'll be in between places over the summer as I prepare to get married, staying with family here and there around the area.  Joe and I are house hunting, but it will take awhile, so all my stuff is going into storage, except for the things I absolutely must have, computer and books and clothes.

Speaking of books, I will especially miss my book-lined study.  But that's one of the nice things about looking for a new home: getting to look for one that also has a nice study!  Two, that is, as my fiance also needs a study.  But we both agree that I need a big one . . . to hold all those (expanding) bookshelves and my big desk.  Spoiled, I know, but there it is.

And once I get settled, I have a big project I've been anxious to finish up and unveil here on my blog . . . so stay tuned . . . !!!!!!

Questions and Answers with Pope Benedict XVI

I became a fan of then-Cardinal Ratzinger soon after my conversion to Catholicism, when as a new music director I read his lovely little book The Spirit of the Liturgy.  Along with the Vatican II document on the liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, it was very formational for me in doing music for the mass.  I’ve since read several other things of his, both books and documents.  I love his style, because he manages to be both very deep, and yet very understandable, conveying very profound truths about the Faith without watering anything down, but in terms a layman can understand without too much effort.

Now I have another little book to recommend, recently published by Our Sunday Visitor, Questions and Answers.  If you think Pope Benedict is good at writing books and documents, which he has time to plan out and develop and edit and refine, you’ll really be impressed with this little gem.  It is comprised of questions from audiences with children, clergy, and youth, and his spontaneous, unplanned answers.  To read it is to be impressed with how deeply he has not only studied, but truly taken in and absorbed and synthesized at a very deep level everything he has studied – truly the fruit of a lifetime of study and reflection. 

It reminds me of a story I read when he was elected Pope.  He had to wait several months to move into the Papal apartments, because they had to be remodeled to accommodate his library of 20,000 books!  And reading his works, I feel certain that he has read every one.

Perhaps most moving to me about this little book was to read the questions themselves, what they represent about the hopes and struggles of the faithful, especially of priests.  It is a tiny window into the hearts of priests, to see the concerns they express to the Pope.  Take these, for example:

Some priests also feel “inwardly dislocated.”  How can we be experts in “agape,” in the fullness of love, in order to be able to make the total gift of ourselves to help them? (p. 38)

Priests find it very difficult to pass on the faith to the younger generations. . . . is there something lacking in our formation? (p. 44-45)

. . . Young and old, we all feel inadequate.  This is firstly because we are so few in comparison with the many needs, and we come from different backgrounds; we also suffer from a shortage of priestly vocations.  That is why we sometimes feel discouraged.  We try to patch things up here and there and are often forced to attend to emergencies, without any precise projects.  Seeing how much there is to do, we are tempted to give priority to “doing” and to neglect “being”; this is inevitably reflected in our spiritual life, our conversation with God, our prayer and our charity (love) for our brethren, especially those who are far away.  Holy Father, what can you tell us about this?  I am a certain age . . . but is it possible for these young confreres of mine to hope? (p. 69)

. . . The contemporary mind-set demands that young people be happy and perfect all of the time.  The result is that every tiny failure and the least difficulty are no longer seen as causes for growth but as a defeat.  All this often leads to irreversible acts such as suicide, which wound the hearts of those who love them and of society as a whole.  What can you tell us educators who feel all too often that our hands are tied and that we have no answers?  (p. 145)

To know how our Pope answered these questions, you’ll have to read the book, of course!

Augustine Institute Graduation Video

Turns out the Augustine Institute made a short, three minute video of highlights of our commencement ceremony, featuring distinguished speakers Dr. Jonathan Reyes, our current president; Fr. Mitch Pacwa, our commencement speaker and mass celebrant; and . . . me!

Watching it makes me feel thrilled, proud, and, like . . . wow, I really need to lose that weight I gained during three years of graduate school stress!  :D  :D  :D

Have a Nice Weekend

I'm off to a family reunion and away from the internet, so comment moderation is turned on.  I'll check in when I can.  In the meantime, have a nice weekend!

On Spiritual Direction and Being Fed by the Traditional Latin Mass

I recently got back in touch with a friend of mine that I got to know when I was a fairly new Catholic, whom I’d lost touch with during both of our moves, her for work reasons, me for school reasons.  But we got back in touch through, of all things, my blog.  Seems she was searching one day for information on spiritual direction, and came across an article I wrote about it!  And we’ve been in touch ever since.

Since she moved, she has begun attending a traditional Latin mass parish run by priests of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, a religious order in communion with Rome – and it is shiningly evident how the traditional Latin mass is feeding and transforming her on a spiritual level.

A little background.  She was raised Catholic, went to Catholic schools her whole life, but never really “got it,” due to growing up in what sounds like one of the flakier of the post-Vatican II experimental parishes (which, by the way, is not an indictment of Vatican II.  It is an indictment of those who disregarded the actual teachings of the council, and used the “spirit of Vatican II” as an excuse to do whatever they felt like doing).  She later married another similarly-raised Catholic man, and they both fell away from the Church for several years.

But after a while she started feeling like she was missing something, and felt the urge to go back to Church.  She searched around, and wound up coming to the same parish where I happened to be working as music director, working (under great opposition from certain quarters) to authentically implement the liturgical directives of the council (prayerfulness, reverence, Gregorian chant, and so forth). 

She told me later that when I first started using chant she found it very strange, but later got used to it, then came to love it – and then one time went to a different parish, one like the parish she grew up in, and hated it.  It was loud, the music was fast, people were clapping and running around – and she couldn’t pray.  She had become used to the quiet, contemplative atmosphere of a truly reverent liturgy (or at least so far as I was able to muster in my own feeble efforts).

Later she moved, and I moved, and then I started my bog, and one day she came across it on the web.  And we got back in touch.  And she tells me that after searching for a parish with a liturgy that she could truly pray in, and being very frustrated, she and her husband finally turned to the traditional Latin parish, which as it happens is near where they had moved to.

And they fell in love with it, and have been attending it ever since.  And my friend is growing mightily in holiness, in prayer, in the spiritual life.  It was her spiritual growth due to attendance at the Latin mass that made her begin to search for spiritual direction, which is how we reconnected.

Yesterday we talked by phone, and she said something really lovely, something along these lines:

You know, I feel so fed by the Latin mass, in a way I’ve never felt fed before.  I’ve been so spiritually hungry and searching for a long time, and mostly fed my hunger by reading books and watching EWTN and things like that.  But when I started attending the Latin mass, I got so caught up in it.  It truly is contemplation, being caught up in the Lord, and it is such an incredible experience.  I no longer hunger for books, or TV, feel like I don’t need anything except the Eucharist in the Latin mass.  I am fed in a way I never have been before.

And it is so true.  I don’t attend a traditional Latin mass now, but I do attend a very reverent, prayerful liturgy at the Cathedral here – and a contemporary mass at that, Archbishop Chaput's youth mass, but it is done in an extremely gentle, prayerful, reverent style – and my fiancé and I both remark every single Sunday as we leave about how wonderful it is, how totally uplifted we feel, how we don’t think we could to without it.  Having a reverent liturgy allows one to truly open up in prayer to the Lord, and receive the Lord very deeply in the Eucharist.  A noisy, irreverent liturgy interferes with the contemplative union with the Lord in the Eucharist that the mass actually is meant to be.  We need silence, prayerfulness, reverence, beauty, for our souls to truly open up and relax, and admit the Lord in Holy Communion.

This morning, after our talk yesterday, I got an e-mail from my friend.  She found a spiritual director a few months ago, one of the religious priests at her parish, and she’d been telling me about her experiences with him during our talk yesterday.  I had said something to her about how she is receiving a “large inflow of grace” from the experience, and as she is fairly new to the process wasn’t very sure what I meant.  So she wrote to ask.  I wrote her an answer, which is based on the traditional spiritual teaching of the Church, especially the work of St. John of the Cross (my favorite), and might be helpful for some of you out there, so I’m reproducing relevant parts of it here:

On Obama's Nomination

I am not a very political person, and this blog is not a political blog.  And to be clear, I do not support the candidacy of any Democrat, because of the Democrat’s embrace of the abortion platform.  I resigned from the Democratic party years ago over that issue, and could never in good conscience vote for a pro-choice candidate from any party – unless the only other option would be to vote for a candidate who supports planet-wide genocide and mass murder of adults.  But in that case, I probably wouldn’t vote for anyone.

That said, I have to say that on one level I am very glad to see Obama get the Democratic nomination, and that is for the simple fact that he is a black man – and, politics aside, based on what I’ve seen in the news, an apparently very gracious black man.  I won’t vote for him for president, and I sure hope he doesn’t get the presidency, because he is a very pro-abortion candidate.  But I am glad to see that a black man can win the nomination for the presidency in this country.  If he were pro-life, and shared my political views in other areas, I’d love to vote for him.

Maybe it’s because my family is from Texas, where they grew up in a very racist environment – but rejected racism, and left Texas in part because they didn’t want to raise us there, and inherit the racist attitudes (okay, they left more because they loved the beautiful Colorado environment so much more than hot, flat, buggy Texas – but racism was a part of their decision).

Maybe it’s because one of my ancestors, my great-grandmother on my father’s side, was rumored to be part black (and maybe part Native American, but we don’t know).

Maybe it’s because I had black friends while growing up, starting in kindergarten, and thought they were some of the warmest, nicest people I knew – and missed their friendship when we all grew up and moved apart.

Maybe it’s because, when I moved to the East Coast, I truly encountered racism – and classism – for the first time in my life, and hated it, because it hurt me.  It divided people up, made it so that I couldn’t be friends with everyone I wanted to be friends with, because people from different groups didn’t trust me, because of my skin color or education or economic background.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been upset by what I’ve seen happening in the black community for so many years, drugs and gangs and single motherhood and high rates of abortion, when I love black people so much – and I hate what is happening to their communities.

Whatever the reason, I’m glad to see Obama get the nomination.  It reminds me of all the black people I’ve ever loved in my life, and reminds me of the hope I’ve always had that black people would come out and excel in life, not care that a few people might be racist, but go out and do what they want anyway.  I think they should – and they shouldn’t care about the racists.  Racists are losers, not worth the time of day.  We should all just walk right over them.

And Hillary?  Do I support her because she is a woman?  No.  I know a woman is capable of being president – just look at the way Isabella of Spain drove the Moors out, sometimes riding 800 miles on horseback while pregnant to conduct her campaign – or the way Hildegard of Bingen advised kings and Popes.  A woman can do anything she wants.  But those were women of integrity.  Not Hillary Clinton.  Too many lies, too many changing stories, no integrity there that I can see.

And I don’t like Obama’s politics.  I’ll never vote for him, as I said.  But I hope his nomination does wonders for the black community, and helps them realize that while racists may have a loud bark, and even a sharp little bite, they can’t stop a motivated black person from getting where he wants to in life - or at least having a very good shot at getting there.

What Are We to Believe? A Question from a Protestant Friend on the Magisterium

I recently got an e-mail from a blogging Protestant friend who’s been having a conversation with friends of his who’ve either converted, or reverted, to Catholicism.  My friend has rightly observed that Catholicism has clear teachings, defined by the Magisterium, that are to be believed and obeyed.

So he is surprised to find that his friends don’t necessarily agree with him – or with the Church – on what the Church actually teaches, and don’t think they have to in order to be good Catholics.  Understandably, he is confused by that, and writes to me, among others, for clarification.  Are we, or are we not, to believe what the Magisterium officially teaches on matters of the faith? 

The answer, obviously, is yes.  But decades of lax and bad catechesis have given a generation or so of Catholics the idea that they don’t have to believe what the Church teaches.  As one woman put it in a class I sat in on in a parish recently, “Who do priests think they are, to tell us how to run our lives?  They don’t have a right to do that!”  I am happy to report that by the end of the class, the woman had come a long way toward changing her mind, and coming into union with the Church.  I hope that the Director of Adult Faith Formation who taught the class, a classmate of mine who graduated last year from the Augustine Institute, someday receives a medal in heaven for his efforts!

The idea that there are Catholics who believe they don’t have to follow what the Church teaches, and yet still be good Catholics, is shocking to faithful Protestants who take scripture seriously and really try to follow it.  And it confuses them, which is why my friend wrote to me.  And of course I had a few things to say in reply.  We do have to make a distinction between Catholics and Catholicism, as today there are many Catholics who claim to be Catholic while not actually believing or doing what the Church asks them to do.

Here’s a few things I said:

Talk About Being . . .

. . . in the right place at the right time.  This morning I was standing in the lobby of the John Paul II Center for the New Evangelization in Denver, also the home of the St. John Vianney Seminary, the chancery offices, and Archbishop Chaput’s residence, when the door opened and a very familiar-looking priest walked in, though I was certain I’d never seen him in person.

I had gone there to meet with my spiritual director, a wonderful old traditional Jesuit priest who is in residence in the seminary.  We were standing at the receptionist station, chatting with the long-time receptionist Steve (one of the friendliest guys in the Archdiocese; be sure to say hello to him if you ever go there), and about to ask him if there was a room we could meet in, when this familiar-looking priest walked in.

He paused in front of the reception desk and Steve gave him an astonished hello, and they started talking.  I stared at him hard, and must have been gawking with my mouth open as I realized who he was, because he suddenly looked over at me, strode over, took my hand and shook it, and said:

“Hello!  I’m Bishop-elect Conley.  Who are you?”

BISHOP-ELECT CONLEY!!!!! Our new auxiliary bishop, just appointed by Pope Benedict, here to help Archbishop Chaput, to be ordained on Friday!  WOW!

I stammered my name while the ever-gracious Steve introduced my director.  As they talked, the bishop-elect was saying something about not even knowing where his office was, and I asked him, “Did you only just arrive?”  He answered, “Yes, just this moment!”

Double wow!!!  I happened to be there the moment when our new bishop-elect arrived, and was one of the first three people in the Archdiocese to meet him, along with Steve and my spiritual director!  How exciting!

And I must say, he is an extremely friendly and nice man, unpretentious and forthcoming.  I was very impressed.  As we all were.  I still can’t believe he just came over and shook my hand like that, not even knowing who I was.  Steve pointed the way to his office, and as he walked away we all looked at each other grinning and nodding and saying, “What a nice man!  Isn’t he nice?  Yes!”

I think we are really going to be blessed by Bishop-elect Conley, and think he’ll be a really good shepherd for the people.

The Lord Gives and the Lord Takes Away, All for His Purposes

Watching news of the recent tornadoes (not to mention, earthquakes and hurricanes elsewhere), it is very saddening to think of people losing their homes, their belongings, and especially irreplaceable things such as precious mementoes or personal works of art or writing not duplicated anywhere else.  I can't imagine how wrenching it must be to have your whole house get torn up and blown away, with everything in it.  Some things can be replaced, but other things are very hard to replace, if not irreplaceable. 

And I've always said, I can handle just about any kind of weather, but not tornadoes.  It would be really awful to be caught in a tornado.  I came really close once, driving through Ohio on a cross country trip.  I'll never forget the blackish green color of the sky, the torrential rain and high winds and tree branches winging through the air - and deciding to pull off the highway and check into a motel early, only to find that half the motels in town had just had their roofs blown off by a passing tornado.  It's an experience I'd like never to repeat.

But on the other hand, having all these things forcibly taken away from one can have the power to remind us of what is really important: our lives, and each other, and God.  I just read in the news that the little town of Windsor just had a worship service where people were, of all things, smiling and applauding and thanking God.  According to the report, “. . . several Christian leaders spoke on how the tornado has broken down the barriers that may have once divided the community.  From their perspective, the storm has brought everyone together for the greater good.”

Now, that is beautiful, and that is the right perspective.  That is why the saints renounced all their worldly goods, in order to follow God, became detached from everything else in order to be attached to God.  And that is why God repeatedly, every time Israel wandered into sin, visited them with disaster.  His punishments were not arbitrary, and were not just a simple venting of anger, but were corrective and pedagogical.  They were meant to tear people away from their sins and attachment to all that was not of God, and bring them back to God, by letting them know unmistakably that the LORD is God – He is real, He exists, and He alone is the truly powerful one, and is the real source of life and goodness and providence and love.  God’s punishment is always an act of love, to teach us what is truly important in life and bring us back to Him.

I’m reminded of something I read a couple of days ago, where a woman said, “Yesterday I was mad at the world because I hadn’t gotten my patio yet.  Today I’m just glad that my grandchildren are okay, and I don’t care if my backyard is covered in mud for the rest of my life, just so long as my grandchildren are okay.”  That woman has been blessed by God with understanding of what really matters in life: not things, or possessions, or appearances, but people, individuals, life itself. 

And ultimately, of course, God, the source of life itself, is what matters the most.  Each of us will someday leave all the things of this world behind, whether we like it or not, whether we are attached to them or not, whether we are ready or not.  Better to practice letting go now, and living for God now – because then when we do leave, it will not be so as to lose everything, but to receive everything, and the source of everything: God Himself, infinity, eternity, forever.

And many in these storms have not lost only their belongings - they've lost their lives.  For those who died in the storms, I pray for their souls, that they were prepared to meet their Maker, that He was merciful to them, and kindly and gently drew them up to Himself, granting them eternal life with Him forever.  And I pray for those who lost loved ones in these storms, especially the parents of children.  And let it be a lesson for the rest of us: we do not know the hour, or the day, when He will come for each one of us.  But let us live constantly as if He is coming today, and be prepared and ready, living for Him and loving Him every moment of our lives – so that He won’t come for us at a moment when we are not, and find us unprepared.  Amen.

Taking Stock

Alright.  The dust is beginning to settle from the semester.  I’m beginning to get rested and recovered.  It’ll take a few weeks to really get back to normal, but now I want to recoup and take stock and look around me.

Where am I now?  What have I accomplished, and what is my next step?

Well, for one thing, I accomplished my goal of earning an advanced degree in theology, so I could write and speak and teach about the Faith with credibility.  And I’ve been practicing writing about the Faith, and seeing how people respond to my writing, through this blog – quite a nice experience, I must say! 

And there’s my thesis project in door-to-door evangelization, which quite a few here expressed interest in when I was starting it up.  How did that go?

Well, it went great!  I haven’t said much about it here because it’s been under development, but it was a great year.  And I plan to continue the project.  I did two training terms, fall and spring, in two different parishes, with great results.  I’ve been invited back to one of the parishes this summer to train the Director of RCIA, so he can keep the program going and train parishioners after I move on, and I’m considering returning to the other parish in the fall for another year.

Most excitingly, the Augustine Institute, where I just graduated from, is apparently wowed by my program, and has invited me back there to get students involved!  I’ll be meeting with them later on this summer to discuss possibilities.

Now, the program is still very nascent.  I’ve worked with only a couple of trainees at a time in each parish, as I’ve been developing and testing a way of explaining a truly and authentically Catholic gospel to people, getting their feedback, and developing and refining more as I go along.  There’s still a lot of work to be done, and I don’t have a finished “product” to put out there – nor do I want to rush.  I’d rather go slowly, and make sure I develop something that really works well, before putting it out there for anyone else to use.

And there’s been another exciting development.  Along with developing a Catholic “gospel presentation” that can be used door-to-door or out in public, I’ve also been developing a longer, more fleshed-out version that I’ve been practicing giving as a talk to Catholic groups, as part of the New Evangelization.  I’ve given it to an RCIA group (the sponsors reacted with wild enthusiasm, as did the candidates and catechumens), a women’s Day of Recollection (ditto), an Adult Faith Formation group (where several volunteered to get involved if I need more trainees), and a Catholics Come Home group of fallen-away Catholics (several of whom wound up returning to the Church, though I take only partial credit for that – we had an excellent team working with that class).

I decided to develop this talk because few if any Catholics have ever really heard their own “gospel proclamation,” the basic message or story of Catholicism.  We’ve heard a lot of doctrine, know a lot of practices.  But what is the Catholic gospel, how do we explain it to anyone?  That’s what I’ve been developing this year, put countless hours into studying and researching and developing.

And it is beautiful.  I am seeing people really respond to what I’m developing, along the lines of “I had tears in my eyes.”  “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.”  “That is profound.  I had no idea that is what Catholicism is really about.”  I’ve heard it from Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Jews, feminists, fraternity brothers and sorority sisters, and even a couple of atheists.  Catholicism, the basic message of Catholicism, is beautiful, and when we figure out how to explain it to people the right way, they really respond.

So I want to keep developing this program.  And I’ve begun getting invitations to give my talk here and there this fall (by the way, if any of you want me to come give my talk to your parish or organization,  just send me an email . . . I’m looking for opportunities to practice it.  The more feedback I can get the better it goes – and besides, I love doing it!).

And I want to get back to writing full-time, a longtime dream of mine.  I’ve got lots of things planned, not least of which is this blog!  I love writing and corresponding with people about the Faith.  And there’s so much I want to put out there, for anyone who will listen, Catholic or not.

And God has blessed me with a wonderful husband-to-be, my own personal St. Joseph, to help make it all possible.  God bless him!  I couldn’t do it at all, without Joe in my life.  I am so grateful to him, and grateful to God, and just plain grateful for everything.  It’s been a great three years – and I can’t wait to get going on the next years of my life!  Deo gratias!  Oráre pro me!