Finding your passion

Back to St. John for a moment. I want to pass along a beautiful reflection I read yesterday on John and his discovery of his vocation from Jesus. I've had similar conversations with so many people (including myself!) as to how difficult it is for us to find our vocation, our "job", in this life. I believe that when one finally discovers that vocation...that passion...that thing that DRIVES us forward in a positive and edifying manner, it has to be the most exciting, yet peaceful, moments ever in a person's life. May each of us find it. And if we are listening, it could be we already are being "told" what it is. It might be as simple, yet so very important, as being the best parent/son/daughter we can be. The problem is that the world today doesn't believe in those things...they aren't "sexy" enough. More's the pity.

Do we want to hear that voice? That's the question.

For St. John, as for everyone else, his vocation gave a new meaning even to the most ordinary things. The whole of life is affected by Our Lord's plans for each one of us. The discovery of one's personal vocation, is the most important point in each person's existence. It changes everything without changing anything; just as a landscape, without changing, is different before and after the sun goes down, beneath the light of the moon, or wrapped in the darkness of night. Every discovery gives a new beauty to things, and a new light creates new shadows; one discovery is the prelude to other discoveries of new lights and more beauty. - (In Conversation with God, Volume 1: Advent and Christmastide. By Francis Hernandez)

Rachel

While on the subject of the biblical Rachel, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the amazing likeness rendered by Nebraska sculptor and artist Sondra Johnson who resides in Cambridge, Nebraska. Click here and here for more information.

The first bronze casting of “Rachel” is installed outside of St. Germanus Church, Hwy. 6 & 34, in Arapahoe, NE. Other locations include: Seaford Long Island, NY, Sioux Falls, SD and Ames, IA.

The crib and the cross

I almost missed posting on two important days in the Christmas season: The Feasts of St. John the Evangelist and that of the Holy Innocents.

December 27: Along with Peter and James, John was one in the inner group of apostles who were especially close to Jesus. John and his brother James earned the title "Sons of Thunder." The Gospel for the 27th applies to the disciple and of all who, like him, "saw and believed." Saw what? Not the cave of Bethlehem, but the empty tomb. Not swaddling clothes, but burial cloths first spoke of the word of life, revealed in Jesus the Christ.

In poem number 906, Emily Dickinson observes that we see most clearly "through an Open Tomb." So it was for the early Church. In that "Light--enabling Light," they came at last to understand the significance of the crib as well as the cross.

December 28: The Holy Innocents are the infant boys who were slain by the jealous Herod the Great. How many were there? If the population of Bethlehem is estimated as around 1,000, perhaps about 20 boys were slain. Today their feast reminds us to pray for the protection of all human life, including the unborn.

Not only in the world of Matthew's Gospel (Matt 2:13-18), but in our own world too, history seems to repeat itself with depressing regularity. The massacre of innocent children continues, and Rachel weeps inconsolably.

A voice was heard in Ramah,
sobbing and loud lamentation;
Rachel weeping for her children,
and she would not be consoled,
since they were no more.

The Ripple Effect

I turn 38 on New Year's Day.

Three. Eight. Perhaps it's time to grow up.

Maybe it's due to my reading so many good authors, but instead of being inspired by them, I feel so small. Tiny. Inadequate. And am thinking that my aspirations of being an author are perhaps something best left behind to childhood and childish pride. It's time to face facts that I don't have what it takes to write, at least not as I'd like to, and that perhaps God is calling me to other things. I've been trying to write this blasted book for over three years now and am getting no closer to finishing it then I was then.

I had mentioned that this year's viewing of It's A Wonderful Life left me feeling odd. Like George Bailey I come from a small town and dreamt of big things. But as he came to find out he had affected so many lives for the better LOCALLY by staying home and doing the little things well day in and day out. By living a life of integrity. I do neither at times. Perhaps my own "Clarence" is telling me that it's time to stay "local" and focus on things here: with my wife, my children, my friends, my community.

Of course, George Bailey's life had ripple effects that extended outwards to people he didn't know due to the way he lived his life at home, but why can't all of ours do that? I believe that they do, even without our knowing it.

St. Paul said in his great epistle on charity (love) in 1 Corinthians 13:11 that "When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things." While my first inclination is to say that this contradicts Jesus' telling us to remain as children and have faith as children do, I think it's actually two different things. For while I still retain my child-like faith in Christ, it is also time to reach a maturity in other matters that are only serving as roadblocks to that faith.

As Clarence wrote in his copy of Tom Sawyer and gave to George at the end of the movie: "Remember, no man is a failure who has friends." In this regard I will never consider myself a failure as I am blessed to have so many wonderful friends at home and abroad. I don't need to be published to succeed. I'm already a success, and I owe that success to God...and my friends.

"Dance by the light of the moon"

On Thursday prior to Christmas I was able to sit down with my quilt and my Maker's Mark on the rocks and have my annual viewing of Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life. This year's viewing had an odd effect on me which I've yet to figure out. But that perhaps will have to wait until another day. For today I'm at home with the boys (not due back in the office for two days) and will spend that time logging into the network at my office now and then to monitor emails, play with the boys, and continue to work on my basement remodeling project. In the meantime, here are a few words from Jimmy Stewart himself from an interview he gave regarding my favorite movie.

Then one day Frank Capra phoned me. The great director had also been away in service, making the "Why We Fight" documentary series for the military, and he admitted to being a little frightened too. But he had a movie in mind, so we met to talk about it.

He said the idea came from a Christmas story written by Philip Van Doren Stern. Stern couldn't sell the story anywhere, but he finally had 200 twenty-four-page pamphlets printed up at his own expense, and he gave them to his friends as a greeting card.

"Now listen," Frank began hesitantly. He seemed a little embarrassed about what he was going to say. "The story starts in heaven, and it's sort of the Lord telling somebody to go down to earth because there's a fellow who's in trouble, and this heavenly being goes to a small town, and ..."

Frank swallowed and took a deep breath. "Well, what it boils down to is, this fella who thinks he's a failure in life jumps off a bridge. The Lord sends down an angel named Clarence, who hasn't earned his wings yet, and Clarence jumps into the water to save the guy. But the angel can't swim, so the guy has to save him, and then ..."

Frank stopped and took a deep breath. "This doesn't tell very well, does it?"

I jumped up. "Frank, if you want to do a picture about a guy who jumps off a bridge and an angel named Clarence who hasn't won his wings yet coming down to save him, well, I'm your man!"

"A thrill like music"

Today, as in the age of Shakespeare, when Right and Wrong seem almost to have lost their names and naked power threatens to become a universal wolf and eat up mankind, thoughtful people turn naturally to biography and history, seeking in the historians and the poets a truer insight into human nature and a clearer hope of the triumph of the human spirit. (From James G. McManaway’s preface of Shakespeare: The Histories, published by Easton Press)

Four winters ago I became a “serious” collector of books. I decided to join the Easton Press’s “100 Greatest Books Ever Written” club. And what books they were! Not just due to their literary achievement but because of EP’s ability to produce books that are almost instant heirlooms. Leather covers, gold inlaid, raised hubs of the spine, ribbon markers, acid free paper and moiré endleaves. And such smells. Nothing can beat the smell of leather and ink and paper all joined into one glorious volume. The picture to the right is of one of my bookshelves, along with my just emptied bottle of my favorite Kentucky whisky...perfect for cold winter's nights and a good book.

And so I began with Melville’s Moby Dick. Now, almost fifty books later, the first of three volumes that I had anticipated those four years ago finally arrived today. There will eventually be three Shakespeare volumes adorning my shelves: The Comedies and The Tragedies will join The Histories in the coming months. I read through the preface (yes, I read the preface and the forwards) and came across the quote at the top of the page at preface end.

I don’t point it out in order for it to be used politically, although it certainly could be used against politicians off all stripes and parties. Certainly it can be applied to all facets of life and its areas where human beings interact with or are dependent upon one another.

I have always been a student of history. As a child I was always reading and referring to my parent’s set of 1974 Encyclopedia Brittanica. Many a person has heard me preach that if we do not know our own history, it will be impossible to learn the necessary lessons from it and then ultimately will we be doomed to repeat history’s failures. Example after example could I place within this writing. And yet all of us, myself included, will continue to stumble along blindly through this life until we either learn, or give up and consign ourselves to fate.

I am an admirer of the written word, when it is done well. In a letter to Arthur Greeves in 1916, C.S. Lewis wrote, "Isn't it funny the way some combinations of words can give you — almost apart from their meaning — a thrill like music?" The poetry of Yeats, the sonnets of Shakespeare, the storytelling of Washington Irving, the complexity yet pure enjoyment that is Chesterton, all of these and so many more bring me pause and consider carefully what I’ve read before daring to turn the page and discover what come next. And yet I cannot turn the page fast enough, so greedily do I desire to devour. It is a paradox. You cannot help but linger to admire where you are, but cannot wait to be lead to where next the author wants to lead you. Indeed a life well lived is like that. We should always take the time to pause and linger over each moment of our days, drinking them in as the freshest water on a hot summers day. But always looking to what life has in store for us as we turn the page to the next day, looking back only to draw upon the lessons we learn and take with us across the page into the new day…in order to continue the storyline of our lives.

All I want for Christmas is another roll of duct tape

While I quietly groan at the stories of Christians becoming very aggressive in their defense of Christmas and the overtly-consumeristic and secularistic use of the holiday (that's "holy day"), I certainly do defend their wanting to do this. I am as sick of the hijacking of this most precious and sacred of days as anyone.

But just when I think I've come to a peace with all of it and am able to separate the two, an article like this comes along and finds me scrambling for my duct tape in a frantic effort to wrap it around my head to keep the pieces from exploding all over the living room. Such is the case when I read the secularization of the lyrics of Silent Night:

For a performance in its "winter program," a Wisconsin elementary school has changed the beloved Christmas carol "Silent Night," calling the song "Cold in the Night" and secularizing the lyrics.

According to Liberty Counsel, a religious-liberty law firm representing a student's parent, kids who attend Ridgeway Elementary School in Dodgeville, Wis., will sing the following lyrics to the tune of "Silent Night":

Cold in the night, no one in sight,
winter winds whirl and bite,
how I wish I were happy and warm,
safe with my family out of the storm.

Through the Wardrobe

The only problem someone might have with the new Narnia movie are the inevitable comparisons to the Lord of the Rings trilogy released from 2001-2003. I have heard it remarked over the weekend by at least three friends of mine that “it’s quite good, but no Lord of the Rings.” To them I’ve said “Of course not. They were different books by different authors.”

While it’s true that J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were lifelong friends, and indeed it was Tolkien, a devout Catholic, who helped guide Lewis from his atheist beliefs towards ultimately becoming a Christian (high Anglican). But both men took different approaches to their fantasy epics. Tolkien deliberately avoided creating an allegory and invented a pre-Christian era epic on an Arthurian scale, complete with invented languages (Tolkien was a philologist who spent much of his life inventing the languages within the LOTR). He preferred to let the reader “discover” the hidden meanings and experience the Divine Providence at work within the story as it unfolded.

Lewis on the other hand, wrote a story aimed at smaller children on a smaller scale. He wrote one book a year for seven years in completing the complete Chronicles of Narnia. As such the movie is much less “busy” than the LOTR trilogy was. But it is still a magnificent and a magical movie. Purists may decry the addition of two or three additional scenes that are not in the book, but I felt that they served the story well. The first scene especially (added for the film) helps to remind viewers of why it is the Pevensie children have left London and are staying at the old professor’s home out in the country. Children (and indeed many adults) need to be reminded of the era in which the book takes place: London is under the nightly bombing “blitz” of Germany’s Luftwaffe and it’s no longer safe for Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy in the city.

I won’t go into the story any further than to say that if you’re a fan of the Christian symbolism and meaning behind Lewis’ book, you will not be disappointed. If you are of the secular world and want to enjoy a good story, this movie is for you as well. It is very well cast, well acted (Georgie Hendley, who plays little Lucy, is perfect and a wonder to watch; and Tilda Swinton as the white witch Jadis is icily evil), and the sets and imagery and “magic” all work wonderfully. My only real beef with the film (and a small one is that) is that the musical score was I thought lacking. Peter Jackson commissioned Howard Shore to compose the memorable and soaring score for his trilogy of LOTR movies…I only wish that Andrew Adamson had done the same for TLTW&TW. But that’s a trifle. This movie will definitely deserve a place in your DVD collection when it is released. But I would highly recommend watching it in the theater if you can. Narnia is a big movie that should be seen on the big screen. Indeed it opened #1 this weekend.

The only "negative" reviews I've read are by those critics who can't seem to be able to get past their own anti-Christian bias when looking at this movie. Our local sourpuss, the same man who gave The Passion of the Christ just two stars, gave Narnia 2.5. Another example is in this review by Scott Holleran. If they would instead focus on the merits of the movie (a children's movie devoid of flatulance or burp jokes and children not talking back in smart-alecky tones) they'd perhaps rethink their critique. Actually, I feel sorry for them being unable to appreciate a children's fable when they come across one.

Other reviews are here and here.

For those who want to learn more about the books please read on.

While The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe was the first book published, in the Narnian timeline of events, it’s actually book number two. The Magician’s Nephew explains the beginnings of Narnia, how Jadis came into Narnia, and how it is that the old professor has the wardrobe in the first place.

The Chronicles of Narnia are seven tales that cover almost half of the twentieth century and over two and a half millennia of Narnian history from its creation to its final days. Many readers prefer to start with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe because of its simplicity, magical power, and for the way it sets up the basic “supposals” from which Lewis created all the stories and the world of Narnia.

Aslan (Turkish for “lion”) is the unifying symbol of all the stories. Aslan is intended to represent Christ, but not as an allegorical figure. In Narnia he appears not as a man but, appropriately, as a Narnian talking lion. The symbol of the lion (a traditional symbol of authority) perhaps owes something to a novel by Charles Williams The Place of the Lion. In his The Problem of Pain Lewis wrote, “I think the lion, when he has ceased to be dangerous, will still be awful.” As a child, significantly, Lewis attended St. Mark’s (Anglican) Church in Dundela, on the outskirts of Belfast. The traditional symbol of St. Mark is the lion, a fact reinforced by the name of the church’s magazine in later years, The Lion.

Chronological Order (Narnian time):
The Magicians Nephew
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Horse and His Boy
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Last Battle

Order of Publishing:
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
Prince Caspian (1951)
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
The Silver Chair (1953)
The Horse and His Boy (1954)
The Magicians Nephew (1955)
The Last Battle (1956)

40 Years After V2

Wednesday was the 40th anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council. What follows are selections from Pope Paul VI during his closing address during the last public session of the Council. It is an excellent summary of direction the Council fathers had set for the Church moving forward. You can read all sixteen documents of Vatican II online...in fact I'd encourage it.

Address of Pope Paul VI During the Last General Meeting
of the Second Vatican Council
7 December 1965

[snip]

To appreciate it properly it is necessary to remember the time in which it was realized: a time which everyone admits is orientated toward the conquest of the kingdom of earth rather than of that of heaven; a time in which forgetfulness of God has become habitual, and seems, quite wrongly, to be prompted by the progress of science; a time in which the fundamental act of the human person, more conscious now of himself and of his liberty, tends to pronounce in favor of his own absolute autonomy, in emancipation from every transcendent law; a time in which secularism seems the legitimate consequence of modern thought and the highest wisdom in the temporal ordering of society; a time, moreover, in which the soul of man has plumbed the depths of irrationality and desolation; a time, finally, which is characterized by upheavals and a hitherto unknown decline even in the great world religions.

It was at such a time as this that our council was held to the honor of God, in the name of Christ and under the impulse of the Spirit: who "searcheth all things," "making us understand God's gifts to us" (cf. 1 Corinthians 2:10-12), and who is now quickening the Church, giving her a vision at once profound and all-embracing of the life of the world. The theocentric and theological concept of man and the universe, almost in defiance of the charge of anachronism and irrelevance, has been given a new prominence by the council, through claims which the world will at first judge to be foolish, but which, we hope, it will later come to recognize as being truly human, wise and salutary: Namely, God is and more, he is real, he lives, a personal, provident God, infinitely good; and not only good in himself, but also immeasurably good to us. He will be recognized as our Creator, our truth, our happiness; so much so that the effort to look on him, and to center our heart in him which we call contemplation, is the highest, the most perfect act of the spirit, the act which even today can and must be at the apex of all human activity.

[snip]

The council documents -- especially the ones on divine Revelation, the liturgy, the Church, priests, religious and the laity - leave wide open to view this primary and focal religious intention, and show how clear and fresh and rich is the spiritual stream which contact with the living God causes to well up in the heart of the Church, and flow out from it over the dry wastes of our world.

But we cannot pass over one important consideration in our analysis of the religious meaning of the council: It has been deeply committed to the study of the modern world. Never before perhaps, so much as on this occasion, has the Church felt the need to know, to draw near to, to understand, to penetrate, serve and evangelize the society in which she lives; and to get to grips with it, almost to run after it, in its rapid and continuous change. This attitude, a response to the distances and divisions we have witnessed over recent centuries, in the last century and in our own especially, between the Church and secular society - this attitude has been strongly and unceasingly at work in the council; so much so that some have been inclined to suspect that an easygoing and excessive responsiveness to the outside world, to passing events, cultural fashions, temporary needs, an alien way of thinking ... may have swayed persons and acts of the ecumenical synod, at the expense of the fidelity which is due to tradition, and this to the detriment of the religious orientation of the council itself. We do not believe that this shortcoming should be imputed to it, to its real and deep intentions, to its authentic manifestations.

[snip]

You see, for example, how the countless different languages of peoples existing today were admitted for the liturgical expression of men's communication with God and God's communication with men: To man as such was recognized his fundamental claim to enjoy full possession of his rights and to his transcendental destiny. His supreme aspirations to life, to personal dignity, to his just liberty, to culture, to the renewal of the social order, to justice and peace were purified and promoted; and to all men was addressed the pastoral and missionary invitation to the light of the Gospel.

[snip]

The modern mind, accustomed to assess everything in terms of usefulness, will readily admit that the council's value is great if only because everything has been referred to human usefulness. Hence no one should ever say that a religion like the Catholic religion is without use, seeing that when it has its greatest self-awareness and effectiveness, as it has in council, it declares itself entirely on the side of man and in his service. In this way the Catholic religion and human life reaffirm their alliance with one another, the fact that they converge on one single human reality: The Catholic religion is for mankind. In a certain sense it is the life of mankind. It is so by the extremely precise and sublime interpretation that our religion gives of humanity (surely man by himself is a mystery to himself) and gives this interpretation in virtue of its knowledge of God: A knowledge of God is a prerequisite for a knowledge of man as he really is, in all his fullness; for proof of this let it suffice for now to recall the ardent expression of St. Catherine of Siena, "In your nature, Eternal God, I shall know my own." The Catholic religion is man's life because it determines life's nature and destiny; it gives life its real meaning, it establishes the supreme law of life and infuses it with that mysterious activity which we may say divinizes it.

Consequently, if we remember, venerable brothers and all of you, our children, gathered here, how in everyone we can and must recognize the countenance of Christ (cf. Matthew 25:40), the Son of Man, especially when tears and sorrows make it plain to see, and if we can and must recognize in Christ's countenance the countenance of our heavenly Father "He who sees me," Our Lord said, "sees also the Father" (John 14:9), our humanism becomes Christianity, our Christianity becomes centered on God; in such sort that we may say, to put it differently: A knowledge of man is a prerequisite for a knowledge of God.

Would not this council, then, which has concentrated principally on man, be destined to propose again to the world of today the ladder leading to freedom and consolation? Would it not be, in short, a simple, new and solemn teaching to love man in order to love God? To love man, we say, not as a means but as the first step toward the final and transcendent goal which is the basis and cause of every love. And so this council can be summed up in its ultimate religious meaning, which is none other than a pressing and friendly invitation to mankind of today to rediscover in fraternal love the God "to turn away from whom is to fall, to turn to whom is to rise again, to remain in whom is to be secure ... to return to whom is to be born again, in whom to dwell is to live" (St. Augustine, Solil. I, 1, 3; PL 32, 870).

Prepare The Way

The second reading during today's Office of Readings in the Divine Office is an excellent sermon by St. Augustine on John the Baptist and his always pointing towards Christ, especially on this third, or Gaudete (Rejoice), Sunday of Advent. How many times have we heard that the closer we get to Christ, the more we lose of ourself? How many of us think of that in the negative? We should not, as the parts of us that we "lose" by drawing closer to him are those very things that separate us in the first place, and cause us not to rejoice or experience the joy that we can only experience by truly living free from the foolish pride of self that keeps us mired in mediocrity and sin.

A sermon by St Augustine
John is the voice, and Christ is the Word

John is the voice, but the Lord is the Word who was in the beginning. John is the voice that lasts for a time; from the beginning Christ is the Word who lives for ever.

Take away the word, the meaning, and what is the voice? Where there is no understanding, there is only a meaningless sound. The voice without the word strikes the ear but does not build up the heart.

However, let us observe what happens when we first seek to build up our hearts. When I think about what I am going to say, the word or message is already in my heart. When I want to speak to you, I look for a way to share with your heart what is already in mine. In my search for a way to let this message reach you, so that the word already in my heart may find place also in yours, I use my voice to speak to you. The sound of my voice brings the meaning of the word to you and then passes away. The word which the sound has brought to you is now in your heart, and yet it is still also in mine.

When the word has been conveyed to you, does not the sound seem to say: The word ought to grow, and I should diminish? The sound of the voice has made itself heard in the service of the word, and has gone away, as though it were saying: My joy is complete. Let us hold on to the word; we must not lose the word conceived inwardly in our hearts.

Do you need proof that the voice passes away but the divine Word remains?Where is John’s baptism today? It served its purpose, and it went away. Now it is Christ’s baptism that wecelebrate. It is in Christ that we all believe; we hope for salvation in him. This is the message the voice cried out.

Because it is hard to distinguish word from voice, even John himself was thought to be the Christ. The voice was thought to be the word. But the voice acknowledged what it was, anxious not to give offence to the word. I am not the Christ, he said, nor Elijah, nor the prophet. And the question came: Who are you, then? He replied: I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord. The voice of one crying in the wilderness is the voice of one breaking the silence. Prepare the way for the Lord, he says, as though he were saying: “I speak out in order to lead him into your hearts, but he does not choose to come where I lead him unless you prepare the way for him”.

What does prepare the way mean, if not “pray well”? What does prepare the way mean, if not “be humble in your thoughts”? We should take our lesson from John the Baptist. He is thought to be the Christ; he declares he is not what they think. He does not take advantage of their mistake to further his own glory.

If he had said, “I am the Christ”, you can imagine how readily he would have been believed, since they believed he was the Christ even before he spoke. But he did not say it; he acknowledged what he was. He pointed out clearly who he was; he humbled himself.

He saw where his salvation lay. He understood that he was a lamp, and his fear was that it might be blown out by the wind of pride.

"Now I cry, too."

I was flying back from Washington D.C. last night, so I missed the 40th Anniversary airing of A Charlie Brown Christmas. But I did read the USA Today article feature on the show. There are some amazing insights here, and it's nice to read the musings of the once-child actors who voiced the characters all those years ago. Still one of my all-time favorites this time of year. It's also something that could never be duplicated in our age today...quoting from the Gospel of Luke as it does.

[Peter] Robbins, who is single, has no children and manages an apartment building in Encino, Calif., loves that kids of friends squeal with delight each Christmas that "Uncle Pete used to be Charlie Brown."

Jeannie Schulz, who was the artist's second wife when they married in 1973, says their five children, 25 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren see the show as a holiday tradition as well.

"The reason it's endured is because of its simplicity and its very basic honesty to real life," she says. "Who would have thought this would last 40 years? How did that happen?"

For many viewers, it is the speech by Linus from Luke near the end that packs the biggest emotional wallop.

Christopher Shea was just 7 when he did the part and credits Melendez's coaching and his mom's doctorate in 17th-century British literature for Linus' lilting eloquence with a Biblical text.

Shea, who now lives in Eureka, Calif., with two daughters, 11 and 16, answers quickly when asked why the special has proved so enduring. "It's the words," he says.

Shea says that for years, in his teens and 20s, he didn't quite understand his soliloquy's impact.

"People kept coming up to me and saying, 'Every time I watch that, I cry,' " he says. "But as I got older, I understood the words more, and I understood the power of what was going on. Now I cry, too."

Distinctly uncool? Never!

They may not ever re-form, which is fine by me. I'd hate for them to become pathetic shells of themselves as so many bands do...never knowing when to just stop. But they have left a Christmas present of sorts with their new box set. No word yet on when it will be released, but something to look forward to.

Awaiting "Deep Magic"

I sit tonight on my couch with a quilt wrapped around my leg blogging from my laptop and utilizing wireless internet technology. All while watching "Fellowship of the Ring" on the television and warming my legs from the chill of just having returned from purchasing advance tickets to attend "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" on Saturday night with my wife, oldest son, two of his friends staying over that night, and a family of four who are among our best friends. For this moment, at least, please forgive my perhaps over-the-top contentment. But I am absolutely thrilled that Tolkien and Lewis are affecting Hollywood the way they have/will with their timeless writing treasures.

Watch for my review after I attend the movie. Did I mention I was thrilled?

Niatirb and Celebrating Exmas

Archbishop Charles Chaput writes an article I've written in my head several times, but never as eloquently.

Fifty years ago C.S. Lewis published an ironic little essay called, Xmas and Christmas: A Lost Chapter from Herodotus. In it, he reverses the letters of his home country, “Britain.” Then he writes about the strange winter customs of a barbarian nation called Niatirb.

It’s worth reading as we get deeper into Advent. I’ll share with you just one passage.

In the middle of winter when fogs and rains most abound, (the Niatirbians) have a great festival called Exmas, and for 50 days they prepare for it (in the manner which is called,) in their barbarian speech, the Exmas Rush.

When the day of the festival comes, most of the citizens, being exhausted from the (frenzies of the) Rush, lie in bed till noon. But in the evening they eat five times as much as on other days, and crowning themselves with crowns of paper, they become intoxicated. And on the day after Exmas, they are very grave, being internally disordered by the supper and the drinking and the reckoning of how much they have spent on gifts and on the wine.

(Now a) few among the Niatirbians have also a festival, separate and to themselves, called Crissmas, which is on the same day as Exmas. And those who keep Crissmas, doing the opposite to the majority of Niatirbians, rise early on that day with shining faces and go before sunrise to certain temples where they partake of a sacred feast.

But (as for) what Hecataeus says, that Exmas and Crissmas are the same, (this) is not credible. It is not likely that men, even being barbarians, should suffer so many and so great things (as those involved in the Exmas Rush), in honor of a god they do not believe in.

What Lewis wrote about in Britain half a century ago is increasingly true about our own country today. We’re already half-way through Advent. What have we done to really live it?

The world has an ingenious ability to attach itself to what Christians believe; tame it, subvert it, and then turn it against the very people who continue to believe. Too many Americans don’t really celebrate Christmas. They may think they do, but they don’t. They celebrate Exmas.

Notes left behind...

Now and then in my travels I'll find little notes left in a hotel room or similar place. Today while traveling to Virginia on business I found one such note in my rental car after landing at Reagan International in Washington, DC. The note, written in blue ink on a pink marbled parchment read simply thus:

Dad spoke 'loudest' when he said nothing at all.
Instead of telling us not to do something.

That was it. Subtle, and one I almost tossed back into place without thinking twice about it. But then I read it again and the words really sunk in. What sage advice for a young father such as myself prone to insisting upon perfection unattainable by me a few years shy of 40, yet insisted upon in my soon-to-be 10-year old son. How utterly unreasonable and absurd I must seem to him at times.

The lessons I take from this note are legion. But before my son learns to zone me out completely, I need to put this note to work in my life as a father. And once again I find myself thinking back on Henry Nouwen's reflections on the story of the prodigal son. The father never shouted, screamed or insisted upon anything except his son's both knowing that they are loved. I shall begin insisting upon that when I return home tomorrow evening.

By the way, I'm going to put the note back in the rental car when I return it tomorrow as well. And then I'm going to start thinking of little sayings of my own to leave behind when I travel or visit someplace. Perhaps it's time to leave some as well as receive some. After all, it is the season of giving......

Behold, the Lord will come...

From today's first reading in Isaiah

A voice cries out:
In the desert prepare the way of the LORD!
Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!

From today's Gospel:

As it is written in Isaiah the prophet:
Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you;
he will prepare your way.
A voice of one crying out in the desert:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,make straight his paths.”

Behold, the Lord will come ... The Saviour is about to arrive and nobody notices anything. The world goes on as usual, completely oblivious, much as we do today. Only Mary knows -- and Joseph who has been told by the angel. The world is in darkness. Christ is still in Mary's womb. And there are the Jews, still arguing about the Messiah, without any idea that he is so near ... Few people are expecting the Consolation of Israel: Simeon, Anna ... We are in Advent, a time of waiting.

During this liturgical period the Church proposes the figure of John the Baptist for our meditation. For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he spoke of: The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. (Mt. 3:3)

The whole of John's life is determined by this mission, even from his mother's womb. This is to be his vocation. His whole purpose will be to prepare, for Jesus, a people capable of receiving the Kingdom of God. At the same time he is to give public testimony of Him. John will not seek personal fulfilment through his work but has come to prepare a perfect people for the Lord. He will not do it because it appeals to him, but because it was for this very purpose he was conceived. This is what all apostolate is about: forgetting oneself and fostering a true concern for others.

John was to carry out his task to the full, even to the extent of giving up his life in the fulfilment of his vocation. Many came to know Jesus through John the Baptist's apostolic work. It was through an express indication of his that the first disciples followed Jesus. And many others were inwardly prepared thanks to his preaching.

One's vocation embraces one's whole life, and our whole being works towards fulfilment of the divine mission. God makes the conversion of many children of Israel depend on John's future response.

In his own place and circumstances, each man and woman has a God-given vocation. The divine will desires many other things that depend on the fulfilment of that vocation. Many great things depend -- don't forget it -- on whether you and I live our lives as God wants (St. J.M. Escriva, The Way). Do we bring the people around us closer to God? Do we give good example in the way we carry out our work, in our family circle, in our social relations? Do we speak about God to our colleagues or fellow-students?

In many cases, today's world does not await anything at all. Or it waits facing in a direction from which nobody will come. Many people have thrown themselves heart and soul into possessing material things as if these were their last end. But their hearts will never be satisfied with these things. We have to show the way to such people and to everyone.

Our family, friends, workmates, those people we come in contact with frequently, should be the first to benefit from our love for God. With our example and our prayer we should reach even people we do not have the chance to talk to.

"You know what each one of you must do in his own home, with his friend, his neighbor, his servant, his superior, his subordinate. You also know the way in which God provides the opportunity, and the way He opens the door with his word. Do not be content, then, to live at peace with yourselves until you have won them all for Christ, for you have been won for Christ." -- St. Augustine

HAPPY 175TH BIRTHDAY!

Here's something I had meant to post on November 27th, and was unable to. I've worn this medal around my neck since 1999, and on Dec. 8th (Feast of the Immaculate Conception) of that year, consecrated myself to Mary. January 1, 2000 (also my birthday AND Mary's feast day) I joined the Militia Immaculatae.

Happy 175th Birthday to the Miraculous Medal!

It's small and inconspicuous. It has power unknown to most people.

"It" is the Miraculous Medal, worn on a chain around many Christians' necks for nearly 175 years -- from peasants to great saints like Maximilian Kolbe.

Nov. 27th is the 175th anniversary of the apparition of Mary to St. Catherine Labroure (1830) that led to the creation of the medal. The Blessed Virgin, who had been appearing since July of that year to the young novice of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, asked her to have a medal struck that would bring great graces to those who wear it with "great confidence."

Read The Miraculous Medal and Its Meaning.

Novena of the Miraculous Medal
O Immaculate Virgin Mary,
Mother of Our Lord Jesus and our Mother,
penetrated with the most lively confidence in your all-powerful and never-failing intercession, manifested so often through the Miraculous Medal,
we your loving and trustful children implore you to obtain for us the graces and favors we ask during this novena, if they be beneficial to our immortal souls,and the souls for whom we pray.(Here form your petition)

You know, O Mary, how often our souls have been the sanctuaries of your Son who hates iniquity.
Obtain for us then a deep hatred of sin and that purity of heart which will attach us to God alone so that our every thought, word and deed may tend to His greater glory.
Obtain for us also a spirit of prayer and self-denial that we may recover by penance what we have lost by sin and at length attain to that blessed abode where you are the Queen of angels and of men.
Amen.

Feast of St. Francis Xavier

Today is the feast day of St. Francis Xavier and in today's second reading from the Divine Office, we read a letter he wrote to St. Ignatius. It's a letter that struck home for me this morning while doing my readings and prayer, especially when taken in context with today's reading from the Gospel from Mt. 9:35-10:1, 5a, 6-8. Here's part of it:

At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for thembecause they were troubled and abandoned,like sheep without a shepherd.Then he said to his disciples,“The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few;so ask the master of the harvestto send out laborers for his harvest.” (Mt. 9:36-38)

Jesus IS the Good Shepherd. But further into today's reading we also see Jesus summoning his twelve disciples and giving them authority over unclean spirits "to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness."

Jesus has ordained that there be in his Church good shepherds so that in his name they may watch over and lead his sheep. At the head of all these, as his Vicar on earth, he established Peter and his successors, to whom we owe a special veneration, love and obedience. Together with the Pope, and in communion with him, are the bishops to whom we pay similar homage as successors to the apostles. Priests are good shepherds, especially in the administration of the Sacrament of Penance in which all our wounds and illnesses are healed.

But every Christian also should be a good shepherd to his fellow men, especially by means of fraternal correction, example and prayer. Let's consider often that, in one way or another, we are to be the good shepherds of those whom God has placed at our side. We have a duty to help them, through example and prayer, to walk in the way of holiness and to perservere in their correspondence to the gifts and indications of the Good Shepherd, who leads us to the pastures of eternal life.

This role of good shepherd is a most demanding one. It involves much love and a great deal of patience, things I lack at crucial times it seems. It required courage, ability and meekness, as well as quickness of mind and a great sense of responsibility.

St. Francis Xavier did not neglect his mission, yet saw others doing so and wanted to do more such was his zeal. I shudder at times to think of what he would say to me, and yet I wish he were able to. But in this letter below, I think he's doing exactly that.

A letter from St Francis Xavier to St Ignatius

Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel
We have visited the villages of the new converts who accepted the Christian religion a few years ago. No Portuguese live here the country is so utterly barren and poor. The native Christians have no priests. They know only that they are Christians. There is nobody to say Mass for them; nobody to teach them the Creed, the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Commandments of God’s Law.

I have not stopped since the day I arrived. I conscientiously made the rounds of the villages. I bathed in the sacred waters all the children who had not yet been baptised. This means that I have purified a very large number of children so young that, as the saying goes, they could not tell their right hand from their left. The older children would not let me say my Office or eat or sleep until I taught them one prayer or another. Then I began to understand: “The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these”.

I could not refuse so devout a request without failing in devotion myself. I taught them, first the confession of faith in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, then the Apostles’ Creed, the Our Father and Hail Mary. I noticed among them persons of great intelligence. If only someone could educate them in the Christian way of life, I have no doubt that they would make excellent Christians.

Many, many people hereabouts are not becoming Christians for one reason only: there is nobody to make them Christians. Again and again I have thought of going round universities of Europe, especially Paris, and everywhere crying out like a
madman, riveting the attention of those with more learning than charity: “What a
tragedy: how many souls are being shut out of heaven and falling into hell, thanks to you!”

I wish they would work as hard at this as they do at their books, and so settle their account with God for their learning and the talents entrusted to them.This thought would certainly stir most of them to meditate on spiritual realities, to listen actively to what God is saying to them. They would forget their own desires, their human affairs, and give themselves over entirely to God’s will and his choice. They would cry out with all their heart: Lord, I am here! What do you want me to do? Send me anywhere you like – even to India.

UPDATE: LONG OVERDUE ONE

My profound apologies for being gone so long. Those of you who have hung with me please know I am very appreciative. I've been away out of necessity and just haven't found the time to make my way back. There is so much that I've wanted to write about too, but alas we've only 24 hours in a day. I'm going away on business next week as well, but I am hoping that perhaps over the next few weeks I can return.

In the meantime, only 7 more days until we enter the magical world of Narnia. I cannot wait. Four years ago we were introduced to Middle-earth, and now Narnia. Wonders truly to behold.

Happy Advent!