Life lessons from the Tardis

“Wish I had never met you Doctor, I was much better off as a coward.” These words were spoken by Captain Jack as he went to face his death.  For those unfamiliar with what I am talking about, this scene occurred at the end of season 1 (of the new seasons) of a show called Dr. Who. The Doctor (that is his name) and his associate Rose travel through time and space encountering aliens and solving problems.  The above scene occurs as the Doctor’s mortal enemies, the Daleks are about conquer the earth and then go on to attempt to destroy the universe.  Jack dies trying to give the Doctor enough time to save everyone. The Doctor has a plan, but in order to destroy the Daleks, he would have to destroy every living thing on earth as well. The human race would still survive since there are human colonies on other planets, but billions of innocent lives would still be lost. Does he save the universe at the cost of a few billion lives? No. In the end he can’t do it.  The biggest reason is that the Doctor loves the human race (he isn’t human).  In spite of all the knuckle headed decisions we make, he still believes in us. He has seen all of human history with his time machine and knows that it will turn out good in the end. He believes in humanity’s ability to overcome any obstacle and bounce back.  In the end he would rather die than become a killer himself. It is not unlike God’s view of humanity.  I laugh at Jack’s parting line, because at times it has seemed so applicable in my life towards God. I can see myself saying “I wish I had never met you Lord, I was much better off as a coward.” I wouldn’t really mean it any more than Jack did. When Jack met the Doctor, he was a con artist. The Doctor ended up saving his life and invited Jack to join him on his journey through space and time. Jack turned from being a selfish con artist into a valuable member of the team due to the Doctor’s influence in his life. The Doctor has that effect on people throughout the series. When he shows up people change for the better.  Again, not unlike Christ. A constant story of salvation and change.  When we meet the Lord, and I mean really meet Him, our lives are changed forever. We can be like certain characters and try to pretend that nothing ever happened, but we can only lie to ourselves for so long. In the end we are forced to come to grips with the fact that we are no longer who we were before. If we choose to embrace what Christ offers we may one day wonder if we were, in fact, better off as cowards.  As we run forward to lay down our lives for a cause greater than ourselves we will know that that is not really true. To live a noble and virtuous life is not always easy, but it is always worth it. This Gaudete Sunday don’t forget to rejoice. Christ not only loves you, but He believes in you. He knows that each one of us has what it takes if we will only trust in Him. We are never alone, even in death.

To be a hero: From Hercules to John Wayne, can we measure up?

I have always been a huge fan of ancient mythology. From the Greeks and the Romans to the Norse, mythology is fascinating, fun, and sometimes deeply tragic. By its very nature it is filled with heroes, world changing battles and love stories.  I am especially fond of some of the heroes. Mythological heroes represent  the very best of man’s nature, played out on a grand scale and with universe altering consequences.  On a smaller scale it is similar to the heroes of American Mythology, the cowboys.  From Hercules to John Wayne, however, the question that was always on my mind growing up was, “how can I be a hero?”  I don’t think this is an unusual for people to ask of themselves, especially young men. Even more, I think it is an important question. I think it represents that part of each of us deep down that seeks something great. As St. Augustine once said, “my heart is restless oh Lord until it rests in you.”  But what does it mean for our hearts to rest in God and how does that relate to a desire for greatness?  For me St. Augustine’s words are a constant reminder that my heart cannot be truly satisfied with anything that I will encounter in this world. I have to go beyond my humanity and dive into the supernatural realm. This is exactly what Sacraments of the Catholic Church invite us to do in a very real way.  When we receive the Eucharist our very souls are purified of our venial sins and our bodies are nourished by receiving the flesh of God. Mere contact with the supernatural, however, is not what makes one a hero. In fact most super heroes rise up when they are needed to fight a super villain. As Uncle Ben told us in Spider Man, “with great power comes great responsibility” and everyone chooses to accept that responsibility. A hero needs more than super powers, he needs character.  A real hero needs to be someone who is truly good, or at least striving towards that end.  This last week we celebrated the Feast of All Saints, or All Saints Day.  If it were left to me (which it isn’t) I think I would rename it The Feast of Heroes.  A feast dedicated to those who truly lived out a life of heroic virtue and fought titanic supernatural battles within their own souls, and continue to fight them on behalf of us.  The Saints are both our role models and our fellow prayer warriors. As St. Therese of Lisieux (the Little Flower) taught us in her Little Way, all we need to do is little things, but do them with great love.    You don’t have to be famous to be a Saint or a hero. To be a true hero all we have to do is stand in the love of Christ and be who He calls us to be, Holy.  Holiness is not boring, it is heroic.

The Idea of Beauty

As I gaze out through my office window early in the morning I love to watch the leaves change; and if I can get outside even better. For me morning is the best time. The sun peeks up over the hills and shines across the mighty Columbia  river and I can smell a hint of wood smoke in the air as someone takes the chill off a morning that dipped below freezing sometime during the night. There is frost on the grass that adds a bluish white to the fall morning’s palate of reds, greens, yellows, oranges and browns. When I look out at such a world I can’t help pause in wonder at the beauty that God has wrought for us, his creation. Over a hot cup of tea or coffee it makes me ponder at just exactly what it means to be beautiful. Is true beauty (as the saying goes) in the eye of the beholder, or is it something greater? Is it merely a physical quality (a synonym for pretty) or does it bear some sort of transcendental quality that invites us to contemplate a higher reality?  If it does invite us to contemplate a higher reality, what does that even mean?  I do not think we can limit beauty to merely a synonym for pretty, for if that were the case it would sound ridiculous to say that listening to a symphony by Beethoven sounded “pretty”, or watching an amazing play in sports was a “pretty” moment?  You really can’t. Yet we can say that both of these, along with the sunrise on a frosty fall morning are beautiful.  True beauty is something that goes beyond merely physical good looks. When I think about the truly beautiful things in my life, the idea of beauty does not match up to words like “pretty.”  Instead the word beauty is, in many ways, more synonymous with words like mystical, magical, and supernatural. When I think of beauty I think of something that goes beyond the average and ordinary. It is something that pushes creation to a new limit and reveals some hidden characteristic of the divine architect. Something is truly beautiful only in as much as it draws us to a higher reality and more perfectly the divine. This is why some paintings, no matter how pretty they may be, cannot be truly beautiful. When an artist paints a picture (for example) that profanes the sacred, no matter how well it is painted it will never be truly beautiful because it is a lie. It takes the sacred, (which is beautiful because it reflects the beauty of the God) and presents it in a way that is intended to degrade it. This is why for hundreds of years the Catholic Church has been on the forefront of promoting art. Artists like Michelangelo had a deep faith, which is what helped them to create beautiful frescos and statues for the Church. So next time you see a beautiful sunrise, or look out over the valley from the top of a mountain and feel like it somehow reflects the majesty, beauty and goodness of God, it does.  More importantly it isn’t an accident.

The Lion King and human nature

For those of you who missed it, this past week marked the rerelease of the Lion King onto blu-ray and DVD. Since it was a piece of my childhood that I hold dear to my heart (even though most of you who are in high school weren’t even born when it was in theaters) I ran down and picked up a copy that included the original motion picture soundtrack so I could share all the joy with my sons.  When we got home and popped the disc into the blu-ray player, my first thought was wow, this looks beautiful in high definition. It was like stepping back into my family’s living room 17 years ago. Then I started to notice some things that I had never noticed before. The movie wasn’t just about the good lions and the bad lions, it was about order and disorder. While I had always known that Mufasa and Simba had represented good, I never made the connection to a natural order, at least beyond the whole Circle of Life song at the beginning.  It struck me that maybe there was something deeper that could be gleaned from this particular children’s movie beyond just a battle between good and evil. I think that in many ways the Lion King actually goes into what good and evil are really all about. On the side of good you don’t just have a bunch of happy feelings and people (or lions) just doing whatever they want. In fact, this irresponsible attitude is corrected by Mufasa, the king, several times. Leadership and power have responsibilities, and those responsibilities are rooted in nature itself, or natural law. When natural law is followed and protected society can thrive. When natural law is violated, society begins to unravel. Scar (the villain and King Mufasa’s younger brother) is set up as an almost idealistic example of someone who goes against natural law. He wants to be king, like his older brother, but without any of the responsibilities or the hard work. He also chooses to hang out with the hyenas, his natural enemies in the movies, and the enemies of natural law and order. In his quest for happiness he tries to be something that God never meant him to be. Scar murders his brother and then he and the hyenas take over, but take is all they do. They refuse to respect the natural order of the world, so their fertile chunk of Africa soon becomes a desolate waste devoid of food and life. What Scar thought would bring him happiness ultimately made him miserable and led to his downfall. Throughout the movie I could see the Catholic Church as the defender of the natural law and order in the created world and sin as our enemy. Sin works to corrupt nature and tries to destroy it from the inside out. When we adopt personal philosophies like hakuna matata (no worries) and turn our backs on our responsibilities as Catholics, our society will crumble. We can only truly be happy by embracing God’s plan for our lives and living for Him.  All in all I think I enjoyed watching the Lion King almost as much as an adult as I did as a kid. I certainly think I learned a lot more from it. It continues to show that we can learn a lot through movies if we actually take the time to look beyond flashy explosions and amazing CGI effects.

5 reasons to stay with your Catholic youth group

Since the school year is now in full swing I know that I am not the only youth minister in the valley starting up their programs and vying for the attention of every middle and high school that regularly attends my church, and even a few that don’t. There are lots of youth group programs out there and I will be honest, many of them are more fun than mine. However, here are 5 things you won’t find anywhere else and they are all reasons you should ditch out on any non-Catholic programs that you may be contemplating making a commitment to. So, without any more jibber jabber on my part, here we go.

1.       The Bible. When we break out the Bible at youth group, we break out the WHOLE Bible, not an edited down version from 1500’s. An often overlooked fact is that without the Catholic Church there wouldn’t even be a Bible. Not only did we write all the books in the New Testament, it was Catholic councils that prayed about and decided (with the guidance of the Holy Spirit) which books the New Testament should include.  These were the same councils that decided that the Bible should include the entire Septuagint (the Greek translation of the ancient Hebrew Scriptures). It wasn’t until the 1500’s that anyone figured that the Bible needed to be changed and started to thin out the ranks of Old Testament Cannon (and tried to thin the New Testament as well). If you are not using a Catholic edition of the Bible, chances are you are missing 7 sacred books inspired by the Holy Spirit and designed for your sanctification.

2.         Apostolic Authority. When Jesus changed Simon’s name to Peter (which means rock) and told him that he was going to build His Church on him, we take Him at His word. He gave Peter the keys to the kingdom and the power to bind and loose sin. If someone asks you where the Catholic Church gets the authority to put together the Bible, this is it. It didn’t end with the Bible either.  The teaching authority of the Church is called the magesterium and it still exists today. As Catholics we are not solely dependent on the Bible to know the mind and will of God. When the Catholic Church speaks in matters of faith and morals, she speaks on behalf of the Almighty. This authority does not extend to the age old question of whether bacon or sausage goes better with your eggs in the morning. If it did it would be bacon.

3.       One word, Eucharist! No matter where I go or what I do this one takes the cake in many ways. While many of our Protestant brothers and sister have some type of last supper  memorial service, none of them have the real deal of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. Think about it, you get to EAT JESUS! You get to take the flesh of God into your body as food. Your stomach then breaks it down and transfers it to every living cell in your body. How much more intimate can you be with the savior of the universe?

4.       Original Christians. If you have ever tried to keep track of what denomination believes what in Christianity, just give it up. Everybody is a break off from Catholicism from one point in history or another.  While many churches have excellent preachers, I don’t think that Jesus waited until the 1970’s to unfold the “real Christianity” to mankind.  Not only that, but the Catholic Church has never changed a single Doctrine of the faith. 0. None. If you want to believe what the early Christians believed and learn about it in youth group, this is the place.

5.       Liturgy.  Worship of God is way more than just singing David Crowder Band or Chris Tomlin songs for an hour (or even Matt Maher). The Sunday Mass especially is, without a doubt, the most amazing event you are going to attend in a given week. Even if it doesn’t feel like it. It is a brief recap of salvation history and it ends with us being transported back in time to participate at the original last supper with Jesus and the twelve.  We are there at the table, and we are there at the Cross. We don’t just remember it, we quite literally live it. I get goose bumps just thinking about it. More than a few Protestants have converted to Catholicism because they wanted to worship in the same way the first and second century Christians did. The Mass is not a new thing and now we are getting a new translation so our spoken language will be truer to the ancient Latin. texts How cool is that?

Now I could have gone more in depth into these 5 reasons, but this is a brief over view for you.  If you walk away from the Catholic Church to find go sing Chris Tomlin songs for an hour and think that is all there is to worship, you are mistaken. In spite of all the flaws we experience as Catholics, we must remember that those flaws are human in origin, and no human is perfect. Only the Catholic Church is perfect because she is a divine institution, not a man made one. All the Jonny-come-lately versions of Christianity are going to let you down in the long run because at some point they sacrificed a part of what Christ gave us, and they don’t even know it. So hold on to your Catholic youth group, and hold on to Christ, because He is already holding on to you.

Updating our views on sexuality

Before one can update one’s beliefs on human sexuality, one must first understand where we are from. This is not about homosexuality, it is about contraception specifically the pill. Many people who consider themselves good Catholics have no idea about what the Church’s official stance is on the Pill, and are therefore are unable to ask for an update. The stance is this, quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church 2370

“every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible  is intrinsically evil” 

So there we go. The Church says that contraception in general is a sin, and a big one at that. However, if we are going to update our views on the Pill, we need to move beyond just the Catechism. We need to actually look at the Pill in real life.  The Pill came about during the sexual revolution to set women free from the blessings of motherhood, and it has preformed just as admirably as promised. As we update our views on sexuality it is good for us to remember that before artificial contraception came on the scene the divorce rate was well below 15% and up until the 1930’s all Christian denominations agreed that it was sinful. The divorce rate has since skyrocketed to above 50% (with many couples just forgoing marriage altogether) and the Catholics are one of the only holdouts left. Incidentally, the divorce rate for couples who use NFP (Natural Family Planning) is around 5%, give or take.  Why? What is it that makes all the difference? I can only speak from my own experience here and give the 2 reasons that my wife and I have chosen NFP. The first is that I find the Pill insulting to men. Sure, it objectifies women, but what about men? I see the Pill as an excuse to treat men like nothing more than animals. I could not bear to keep my wife drugged up just so I could have sex with her whenever I wanted without ever having to stop and think about the repercussions it might have on my family. In fact the whole idea of keeping someone on drugs so you can have sex sounds like the plot from a bad horror movie. NFP is extremely accurate (when done correctly) on predicting fertility in women, and so if we are not ready for the next mini Chase, we simply stop at the snuggle line. I am not a dog. I do not like society telling me that I am a dog and completely unable to control my sex drive.  The Pill is an insult to an authentic manhood.  The second reason we don’t let the Pill into our house is the fact that it causes cancer. That’s right CANCER!!!  As in it will do its best to kill you. Ladies, did you know that you are 4 times more likely to get breast cancer if you are on the Pill than those who aren’t?  Since 1 in 8 women in this country get breast cancer, I want to do my best to protect my wife from these rather gloomy odds. As a loving husband I don’t see how there is any way I can reasonably allow my wife to take a drug that makes her 4 times as likely to get a life threatening disease, just because we want to have more sex.   Many people who disagree with the Church’s condemnation of birth control are unaware of these facts. They make it sound like the Catholic Church hates sex or marriage. These statistics seem to show quite the opposite. God loves marriage and He loves us. He loves us so much that He doesn’t want to see us experience the heartache of divorce or the pain of cancer. He loves us enough to challenge men to be men and not beasts. In the end, God loves us enough to ask us to update our beliefs on sex and marriage to be more like His. Do we love Him enough in return to listen?

Happy feast of the beheading of Saint John the Baptist

The Gospel reading for today came from the Gospel of Mark:

Herod was the one who had John the Baptist arrested and bound in prison
on account of Herodias,
the wife of his brother Philip, whom he had married.
John had said to Herod,
“It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.”
Herodias harbored a grudge against him
and wanted to kill him but was unable to do so.
Herod feared John, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man,
and kept him in custody.
When he heard him speak he was very much perplexed,
yet he liked to listen to him.
She had an opportunity one day when Herod, on his birthday,
gave a banquet for his courtiers,
his military officers, and the leading men of Galilee.
Herodias’ own daughter came in
and performed a dance that delighted Herod and his guests.
The king said to the girl,
“Ask of me whatever you wish and I will grant it to you.”
He even swore many things to her,
“I will grant you whatever you ask of me,
even to half of my kingdom.”
She went out and said to her mother,
“What shall I ask for?”
She replied, “The head of John the Baptist.”
The girl hurried back to the king’s presence and made her request,
“I want you to give me at once
on a platter the head of John the Baptist.”
The king was deeply distressed,
but because of his oaths and the guests
he did not wish to break his word to her.
So he promptly dispatched an executioner with orders
to bring back his head.
He went off and beheaded him in the prison.
He brought in the head on a platter and gave it to the girl.
The girl in turn gave it to her mother.
When his disciples heard about it,
they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.

 

As I was on my way to work this morning I was praying the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary.  I couldn't help but think of all the women in the Gospel, but especially our Lady. As I meditated on tthe Joyful Mysteries, I couldn't help but think about Herodias and her daughter. How they were politically so very powerful, and yet they turned their back on God, even to the point of killing John the Baptist. How very unlike the Blessed Virgin who gave God her ultimate, creation changing yes. She brought life to the world, where Herodias and her daughter only took life. She is the ultimate example of womanhood, where Herodias and her daughter seem more the ultimate example of misguided feminism. It was just a thought.

Gangs, frats, and life in Christ

Anyone following the news here in Wenatchee two weeks ago probably remembers the fire that killed two young boys ages 4 and 6. Upon investigation it was determined that the cause of the fire was gang related arson. While the loss of two young children is always a tragedy, the fact that it was gang related makes it doubly so. The people who lived in the house and were involved in gangs weren’t even home when the fire happened.  I am sure that in the wake of such a tragedy there are a lot of fingers being pointed at a lot of different people, most of whom could have done very little to actually prevent these deaths.  It has all made me spend some time pondering gang activity and the young people who choose to get involved in it. I firmly believe that most young people who get involved in gangs and gang related activity do so for very good reasons. They realize that deep within their soul is a longing to be something more than just another lone wolf facing the world. They feel that deep human need for companionship that is spelled out in the book of Genesis when God looked at Adam and said that “it is not good for man to be alone.” It is the same thing that draws thousands of college students every year to pledge their loyalty to a fraternity or a sorority and engage in behavior that is rarely distinguishable from that of a common street gang, namely drinking, doing drugs, sleeping around, and picking fights with rival groups on campus. The main difference is that when such behavior involves Hispanic or Black youth we call them gangs, claim we have a problem, and then send in the police to arrest people. When it is wealthy or middle class white kids we call it part of the growing up process, build them a house, ask the police to turn a blind eye and encourage our youth to join. While I realize that I am making some rather broad generalizations, I think my point is still valid. No matter what you choose to call it, the end result where the human soul seeks companionship and community in imitation of the Divine Trinity, yet falls for a destructive and cheap imitation offered by the Devil is still the same.   I firmly believe that the best method for countering such behavior begins in our own homes. Gang and fraternity life is merely a cheap knockoff of the domestic family. Young people frequently (but certainly not always) turn to gangs to fill up a space left by divorced parents, single parents, absent work-a-holic parents and a variety of other family problems.  For me it comes as no surprise that youth and gang related violence is on the rise around the world today (like in London) and that we seem powerless to stop it.  What we are seeing is the natural course of things when governments and societies actively seek to destroy natural family relationships by enacting laws that undermine parental authority or attempt to go against natural law by redefining marriage and what it means to be a family. It doesn’t matter how many people support such ridiculousness, it remains ridiculous and destructive and ultimately we want to reject it.  Something is missing deep within our souls and we desire it by our very nature. We crave solid family relationships and friendships, firmly rooted in Christ and his Church.  Whether we realize it or not, we all just want to be loved unconditionally. People turn to gangs and frats because there they can get away with deviant behavior and no one looks at it twice.  They want to suspend all reason and let their passions run away with them  because it feels good, so it must be right. No one is going to judge them and tell them that they were wrong for sleeping with their girlfriend/boyfriend or doing drugs, or getting drunk. In fact this hedonistic behavior is encouraged and promoted as the best way to live llife. For us the challenge is how do we respond to their behavior?  We can just hope that a judge somewhere throws the book at them (if they are breaking the law), or that their destructive lifestyle  brings them nothing but pain; but is that what Christ would have us do? I believe that even someone who burns down a house on two little kids can truly be sorry for what they have done and find forgiveness in the eyes of God.  We are called to challenge them to be the men and women that God has created them to be not out of a judgmental attitude (as many of them suppose) but rather out of love. The kind of sacrificial and self-giving love that deep down they are really searching for. It is not something that can just be talked about, it is something that must be lived by all of us.  This is extremely challenging in our modern culture (and probably all other cultures throughout history) because there is always someone else telling us that there is an easier way to love than the Cross.  The Devil is constantly helping science to come up with new ways for humanity to seek pleasure and turn a blind eye to the consequences. Only when our society learns that love is about the other and not about ourselves will we see the end of fraternities and gangs and the destruction they bring. Instead we will see them as they are meant to be, groups like the Knights of Columbus, Catholic Daughters, and the household system at Franciscan University and Ave Maria. Brotherhoods of men (or sisterhoods of women) gathered together in Christ to serve his people and make the world a better place.

God, conscience, and the president

Have you ever stopped to think about just what, exactly, your conscience is all about? We hear the word “conscience” and we have been told by parents, priests, and even Jiminy Cricket  about how important it is to follow. But why? Why is it important to follow our conscience and what are we supposed to do if we can’t?  The Catechism tells us that ”Conscience is a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act that he is going to perform, in in the process of performing, or has already completed.  In all he says and does, man is obliged to follow faithfully what he knows to be just and right. It is by judgment of his conscience that man perceives and recognizes the prescriptions of the divine law.”  Or as a friend of mine put it, our conscience is a gift from God to help us know right from wrong, and we are obliged to follow it. The clincher is that we also have a responsibility to make sure that our consciences are properly formed and truly does know right from wrong.  If we think it is ok to sin, then we have some work to do with our conscience to bring it up to speed.  This might include talking to a priest or doing some reading (I recommend the Catechism of the Catholic Church) so we understand not only what our Catholic faith teaches us, but also why. Everything we believe as Catholics is firmly rooted in 2000 years of unchanging teachings traceable all the way back to Jesus and the 12 apostles.  Forming your conscience may also involve a lot of humility. If we open up the Catechism and find out that we disagree with the Church on an issue like contraception, it can be very challenging to admit that we are wrong. We need the humility to admit that even though we don’t understand, we have to do things God’s way if we want to be happy, not our way. I am sure it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to Gideon, who reduced his army from over 30,000 men down to 300 before he attacked the armies of Midian, but he did what God commanded and was victorious.  Joshua probably didn’t understand exactly what God was up to when he told him to march around the walls of Jericho for 7 days without attacking, but he did it anyway and the walls came a tumblin’ down.  We need to put our faith in God and follow His commands with humility, even when we don’t understand why. The whole reason I wanted to explain the idea of conscience is because, as I said earlier, we are required to follow it. No one should ever ask you to go against a properly formed conscience and to do so would be to ask you to turn your back on what you know to be truly right and wrong. It would be to ask you to betray your God and spit in the face of all that is good and holy. This is why our country has laws that protect the consciences of its citizens.  Not everyone believes exactly the same thing, but nobody should be required to violate their conscience because of someone else’s convenience. For example, no one can form a doctor who is pro-life to perform an abortion.  Even most people who are pro-abortion realize that it is wrong to force someone to go against their conscience. At least until last week. Last week our government decided that they would begin to require all health insurance companies to provide contraception (even the kind that induce an abortion and sterilization) free of charge.  This is especially distressful to us as Catholics because we believe all contraception to be intrinsically evil.  The new standard for conscience is to force all your employees to be of the desired religion (like Catholic) AND the religious group can only serve other members of their religious group (like other Catholics). In other words, if you are a good Catholic employer and don’t provide contraception for your employees, you will now be forced to fire most of the non-Catholics, and stop helping anyone who isn’t Catholic. Or you can just shut your doors.  While this may not seem like a big deal at the parish level, think about all the Catholic hospitals and doctors in our country, the groups like Catholic family and child services, all the food banks and homeless shelters run by parishes and religious orders. The government is willfully trying to force them to turn their back on God and their faith. Then question is, what are you doing about it?


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My thoughts on Harry Potter

For those of you who somehow missed the multi million dollar mass media campaign to announce and promote the release of the last Harry Potter film last weekend, I am here to tell you that it is all finally over. At least until someone figures out some way to milk the whole project for another couple hundred million.  Ever since the Harry Potter books began to rise in popularity there have been well meaning Christians out there who have been crying foul over the use of magic and denouncing the whole series as blatantly satanic.  A 30 second internet search will have no trouble whatsoever yielding you a myriad of  websites telling you that if you and your children are reading Harry Potter, you are probably going straight to Hell. I do not, however, agree with them. While I will be one of the first to admit that there are, in fact, some references and imagery from modern day wicca (witchcraft) I do not find it to be too particularly alarming. One of the things to remember about reading Harry Potter is that it does not occur in a vacuum. If we have lost our grip enough to throw out all our flashlights and start holding up sticks at shouting quasi Latin phrases like lumos in order to see in the dark, I don’t think Harry Potter is the real problem.  The problem is that you have begun to take fantasy literature and live it out in real life. But that is not the real point. The real point is that magic is not the focus or the point of the Harry Potter story. It is merely a means to an end. While I may find the wiccan imagery a bit on the dangerous side, what I find far more so is the theme of using people as tools and objects. Of rationalizing lying and rule breaking as good things and generally saying that the end justifies the means. As long as we are fighting for a good goal it doesn’t really matter how we achieve it.  Such themes go against everything we believe as Catholics and we are called to reject them. All that being said, however, I still recommend reading, if not owning, all the Harry Potter books. Rarely on the negative websites will you see any of the Christian imagery discussed. Nobody talks about how the Griffon has been seen as image of Christ himself, a combination of the lion and the eagle. The lion represents the king of beasts (everything on the earth) and the eagle is the king of the air (all birds, but can also represent everything non worldly, i.e. the spiritual realm). Christ is both of these.  The dark wizard is represented by the snake. Throughout Christian art and allegory the snake is always seen as a symbol of temptation and the devil (beginning in the Garden of Eden). Evil incarnate looks kind of like a snake, and so does Voldemort. There are a multitude of other Christian/Catholic symbols (like the phoenix, the stag, and the resurrection to name a few) but I won’t go into them here. The point is that they are there.  The real point of Harry Potter, both in the last book and in the last movie, is that there comes a point where good men and women must draw a line in the sand and say to evil, “no more.” That no matter how much we may deplore violence there are some things in this world worth fighting for, worth dying for. Harry dies at the end of the movie (sorry if I just spoiled things for some of you) and I was happy that he did so. He didn’t die in some epic confrontation or battle. Instead he willingly went forth and laid down his life for his friends. He gave his life so that others might have a chance to live.  No one forced him to do it, in fact his friends tried to talk him out of it. In the end he realized that to give his life was the only way to defeat evil and protect those whom he loved.  I seem to remember that being a major theme in another book I read recently.  Now is Harry Potter a perfect allegory of the Jesus Christ? No, not by a long shot. But are there really strong, good themes in the books that can inspire all of us (especially youth) to live better lives of self-giving love? Absolutely. These positive themes, just like the negative themes, need to be discussed within our families, and just because the books are appropriate for some doesn’t mean that they are appropriate for everyone. While I would recommend the books for those in high school and older, I would be more cautious about them depending on the maturity of younger readers, but that’s what parents are for.   As previously stated, Harry Potter doesn’t occur in a vacuum, it occurs in the real world in the context of our families and our friends.  Treating others as a objects or tools to be used (even for good reasons)  without recognizing their human dignity is always wrong, as is doing an evil action in order to get a good result. These themes run rampant in our secular world, not just Harry Potter. Themes of sacrificial love, chaste friendship, and dying for a good cause are not so readily available. 

Separation between Church and Self

I have been thinking a lot recently about the idea of separation Church and State.  As a general rule I understand and agree with the concept that the Church should stay out of political rule, and the government should stop trying to redefine human morality and truth. However, I think the idea of separation between Church and State has led many Catholics into a much more personal separation, the separation between Church and self. I began thinking about this idea Tuesday morning when I was discussing abortion, euthanasia, and homosexual marriage with some other men.  It was after we were done talking and I was on my way home that I realized that it is still legal to kill my child. Not Thomas (though some argue that it should be) but our baby that my wife has been toting around in her womb for the last 40 weeks or so.  Shawn could be born any day, or I could have him killed this afternoon and feminists everywhere would praise my choice to exercise my participation in this murderous act.  In fact many well-meaning Catholics and Christians in general see no problem with the legalized murder of innocent children, probably because they are too busy trying to get the death penalty abolished for convicted rapists and ensure a “death with dignity” for our nations aged. It all stems from a failure, as one of my friends put it, to recognize the sovereignty of Christ. I think it has something to do with the modern American trend of showing disdain for all authority who can make a claim to control how you live your life. As a general rule no one hates firefighters or EMTs, but lots of people love to talk about how much they hate police officers, teachers, or politicians.  The biggest difference is that police officers, teachers, and politicians have the authority to tell us how we need to live our lives.  I find that many Americans, especially youth and young adults, find any such control absolutely unacceptable. Even those who don’t usually find it at least a little uncomfortable.  When people find civil authority uncomfortable, is it any surprise that when it comes to matters of faith and morality that they would tend to rebel even more?  If we don’t like being told what speed to drive on the highway, is it any wonder that we get uptight when we are told what speed to go in our relationships?  While a separation between Church and State may be a good and valuable thing, a separation between Church and self is exactly the opposite, but it is even more necessary.  The struggle is greatest when we are asked to do something either extremely difficult or extremely personal. In other words, the things that ask us to truly put our money where our mouth is and not just say that we are Catholic, but actually live it out. Not just say that Christ is the most important thing in our lives, but actually live our lives as if we believe it. Isn’t that when we really have faith? When we put all that we have and all that we are into our prayer and offer it to God and agree to live our lives His way. We don’t use the copout of “If God is really a loving God He’ll understand.”  To take such a stance is to say that you don’t really trust in God.  You want to do your own thing and then demand that God approve of your actions in the name of “love.” What you really mean is that you want to be your own god. You want to call all the shots and decide what is right and wrong, sinful and good and then demand that others (especially God) approve of you and agree with your decisions.  People who want a separation of Church and self want to proclaim Christ as their king at Mass on Sunday, but don’t want to listen to that King when he tells them that abortion is murder, that marriage is meant to be a complete and mutual gift of self between a man and a woman (which contraception destroys), and that sex is not a casual pass time between two people who find each other reasonably attractive. To eliminate the separation between Church and self n our culture requires true courage, the kind that can only be attained through grace. The question is, will we ask for that grace?

The Liberal Arts: it's what all the cool dictators and Saints did

Some, if not many (and hopefully most) of you may have heard the term Cor Christi floating around the parish for the last year or so. In fact, I believe there is even an insert in this very bulletin promoting it as a classical liberal arts school for middle school age students.  The question that generally follows the reading of such a pamphlet is, “what are the liberal arts?”  When most people here the term “liberal arts” they instantly begin to think in social and political terms. If it is a Catholic liberal arts school then they are probably promoting married priests, ordination of women, homosexual marriage, etc. People here the word “liberal” and automatically assign it all our modern understanding of a liberal agenda, a liberal politician, or liberal values.  All this liberalism then has to be balanced out with a fair share of conservativism.  Luckily, this is not the case when we discuss the liberal arts. The liberal arts are subjects like philosophy, grammar, music, astronomy, history, etc.  The specific subjects are not precisely the focus or today's ranting, so I am going to leave them aside for now. The point is how this is different from a normal school, and why anyone would choose to send their child to a liberal arts academy, or choose to home school them in the liberal arts. The main difference is the primary focus. The primary focus of our modern schools is to train the youth to A) pass a test so our school looks good  B) graduate high school  C) get into a good college so you can get a good job and make lots of money.  To this end the school system crams the heads of its students with an enormous amount of information that they will never actually use. They then tell the students that this information is vital and they will use it in their everyday life as an adult. I can honestly say that I have never had a need for calculus in my life. The teacher who told me that I was ruining my life by not taking his calculus class in high school was gravely mistaken. Nor do I frequently make use of my sex ed. (under the guise of Health) classes that crammed their contraception and anti human life drivel down my throat.  For college I attended Ave Maria University, now in southern Florida which is a liberal arts school. When I was there I learned a few things that actually made a difference in the kind of person I was and who I wanted to be.  I learned that I was not the center of the universe, and that rather than just going out and doing whatever I wanted with my life, maybe I should ask my creator what he made me for. I learned about philosophy, logic and literature. I didn’t learn how to pass a test, I learned how to think. I learned of the existence of a true and objective goodness, and I dedicated my life to its pursuit.  I learned that no matter how well you can argue, sin is still wrong; no matter how good it might feel.  I learned what true love is really all about.  The liberal arts were not just there to form my mind, but to form my heart and my life as well.  To not only live a life of virtue, but to have desire to live it; to make Heaven my ultimate goal, not an amazing 401k. Now is this saying that those who choose to study the liberal arts are going to die poor or will have no career options?  Not at all, rather that the liberal arts teach you how to think, not necessarily what to think; and there are always plenty of great opportunities out there for those who are able to truly engage their minds. If nothing else, a classical liberal arts education before you go to college leaves you open to move ahead in any career field you might choose.  You might be a great philosopher, like Plato, Aristotle or Socrates. You might be the next doctor of the Church, like St. Augustine or St. Jerome.  You might conquer the world like Alexander the Great, or lead a revolution to throw off the chains or tyranny and write the greatest constitution the world has ever seen, like our founding fathers.  From tyrannical dictator to benevolent ruler to Saint of the Church, one thing they all had in common was the liberal arts. Think about it.

Good stuff from Bad Catholic

I really enjoy catching the thoughts of Marc over at his Bad Catholic blog. The other day he had a great quote from C.S. Lewis and some thoughts to go with it that I thought were especially worth sharing.

When is Jesus like a bicycle?

I have seen the new Alice in Wonderland movie and read the book, and one of my favorite nonsensical lines/riddles was when the hatter asks "when is a raven like a writing desk?" I don't really have an answer, but that riddle has always floated around in my head for some strange reason. But on to other things only slightly related. Have you ever noticed those “see bicycles” bumper stickers on people’s cars? I know I have, and as someone who rides their bike to work now that the weather is nice I really appreciate them. They help call attention to the fact that cars aren’t the only vehicles who are supposed to be using our nations road system. Bicycles can slip into a drivers blind spot, even when they are close attention. When a driver is not paying close attention they are almost impossible to see. We get into a hurry for a variety of reasons and before we know it we are slamming on our brakes and muttering things under our breath because we almost hit someone on a bicycle. Thus there are a growing number of cyclists (and others) who put bumper stickers on their vehicles to remind the world to “see bicycles.” As I sat in traffic behind just a person the other day, I couldn’t help but contemplate the similarities between Jesus and bicyclists/bicycles. The biggest similarity was pointed out to me by the bumper sticker. The sticker says “see bicycles,” I say “see Jesus.” I don’t say to be cheesy, but to be realistic. In the same way that many drivers overlook bicycles because they are in a hurry or the cyclist blends in with the background, we miss seeing Jesus, especially in other people. We get in a hurry or we are too focused on doing our own thing that we forget to see Jesus in our brothers and sisters that we see and meet every day on the street. Seeing Jesus doesn’t mean that we just take it for granted that Jesus is there in everyone we meet, it means that we also recognize him and treat him appropriately. What about recognizing him in the people we don’t meet, but that our actions have an effect on. When we see a piece of garbage sitting on the ground or a stack of clothes in the dressing room at a department store, do we ever stop to help pick it up? It is the small acts of kindness done with great love that can truly make the difference in the world around us. We don’t need to go on a mission trip to Africa or south America to help the poor. We can do it right here. We can start by helping the spiritually poor who feel like they have nothing to live for. We can start by showing that we are not afraid to engage the world not just with our words, but with our actions. With simply loving our neighbor. By seeing Christ in all his children. As the school year winds down over here on the western half of the country and we progress on into summer vacation, I would challenge us all to consider also how we choose to dress when we go up for a weekend on the lake or hang out down on the river. Modesty means not only recognizing Christ in others, but also in ourselves.