Good Friday veneration of the Cross

I just got home from Good Friday Veneration of the cross. I was unable to attend Mass last night because I was traveling with my family. I was disappointed to have missed Mass, but there wasn't a whole lot I could do about it, so I was really looking forward to tonight and the veneration. Unfortunately my joy and hopes were crushed. I have never walked out of a liturgical celebration until tonight. The homily, which should have focused on the passion and suffering of Christ did exactly the opposite. Instead it stripped the Passion of all pain and suffering, because it apparently turns people off and makes them feel uncomfortable. instead we just focus on how Jesus looks lovingly and forgivingly down from the cross on all mankind. I felt bad about walking out, but I figured it was better than yelling or saying something stupid during the homily. What happened to the wild and passionate God who swooped in and saved His people time after time in the Old Testament? Where was the Christ who loved His bride so much that He would let nothing come between them? Where was the knight in shining armor of holiness who sweat blood in the garden, was beaten and crowned with thorns, forced to carry the instrument of his own death up the hill and then brutally killed? I don't know where he was, but I know he was never mentioned during the homily. All we got was the watered down happy Jesus who joyfully died a happy death full of peace and forgiveness on the cross.

The Romantic Mysteries of the Rosary

I have had at least half a dozen topics run through my mind over the last couple of days as I tried to decide what I wanted to write about for the upcoming Holy Week.  None of which actually made it down onto paper and were thus forgotten within minutes of their amazing conception. One thing I want to do is say welcome to our new Bishop, Joseph Tyson.  If you somehow missed it he is coming over from the archdiocese of Seattle and will be installed as our new Bishop at the end of May.  My thanks also to Bishop Sevilla for all the time and energy he has given to our diocese during his time here. Now back to my topic for today, the Romantic Mysteries of the Rosary. The Romantic mysteries are as follows:

1. The Agony in the Garden.

2. The Scourging at the Pillar.

3. The Crowning of Thorns.

4. The Carrying of the Cross.

5. The Crucifixion of Christ. 

Look familiar?  They should. They are also the Sorrowful mysteries.  I wish I could claim credit for referring to them as the Romantic Mysteries, but in truth I learned it from my wife and am putting my own thoughts down on it.  It makes sense if we look at it. In Ephesians 5 men are told to love their wives as Christ loved His Church, laying down His life for her.  If you look at it in that light, how could they be anything less than romantic?  The fair maiden trapped and imprisoned. Deceived by the enemy and sold into slavery which in the end will mean certain death and permanent separation from her beloved. No matter what she does she cannot escape. The enemy is too powerful for her.  Her beloved, however, is not powerless. He is faithful. He is a man among men who sees his beloved fall into captivity and knows that only he can rescue her.  He calls to her time and time again, but every time the seductive and deceitful voice of the enemy lures her back away from her true love.  Finally the hero has had enough. He knows that the only way to get his beloved back is to march into the enemy and take her by force. He knows that to do so will cost him his life, but that is a small price to pay for the one he loves. And so he goes. He sweats blood as He pours out his prayers for her in the Garden. He allows himself to be stripped and beaten, crowned with thorns that scratch the very bone of his scull as they are smashed onto his head. Then He carries the instrument of His own death up the hill and is crucified.  At that moment his beloved is finally free.  As we approach this Holy Week, I encourage every single member of our parish to join us as we walk through the most romantic of days. Let us walk with our Lord, our knight in shining armor. Let us pray with Him in the garden and follow him up the hill to Calvary. In the end, let  us stand with the beloved disciple at the foot of the cross and thank Him for our Freedom.

Intolerant tollerance

Why is it when someone wears a pro-life shirt around and people get upset, we are told to be tolerant of their opinions. After all, this is America. We are built on the idea that all opinions have equal weight and value (so they say). If is perfectly acceptable and encouraged to loudly and publicly disagree with almost any socially conservative or traditional values. In fact if you don't disagree with at least a few you are probably going to be labeled as narrow minded and unable to think for yourself.  However, if you choose to disagree with any of the more "progressive" values, like pro-abortion or gay marriage you instantly fall into the same category with an added smattering of the intolerance label thrown on just for good measure. Why is it you can't disagree with a lifestyle someone chooses to live without being looked at as if you are crazy? I find it extremely ironic that the people who scream loudest for tolerance are, in fact, some of the least tolerant people I have ever met. 

Modern misguided morality

I recently watched a short movie with my middle school youth group. The movie was called Most and was a European film done in Czech with English subtitles. If you ever have the opportunity I recommend seeing it. You can catch the shortened version on YouTube, it is The Bridge. It is about a man who works on a railroad drawbridge and one day his son convinces him to take him with him to work. Unfortunately a train fails to stop when the bridge is open for a boat. The son tries to pull the emergency release lever on the bridge because his dad doesn’t see the train coming. Unfortunately he slips and falls down into the machinery that runs the bridge. The dad sees the train and sees his son fall into the bridge. He knows if he closes the bridge to the train can go over, he will crush his son. If he leaves it up everyone on the train will die. He chooses to sacrifice his son in order to save everyone on the train. The point of the movie is to show how everyone on the train is from different walks of life. You have joyful college students, abandoned boyfriends, drug addicts, elderly people, and young children. All of humanity is represented. The Father sacrificed his Son to save everyone. After we watched the movie I did an explanation and then began to answer questions. However, one of the predominate questions and attitudes was one that completely blindsided me. I expected anger and frustration that the little boy had to die in order to save everyone on the train. What I didn’t expect was the hostility towards some of the trains passengers, at least not the passengers I expected. Far and above the most hated group on the train was the happy go lucky college students who were having a smoke and enjoying each others company. Not the drug users, prostitutes, or soldiers but the smokers. “How could he have killed his son to save a smoker” someone asked. “Smokers all deserve to die anyway. They are killing themselves and us already” said another. I was floored. I guessed I missed the point in our culture where smoking suddenly became a sin so grievous and unnatural that it put one beyond the salvation of God, or somehow made one less of a person. Someone that deserved to die. I am not trying to enter the debate on whether smoking is good or bad, right or wrong (I don’t think most people would care for my thoughts on that anyway) but simply that we have made it a cultural sin of momentous proportions. How we can hate tobacco this much and want to legalize marijuana is beyond me or logic. On the flip side I am constantly saddened by how many people support abortion. Why does our culture present something that is merely unhealthy as worse than something that kills one innocent human being and mentally scars another for life, resulting in higher rates of depression and suicide? When middle school students think that smokers deserve to die and go to Hell, while abortion deserves to be protected as a basic human right I think we have serious problems in our schools. This Christmas pray for the conversion of these souls. Pray for the light of Christ in their lives. “A nation that kills its own children is a nation without hope.” ~ Mother Theresa