Open Wide the Doors for Christ!

As the title indicates, Christmas break has now ended and I'm back in Indianapolis.  The new semester starts tomorrow!  I am excited for most of my classes, but I don't know if I am actually ready to do the work for them...  Anyway, I've been wanting to do a post about the 5 hour drive from Quincy to Indy for some time now, and I am also going to try to increase the number of posts that I'm writing, so here's my attempt at a somewhat funny, somewhat comprehensive, somewhat short look at the drive between Quincy and Indianapolis.

This morning I finished packing up all my clothes, books, partially-finished PNAC application, a tray of leftover Christmas cookies, and everything else that I would be bringing back to Brute.  I filled up with gas on my way to 11 AM Mass at St. Rose and after Mass was over (12:30ish) finished throwing everything in the car, changed into jeans, and met the family at Culvers, where they sometimes eat with other people from church on Sunday afternoons.  I ate my burger and ice-cream quickly because I was fast approaching my 2 PM deadline for leaving, said a quick good-by, and then hit the road.

The first hour was mostly spent staring at the road and listening to the radio.  By the end of that time period I was getting tired of the radio, and was also getting pretty sleepy because I had been squinting the entire time (it was sunny, the road was a bit wet, and I didn't have sunglasses), so I put in a Lighthouse Catholic CD - Power in Prayer (Sr. Mary Gabriel, SV).  It was a great talk on the importance and power of prayer.  Prayer, as she reminded, can't be just about asking for stuff from God, it very much has to be about opening ourselves up to Him.  We have to open our heart to His presence, we have to allow Christ to reign over us, and that only happens by being in communication with Him in prayer.  2 hours down, 3 to go!

After that CD, I listened to the radio some more.  I actually ran across a football game, which I guess I didn't know they broadcasted on the radio, but it surprisingly it kept me alert and awake for the 40 minutes or so that I listened to it.  Eventually it did get old (and I think I lost the station after a while), but it burned a lot of time!  

Having crossed the half-way point of my journey (somewhere in the middle of Illinois), I started listening to some podcasts by Fr. Michael Schmitz.  They were all absolutely fantastic!  One was on how we need to find the things in life that are taking us away from God, the near occasions of sin, and choose, right now, to get rid of that problem.  Another was on having the simple trust in God that Mary had.  Just saying "yes" even when we don't know how everything is going to work out.  Another was on how difficult it is to find out how much of something is enough.  How much is enough food, enough money, enough friends?  Fr. Schmitz noted that sometimes we need to cut back on things like these so that we can have more than enough of the joy and love that comes from Jesus Christ, the only things that are truly worth having "too-much" of.  Obviously, they were a lot more interesting and inspiring than my descriptions of them.  Suffice it to say that I haven't very often listened to homilies for over an hour, and I was really attentive to these (listen to some, there phenomenal).

By this time, believe it or not, I was only about 30 minutes from Indianapolis, so I pretty much just enjoyed the rest of the ride.  Some of the time I just let my mind think about the things I had heard - meditating on them I suppose - but I also listened to the radio a bit.  Finally, around 7:30, I pulled into the Bruté parking lot and my sojourn was over.  It was a better trip than usual.  The weather was perfect - no rain, no snow, no slippery roads.  I was pretty awake the entire time - which usually isn't the case (though the Mountain Dew Kick-Starter probably explains part of that).  

Some funny moments that didn't fit in up above:

Shortly after passing Springfield, I was listening to the talk on prayer and I was rather engrossed at the moment and managed to miss my exit.  Unfortunately, I have come to rely on the GPS for directions and since it was muted for whatever reason, I failed to realize that I had a turn.  It was only a 5 minute delay, but I was a bit bemused because I'd guess that not to many people miss their exit because they were listening to a talk on praying...

About half an hour later, I was driving along when a lady passed me in a minivan.  Well, I glanced over to see who was passing me and was surprised to see that both her (bare) feet were up on the dash, one leg on each side of the steering wheel.  I had seen passengers put their feet up on the dash to relax, but never the driver...  Good grief, what if she had to stop!  Yeah, that got my attention...

I didn't expect to have anyone surpass that, um, talent, but another guy came close.  As he passed me I again looked over - you never know, maybe the person is cheerful and will wave at you or something - and anyway, he had his head inclined all the way back, looking up at the ceiling of his car, and was in the process of putting the last touches on shaving his neck.  It was an electric razor - thank goodness - but still made me laugh.

Finally, at another point in my drive, I was shooting right along, listening to one of the podcasts, I think, and I had just passed a car and was moving back into the right lane when I saw that there was a car parked on the side of the highway with the occupants standing next to their vehicle getting ready to change the tire or something.  The guy in front of me changed lanes to the left, and I did the same, just to give them more room.  Suddenly, the guy in front of me swerved back to the right - I immediately stared forward to see what was up, and saw that there was something on the road.  I followed his example, going about halfway into the right land, and was surprised to see that a large shovel, along with fragments of something wooden, were strewn on the road.  They guy who I had just passed swerved around to the left - almost going off the road in the process - and the cars behind him followed suit.  I guess its something you see every so often, but it made me think about how badly that could have turned out if I had been less alert...  

And there's my story for the day!  Time to hit the sack and get some sleep before everything gets going tomorrow!

I wanted to do something for mother's day, and who better to write about than our spiritual mother, Mary.  I guess this is a few days late, but better late than never right?  These won't be anything too world changing, but just some thoughts that I've had...

 

My first post will revolve around the wedding feast of Cana:

 

(John 2:1-7)  "On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.  Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.  When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine."  And Jesus said to here,  "woman, what does this have to do with me?  My hour has not yet come."  His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."  Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.   Jesus said to the servants. "Fill the jars with water."  And they filled them up to the brim."

Often the question is asked why we would pray to Mary when we could just pray to Jesus.  Jesus is God, Mary is not, and if you can pray straight to God, why pray to anybody else?  The wedding feast at Cana gives us some answers:

Here we have Mary interceding on behalf of the newlyweds and their guests.  Note that the people in charge of the party didn't go to Jesus for help.  For one, Mary, more so than everybody else there, knew who Jesus was, and secondly, she had the "clout" (apologies for my lack of theological terminology) to convince Jesus to perform His first miracle.  Here's the connection to our lives: Mary's personal relationship with Christ is a ton better than mine (or anybody else's on this planet).  1. She is a saint - which means she is perfectly united to God in heaven.  2. She is Jesus' mother - which is a much closer personal relationship than I am ever going to have.  and 3. She has been given to us, by Christ, to be our mother (that will get its own post later).

Another big point: Mary is not going to lose our prayers or make them less "convincing" somehow.  Mary takes our prayers directly to Jesus more fervently and beautifully than we ever could.  From the same passage we have Mary's words: "Do whatever he tells you."  Point: there is nothing to fear in going to Mary.  She will always direct us, aid us, and help us on the path towards God.  Mary was chosen by God as the way he would enter the world and thereby save mankind.  Certainly, if God chose her, we should too.  Her entire life revolved around saying "yes" to God, and now we see her telling (and helping) us to do the same.

I hope to do posts on the Annunciation and the moment when Jesus gives us His mother (while on the cross).  Maybe other ones will get in there too...  Mary is such a beautiful model for humanity.  She is the example of giving one's self completely to God - no matter the consequences or the uncertainties.  She is such an amazing help in getting to Heaven - God's original method of bringing Himself (incarnate) into the world was Mary, and He has continued to pour grace upon us through her. 

Let me know in the comments if this post is a good length - I don't want to ramble on too long, and I also don't want to keep it too simple...  While you formulate your exquisite comment, listen to the video below.  Enjoy!

On the way over to subway to get some food I found a piece of paper on the ground with the words "this is the day the Lord has made, Let us be glad and rejoice in it." (Psalm 118:24) written on it. Probably, one of the cantors, who have to write down the alleluia verse before Mass, so they can sing it, had dropped it.  Anyway, I thought it was an important point to keep in mind.  God has everything under control - trust in Him, and don't get all worried about the future.  Obviously, you can't just sit there and do nothing, but incessantly worrying about stuff in this life isn't going to help you get to the next (which is where we need to get).

Personally, I've been struggling with this recently.  The credits that I thought had transferred just fine into Marian, didn't, and I may not be able to graduate next year after all.  It's all up in the air at this point, and I have been fretting over it the past week.  Another newly found problem: this summer I'll probably be taking Spanish II online.  Unfortunately, I never really learned Spanish the first time around, so I don't know how it is going to turn out.  It is very interesting that just as I was getting all worked up about these problems I found this verse.  I mean, I've heard it before - at Mass and in the Liturgy of the Hours - but I hadn't ever really thought about it or applied it to myself.  God is asking for my trust, that I place my confidence in Him, and that is tough.  I want to know what is happening, where I'm going, what I'm supposed to be doing, but sometimes God asks me to just trust that this is the day that He has made, not me.

Think about Mary at the Annunciation (which we celebrate tomorrow), she has all of like 10 seconds to decide the fate of the universe.  She didn't know what would happen.  But she trusted God, and said "fiat" - "let it be done".  We have to learn to do the same; trust God and say yes.  Also, don't forget the second part of the psalm: joy.  Trust doesn't really count if we continue to complain about what is going on and march around with a glum look on our faces trying to get people to feel sorry about our predicament.  Give God your trust totally - He won't let you down.  (of course this is easier said then done - that, of course, is what prayer is for).

Happy Easter folks!