Showing posts with label Hope. Show all posts

My Sister's First Profession

Every month or so we have what is called a travel weekend, which is pretty much what it sounds like - everybody is allowed to travel some place around Europe and experience a bit of culture, food, art, history, nature, or whatever, all while building friendships with other men here and having a chance to get away from the bustle and business of Rome.  So far, I have gone on three such trips - the first to San Giovanni Rotundo (we visited the shrine of Padre Pio, Monte San Angelo, and Lanciano), the Amalfi Coast (we saw some beautiful scenery, and also got to pray before the relics of St. Andrew, St. Matthew, St. Benedict, and St. Scholastica), and this last weekend - which is probably going to be the craziest travel weekend in the foreseeable future, when I got to fly back to Alabama and be there when my sister took simple/temporary vows at the Dominican Monastery of St. Jude.  Needless to say, it was an amazing blessing to be back there, but - as seems to usually be the case - it was a whole lot more amazing than even I thought it would be beforehand!

While I was in Assisi I found out the date that my sister would be taking vows - November 22nd, the feast of St. Cecilia - and, of course, I was excited for her, but I knew that it wasn't very likely that I'd be able to be back for it, not only was it a long trip, and in the middle of the semester, but it was also NAC policy that guys don't go home for their first two years here.  However, then I heard of one of the new men who had gotten permission to return home for one of his sibling's wedding.  I didn't know if the same exception would apply to me, but I was certainly not going to pass up at least trying!  So, at my first meeting with my formation advisor - the priest who, you know, advises me as regards my formation (I meet with him once a month, we talk about how things are going - academically, pastorally, humanly, practically, etc. - and he helps to make sure I'm balancing my time/effort well and gives tips/advise/direction as regards any of the problems that could crop up from studying over here) - I asked if there was any way that I could go home for my sister's profession.  He hadn't ever experienced that question, but promised to investigate it with the "powers that be" (the formation staff here at the NAC).  I hadn't heard anything for a couple of weeks, which I tried hard not to interpret as a sign one way or the other, when I had my meeting with Msgr. Checchio.  He met with all the new men during our first month or so here, and, at least in my case, most of the conversation was him asking how things were going, talking about the process of settling in, challenges that I might encounter, and things that I should focus on during this first bit of time here.  It was a great conversation, he is a wonderful rector, but near the end of the conversation I was surprised and excited when he casually mentioned that "I'm glad to hear you'll be able to go home for your sister's profession."  I'm pretty sure my mouth fell open for about a second while I tried to comprehend what he had just said, and then I rattled something out about how great it would be, and he responded with something about loving Dominican nuns and being happy to give me the go-ahead to return for that ceremony.  I, to say the least, was excited!  I got permission from my diocese as well and a couple of days later dropped the news on my family when we were skyping.  They too, were pretty happy (alright, maybe that's an underestimation...), and dad was also really helpful in tracking down a decent deal on the flights that I would need (and would fit around everything).

So, last Thursday (the week before Thanksgiving), I left class at the Gregorian (Christology is that morning) and power-walked over to the bus stop where I had a ticket to Fiumicino.  Of course, because of some uprising/protest/strike, the bus was going to be like 45 minutes late.  I already was pushing it close to get through the airport, so I was starting to get a bit worried when an Italian lady had the bright idea to hire a taxi.  Five of us (myself, the lady, and three other young ladies) found a cab - I got back middle, as always - and off we went.  30 minutes later, nobody having had the guts to start a conversation, we pooled our money, paid the driver, and entered the airport.  I found the desk I needed, they gave me my boarding passes (after a bit of difficulty), and I made my way through security.  Off to Amsterdam!

Pretty cool, no?
In Amsterdam, having not done much except whiling away the hours of waiting/flying with a couple different books and stuff, I eventually boarded my flight to Atlanta and then settled in for the long flight.  As it turned out, I was right next to a couple who were returning from a trip they were taking with their church to the Netherlands.  We had a really nice conversation about Christianity, the priesthood, theology, the church, celibacy, and several other such topics - it was great!  Not awkward, they were very open, and I really enjoyed it.  After a pretty tasty meal (the food was good and they served wine, which was surprising, and enjoyable), I watched Guardians of the Galaxy, which was not only funny and entertaining, but also relatively clean (always nice when you're not constantly wondering at what point you'll have to turn something off).  Then I spent a bit of time in prayer - not the easiest thing in the world in a plane, but being "up there" lent a different feeling to the experience, so that was cool.  I think I watched another movie at some point, and I spent some time reading some different books (Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth, a book on the Pentateuch, Fr. Gaitley's 33 Days to Morning Glory, and probably a couple of other ones).  The hours slid by and before I knew it we were being served dinner (again, pretty good) and only an hour out of Atlanta.  After an uneventful landing, and a bit of walking through the Atlanta airport (and customs...), I found my last gate with an hour or two to wait before boarding.  Being back in America, I decided to find some American cuisine and after debating about whether a certain burger place was going to be worth it, I just went with Chic-fil-A and got my fill of chicken nuggets and fries.  Again, most of the time was past with a bit of reading and some listening to podcasts and whatnot (mainly homilies and other Catholic stuff) - it's funny, I've only been on a plane several times now, but it was already getting pretty usual.  Soon enough we were boarding and then - only like 30 minutes later - I was in Birmingham.  And, 10 minutes later I was elated to see my family at the bottom of the escalators (that I was riding).  It was so good to see them again!  We stayed up late chatting together and then I dropped in bed - some 28 hours after getting up (it was a really long day). 

One month folks!
The next day, Friday, we checked out a couple of things in Birmingham - including the Cathedral (beautiful - it was a lot simpler than the churches over here, but it had stained glass windows, which aren't very often found here) and a museum of art (which had some beautiful pieces - religious and otherwise - though to some extent I have started to take that sort of thing for granted, so it wasn't quite mind-blowing).  Yeah, it was a fun day, just spent hanging out with the family, and that evening we drove over to the monastery and brought our things into the guest house.  After another short night of sleep (which is getting more and more typical) and another banana (which isn't typical over here; they provide plenty of apples, pears, peaches, oranges, plums, and kiwis, but not bananas), my brother and I met with the priest who was going to be saying Mass.  As I was expecting, it was in the Dominican Rite, which was the Roman/Papal Rite of the 1300s (very similar to the Extraordinary Form, with a couple variations), and as I wasn't expecting, one of the servers was expected to chant the Epistle.  My brother - being the generous, humble guy that he is - let me have fun with that, and after 30 minutes of reviewing what we were doing (how the profession ceremony would happen, what was different, who was doing incense, etc.) and a good bit of practicing on my part (actually, I wasn't that nervous, the tone wasn't difficult and the passage was short), we banged the set of chimes that they use to signal the beginning of Mass and processed out.  The chapel - as often in cloistered monasteries - was set up with the sisters/cloister lined up with the altar and the lay congregation off to the side (like an "L", with the sanctuary in the corner) - and because it was ad orientum, I only had a glance of my sister (in the cloister) and grandparents/uncle (who were in the congregation, obviously, but whom I hadn't seen yet).  Mass was like a Low EF Mass, but with incense, so everything went relatively normally until around the homily.  Right after the Gospel (about the foolish and wise virgins), but before the homily, my sister announced her desire to take temporary profession in the monastery.  It was simple phrase, but she was so excited! 

Before the trip I was excited to be back with the family for a bit, to visit my sister, and to enjoy a bit of American cuisine, but - looking back - this was the best moment!  There was my twin sister, much like those 50 men here who gave their lives totally over to Our Lord 2 months ago, giving her life to God - more officially/completely than before - and absolutely overjoyed to do it.  The homily was great - expounding on the beauty of the cloistered call to chastity, and the idea that kept running through my mind was that of joy.  I had been thinking about my sister's vocation in terms of difficulty.  Entering the cloister is tough, it means giving up a lot, and I thought that for that reason it was a great call.  I mean, we all have to give up something to follow God's will for us - that's the cross - but the cloister seemed a particularly difficult one regardless.  However, my sister wasn't filled with trepidation - at the difficulty - or bravado - at the challenges to come - or even excitement - for the life ahead; she was filled with joy, peace, happiness, and other such awesome gifts of God.  The thing was, where I see challenges to be pulverized (with God's help, of course), she wasn't even looking for the next challenge to be attacked, but instead simply looking at God, and trusting that He would help in whatever might come.  Where I focus on the incoming/upcoming thing to do, finish, learn, grow, or become, she simply focusses on the end goal of all that "doing", which is God, and His will.  I've wondered in the past how some of the sisters you see are always so joyful.  I mean, I'm trying to follow Christ too, but I'm not exactly constantly beaming with joy and excitement...  What's the difference?  They trust God better than I do.  Boom, now I know my next challenge, oh wait...


Receiving the black veil!
Yeah, so not only was it amazing to see my sister taking the next step in her vocation (after the homily she made a couple of promises - to the church, the bishop, the order, etc. - and also received the black veil), but it was amazing to realize that that supernatural joy is truly a gift from God.  Not in the sense that he only gives it to some people, but that only some people take Him up on that offer.  It was a beautiful moment, and one that I will cherish for a long time.  Mass continued as normal - at least as normal as Jesus transforming the host into Himself for our reception usually is - with no major hiccups at any point (oh, the Epistle went fine by the way).  After Mass, in another incredible blessing of the trip, we were allowed to come up to the grille in the chapel (where there is an opening for the sisters to receive Communion) and give my sister a hug.  She was still grinning, as you might imagine, and it was just a blessed moment (the first time my grandparents and uncle were able to visit her in there, so it was especially touching to see them meet her for the first time as a nun!)  After Mass, we got to converse for a bit - during which my sister spoke about her preparation for that big day, how the sisters had kept my coming to the ceremony a surprise till the last minute, and in general, everybody was able to fill each other on what had been happening and congratulate Sr. Mary Thomas (my sister's religious name) on her first profession.  We had a delicious - as usual - lunch provided by the sisters and then got to spend part of the afternoon continuing to speak with my sister. 

Who's the happiest?
I guess, I could prolong this post quite a bit further, droning on about the intricacies of what I was up to, but I won't, because the big things had already happened.  As usual, we struggled to come up with a poem to send back through the turn for the sisters...  Yep, I got to talk a lot with my sister (not another, but still) and we stayed up late catching up as a family (it felt like 5 AM to me)...  Yeah, I had another banana the next morning, and Mass was beautiful again (as was all the prayers that we were able to join the sisters for), and saying good-by to everybody was hard (though we did enjoy a 5-Guys burger before parting, which was about as American as it gets).  Of course, the flights were long (Spiderman 2 wasn't as good as I was hoping, but I got a tiny bit of sleep in and a bit of praying/reading in), and the airports somewhere between exciting and exasperating.  But the trip ended on a good note because the busses were running from the airport, and - annoyingly, but mostly amusingly - the wheel on my bag (with chocolate chips and BBQ sauce inside, among other things!) decided to self-destruct mid-way back to the NAC (approximately when I was passing St. Peter's), and, when I went over to St. Peter's for Mass (it was now Monday, because of the time-traveling that I had been doing..., so I hadn't been to Mass yet), I found that it was the funeral Mass for Cardinal Angelini.  I was pretty much a zombie standing there (I was going on 30 hours without much sleep - I would have never imagined they could make a seat as hard to fall asleep in than those on airplanes), but it was pretty obvious I was back in Rome.  Mass in St. Peter's, Swiss Guards, tourists, the mad rush for Communion, hearing Italian...  Va bene!

Super recap: Flying on planes can be fun, American food is still great, seeing the family after a couple months is even better, and God's grace in action, in my sister, is amazing!  The whole experience fit really well with Thanksgiving (which we are still celebrating here at the NAC - with tons of food, football, and the new/old-man shows); it truly reminded me what I am most thankful for.  Yep, being here in Rome is awesome, the food is great (here and back home), and I'm enjoying myself immensely, but life is about so much more than that!  It's about being thankful to God for His much more precious gifts: tremendous friends (here and in America), an amazing, loving, supportive family, and a call from God Himself, to follow Him, to love like Him, to give like Him, and thereby live with Him forever (starting now!)  Tremendous, right!  Thanksgiving indeed! 

Photos in the monastery from their website, otherwise from myself...  Please keep all the sisters in your prayers, especially as we begin the Year of Consecrated Life tomorrow (with the beginning of Advent!)
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Hope Springs Eternal (literally)

I have a summarized recap at the end, if this wall-of-text is too much for your little bit of free time (or limited attention span)...  :-D

Last week, on Tuesday, most of the guys at Brute (including myself), went over the St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Sunman, IN, to attend the funeral for a younger brother of one of the guys who had tragically died a few days before.  We had received word about a week before, right after the senior tribute night, and had all gone up to the chapel and prayed a divine mercy chaplet for the young man who had passed away, as well as for Joe and his family.  The funeral - like that somber night - was also a powerful moment, showing the fraternity and concern present among all of us at Brute.  It was the middle of finals week but just about every guy figured out a way to reschedule his finals for that day and cut time out of studying or sleeping in order to ride the hour and a half to be present for the funeral. 

But, that is not what this post will be about (though it could be).  What I want to talk about is what Fr. Shaun Widdington spoke on in his homily.  The Gospel was about the death of Lazarus and how Jesus waited 3 days before coming to Bethany and raising Lazarus from the dead.  Father spoke on how often-times in the midst of loss, or pain, or suffering (of all kinds, but especially the poignant suffering that accompanies the death of someone we love) we feel like Jesus isn't there, or we don't understand why such-and-such a loss has befallen us, or we think that there is no purpose for this suffering.  As Father explained it, often-times in this life we find ourselves on Holy Saturday.  We often live through excruciatingly painful moments, our own Good Friday's, but we are unable to find hope, or purpose, or God, in that moment.  And then Father said something profound (for me), he said that Jesus Christ is our hope, in His resurrection we find the promise of our own resurrection, in his coming back to life we find God's promise to those who love Him of eternal life.  This wasn't profound because I didn't know it, rather, it deeply impacted me because it reminded me that our hope must be in God, in eternity.  Often I want to figure out how suffering in this life can be transformed, and thus eliminated, and surely that is a possibility - the cross is our standard of victory precisely because through the cross Jesus conquered sin and death and ransomed us so that we can become sons/daughters of God - but sometimes suffering doesn't seem to have a point, oftentimes we can't see how God can bring good out of suffering.  Father, in his homily, reminded me that as humans we often can't find the good in a particular event - we can't see how the untimely, unexpected death of a young man can possibly fit into God's plan or how He could possibly bring good out of it.  Our sight is limited, even when we look at the cross and see how God brought good out of it, we glance back at our own lives and still feel lost, forgotten, even abandoned.  Father reminded me (and I needed that reminder) that our hope must - in the end - rest in heaven.  Sometimes we will never understand why some suffering, or some difficulty, or some loss has happened to us, at least not until heaven.

Why is this?  Why do we sometimes find ourselves in the darkness of suffering and can't feel the light of Christ?  Well, this morning in the office of readings I was confronted with precisely that question.  The first psalm (Psalm 44) talks of trusting in God:
It was you who saved us from our foes, it was you who put our foes to shame. All day long our boast was in God, and we praised your name without ceasing.
But then in the second psalm the psalmist finds himself lost, seemingly abandoned by God:
Yet now you have rejected us, disgraced us: you no longer go forth with our armies. You make us retreat from the foe and our enemies plunder us at will. You make us like sheep for the slaughter and scatter us among the nations. 
And in the 3rd psalm his confusion grows worse because he have been faithful, he hasn't forgotten God, yet he feels crushed beneath the oppression, suffering, and death experienced in this world:

This befell us though we had not forgotten you; though we had not been false to your covenant, though we had not withdrawn our hearts; though our feet had not strayed from your path. Yet you have crushed us in a place of sorrows and covered us with the shadow of death. Had we forgotten the name of our God or stretched out our hands to another god[.] Would not God have found this out, he who knows the secrets of the heart? It is for you that we face death all day long and are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Awake, O Lord, why do you sleep? Arise, do not reject us for ever! Why do you hide your face and forget our oppression and misery? For we are brought down low to the dust; our body lies prostrate on the earth. Stand up and come to our help! Redeem us because of your love!
Sometimes we feel the same way.  Life is going along smoothly, our relationship with God is alive and well, we are progressing in virtue, filled with His joy, and then something terrible, painful, or difficult happens and we feel like we've lost contact with God, we can no longer see His plan in the midst of the suffering that has afflicted us, or worse, we feel abandoned or forgotten by God.  

As I was reading these psalms, my mind went back to the homily that Father gave at the funeral, and how he ended with the difficult truth that true happiness is only found in the next life.  Sometimes we can't understand suffering.  Sometimes things do look hopeless, but Christ calls us to continue hoping in Him.  Sometimes we are stuck on Holy Saturday for a long time, sometimes the tomb looks sealed, and no matter what we do we just can't figure out where God's plan is at.  This is the problem of evil, the question that we have of how God - if He is good - can allow bad things to happen to us.  We can philosophically say that evil exists because of free will - we bring it upon ourselves.  We can theologically say that God loves us so much that He was willing to give us free will - knowing that we would sin, bringing that suffering upon ourselves - and suffer and die to bring us back to Himself.  We can spiritually say that suffering comes from our lack of love of God - of choosing something else over Him, which will never fill the need we have for God, and thus, we experience pain.  But sometimes those explanations don't seem to cut it.  Sometimes we can't figure out why a certain loss - maybe the death of a loved one, or an illness, or a spiritual emptiness - has befallen us and we certainly can't see how God can bring good out of it.  

In this difficulty the answer is again found in Christ's resurrection.  In this time after Easter, when we get to constantly celebrate the awesomeness of the resurrection, we are called to remember the entire paschal mystery, Christ's passion, death, and resurrection.  They all go together, and they all point us towards our hope that is in eternal life with Him.  We aren't promised earthly happiness, actually we are asked to pick up our cross, but - if we are faithful - we are promised eternal happiness in heaven.  The wonderful truth of Christianity is that we are made for a happiness which only is found beyond this world.  As Augustine says, our hearts are restless until they rest in God; no earthly pleasures, or stuff, or peace, will ever be enough for us.  Even if we could avoid earthly suffering (which we can't), we are made for something more, we are made in the image and likeness of God and He offers us eternal bliss with Him, not anywhere else.   But this promise of future happiness is precisely something in the future, and the road there may be twisted and rocky.  Sometimes following Christ seems easy, fun, and exciting,but sometimes it is not - the road is often narrow.  

In all of this it seems difficult to remain positive, but we must always remember that our hope is in God, not ourselves.  If we rely on ourselves to figure out why some suffering has struck us, at some point we won't be able to figure it out and then we are left in despair.  But this despair is exactly what happens when we lose hope in Christ.  Hoping in Him, in his promise of eternal life and eternal happiness, requires us to not rely only on ourselves and to trust in God.  God promises us an eternal, complete, beyond-this-world happiness, and that requires that we trust in God, who is beyond this world.  You can't have it both ways; you can't have eternal happiness in a temporal world; you can't accept the gift of Heaven if you think you can create it for yourself on earth.  Earthly suffering can be transformed when we view it with the eyes of faith, but it also can be accepted - even when we don't see how it can be transformed - through that same faith which shows us the beautiful promise of heaven.  

Look at Mary.  She is a humble, beautiful, and holy young lady, and then an angel appears to her and asks her to become the mother of God.  She doesn't understand, yet she accepts (trusting in God, not herself).  And despite this intense trust that she shows to God - beyond anything any of us have ever done - she experiences a life that is chock full of terrible sufferings.  She is told that sword will pierce her heart, she has to flee into Egypt to escape Herod, she loses her Son in the temple, she watchers her Son get beaten, condemned to die, carrying the cross, and then crucified, she is at the foot of the cross, watching the life drain from her divine Son, and then He dies.  Her grief is impossible to contemplate, her pain, difficult to think about.  Of course, her life wasn't all pain and suffering - surely there were moments of peace, love, happiness, fun, etc. - but what I realized was that Mary, the holiest human ever (besides Jesus), wasn't exempt from the sufferings that afflict us all, if anything, she experienced more of them.  What gives?  That doesn't make sense to us.  

But if we look at the entire picture, including eternity, we suddenly find hope, and joy, and happiness again.  Despite all that pain, what is Mary given? - the queen-ship of heaven and the most perfect joy - having both body and soul - in paradise forever!  For a long time I didn't really know why the last two glorious mysteries of the rosary - the assumption and coronation of Mary - were there.  Yeah, they were teachings of the church, but they didn't seem to fit into the scope of the other mysteries, which are all about Jesus' redemption of mankind.  But now I have realized that it is in the light of the assumption and coronation that we realize the scope and grandeur of heaven that is bought for us through Christ's incarnation, passion, and resurrection.  Mary, as always, brings us closer to Christ!  In her, we see - in its entirety - Christ's promise of eternal life.  We are called to the same trust and faith in God - even in the midst of intense sufferings - that Mary had.  We are promised the same intense joy - if we remain faithful - that Mary has.  

Now, looking back through this post, there is some sense that this is a bit of a downer.  There is something very enticing about the Gospel of prosperity that claims that Jesus came so that we might have earthly wealth and happiness.  But if we really think about it, salvation must be so much more than that.  If salvation was all about bringing us earthly joy then it isn't very valuable - we can try to get earthly joy on our own, without God becoming man.  No, salvation involves saving us from sin, and death, and hatred - not from earthly troubles.  Salvation is a promise of perfect happiness, not the imperfect kind that we try to find on earth.  Now, this isn't to say that suffering and pain are good things; certainly they aren't; they came with the fall.  But, the paschal mystery invites us to lift our gaze, to have hope in the eternal life prepared for us, to see that the "life in abundance" promised us by Christ is so much more than earthly abundance.

Alright, time for a recap and conclusion:  Sometimes we find ourselves on our own Holy Saturday.  We experience loss, pain, hatred, doubt, or death and we don't know why.  Of course, we can always offer it up, and try to grow to love God more though it, but sometimes even that doesn't make it any easier to bear.  Sometimes we feel empty, abandoned, forgotten by God - we feel despair - and we don't know what to do.  But in those moments, above all, we must remain steadfast in our hope of eternal life.  Sometimes we will experience earthly suffering, and often those struggles won't go away; we can't see how God could transform them into something good.  In those moments, we must lift our eyes to the promise of life to come, to the eternal happiness that awaits us if we keep the faith.  Yes, struggles will beset us - and sometimes they don't go away (at least, for a long time), but through it all we must struggle to be like Mary, trusting through everything, knowing that God promises those who love Him bliss in heaven, not on earth.  

Now, all that said, don't think I'm experiencing some terrible crisis or anguish or something - I am doing just great at the moment (having fun with the family, planning for vacation, getting stuff ready for the NAC, etc.), but over the last week or so I have continuously been struck with ideas regarding the fact that our hope must be in heaven, not in ourselves, or on earth.  But, God gives us this hope in an incredible way.   As the prayer for the end of the Office of Readings for today says: 
God our Father, life of the faithful, glory of the humble, happiness of the just, hear our prayer.  Fill our emptiness with the blessing of the Eucharist, the foretaste of eternal joy.  We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and  reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. 
Our hope, then, isn't even as far removed as Heaven.  Jesus gives us His divine hope, and love, and joy in giving us Himself in the Blessed Sacrament.  This is the promise of eternal life, and the gift of that divine life into our souls, and that which gives us strength for the journey...  Yeah, the Eucharist is everything, because it is Jesus Himself.  Struggling? - spend an hour gazing at our Lord in the Eucharist.  Empty? - receive the fount of all grace in Holy Communion.  Hurting? - accept the token of Jesus' immense love for you in His Body and Blood.  Happy? - thank the Lord of joy for that gift.  Does the Eucharist take away suffering? - nope, but it gives us the strength to carry our crosses, the joy of intimate union with Christ, and the hope of eternal life with Him forever.  

And that's all for now!  Thanks for reading!
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Lectio Divina - The Woman at the Well

A few weeks ago another one of the seniors here got some guys together who wanted to do Lectio Divina [latin for "divine reading"].  I had no knowledge of what this all entailed, but my strategy so far in seminary has been to sign up for everything, so I put my name down.  I guess I did know it involved reading Scripture, something that I wanted to do more for Lent, so that was also a motivation for joining...  Anyway, as I have found out, Lectio Divina basically involves spending an hour with a short snippet of Scripture.  This seems really intimidating at first - and it certainly isn't easy - but the hour is divided up into four periods, lectio [reading], meditatio [meditating], contemplatio [contemplating], and oratio [praying].  If you're going to do this, definitely read a better introduction, but basically these steps involve: 

  1. Reading the passage slowly, really thinking about each word and phrase, and letting it kind of settle into you.
  2. Meditating on what you have read, allowing Christ to speak to you through what was said, and letting the message move from your mind to your heart, putting yourself in the scene.
  3. Contemplating what God is telling you, where in your life is the message in this passage applying, what does it mean for you?
  4. Praying about the passage, for guidance, in thanksgiving, asking for the grace and strength to change your life.

The three times I have done it have all been really efficacious, not only bringing me to a better understanding of the Scriptures, but also bringing me to a realization of things that I need to work on.  For whatever reason, it always seems to come around when I am really busy, but it's always been worth it.  Now, I could go into how fruitful and beautiful and difficult doing Lectio has been, but I won't.  Instead, I just want to share with you the prayer that I wrote down during the 10 minutes of Oratio on Thursday (something that is a bit more personal than my usual post, I suppose).  Again, our passage was from John 4:7-15 - The Woman at the Well  (this prayer will make a lot more sense if you read the Scripture passage first).


Dear Jesus, Thank You for so generously offering to give me Your living water.  I am sorry that all too often I am like Your disciples, wandering off into the village, looking for something to fill my hunger, when I know that I can only truly be filled by You.  Like the Samaritan woman, I am scared to give You my jar - my life.  I want to keep filling it from the same old well that I keep coming.  I am scared of You being in control of my life, of You seeing the water that I keep filling myself with.  Yet, despite my ignorance and stubbornness, You remain there, now giving me the opportunity to ask to be filled with Your living water, still loving me despite me being a Samaritan, a sinner.  You shouldn't be talking to me, much less offering me anything, yet You love me immensely - more than anybody else - and remain there despite my infidelity and emptiness.  Still though, I often remain stubborn - like the woman - I still don't want to hand over my pitiful jug, and worse, I doubt You, I wonder if You can give me this living water.  The well is deep, my life is complicated, how could You possibly fill it.  But then, like the woman, I realize that you are greater than my ancestors, friends, family, hobbies, desires, and failures.  You can give water that truly fills and truly cleanses.  And there You remain, despite my hesitation, now upping the ante once again, saying that You are willing to give me this water so that I will never thirst again.  I will never, You say, have to come back to these old wells - these old desires that keep me away from you.  Lord, I beg you, give me this water, fill me with Yourself, increase my faith, enliven my hope, en-kindle my love.  Finally, Lord, if it be Your Will, let that pot of mine become a spring, let it not only carry me to eternal life with You, but also well up for others.  Allow me, Your unworthy servant, to bring Your living water to them as well.  Lord, I love You, I entrust myself to You.  Amen.
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Day 1 - March for Life Pilgrimage

Well, this post is coming to you from Washington DC, where myself and the rest of the guys from Brute who are here for the March for Life.  Since we had school off today for Martin Luther King Junior day, we had Mass this morning at Brute at 9 AM and left for our nation’s capital soon afterwards.  We rented four 12-passenger vans this year, since we have grown by 10+ guys since last year when we had three vans, and started our 9 hour drive around 10:30 this morning.  We spent about 3 hours on the road before stopping for lunch somewhere near the eastern border of Ohio (I went to Wendy's).  Anyway, in the second stint of our drive after lunch, we listened to a talk by Tim Staples, who noted that our culture has truly disintegrated over the last half-century or so.  I will leave it up to you to think about the many other places were this is evident, but I think this is especially obvious in the legalization of abortion – the slaughter of unborn babies within their own mother’s womb – about 40 years ago. 

Tim Staples started with the Declaration of Independence which as you all know begins by saying that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”.  Of course, this is a political, not theological, document, but it still makes the all-important point that we get our human rights from God.  I could go from here to something about being made in God's image, and how our dignity was further super-naturalized with the incarnation, but I won't because the point I want to make is even simpler than this.    Our culture has not only thrown the rights given by God out of the window.  It has also thrown out the rights that we can come to know just using our reason.  This is called by Catholics as Natural Law - the law that one can come to know just by using our reason - but we don't even have to get into that.  Think about it, our culture raises the right to be able to do whatever you want over the right to life of somebody else.  That isn't even rational.  If a human being (which, undoubtedly is what the living embryo inside the mother's womb is) doesn't have the right to live, then there isn't any point to having another right - you're dead...  

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of cases where the situation is really, really hard for the mother to have a child, and yet she's pregnant.  But none of those situations would be so grave as to make murder OK.  We were listening to some Catholic Answers Live talks as well on the way over here (it was a good trip, we listened to a lot of good stuff), and the speaker, who I believe was Trent Horn, made the important point that we must battle evil with good, not with more evil.  Certainly there are cases where the mother's life is in danger, or the child will be born into a poor/missing family, or the mother was raped, or some other horrible situation, but killing the innocent child isn't the way to fix the problem.  We don't fix other problems (over crowded cities or something) by killing people, so why would we think abortion is a good option?  (Don't think that this example makes my argument air-tight;  who knows what atrocities could happen in the future?  But at least right now it shows the absurdity of the proposition.)

Before ending this post though, I'd like to end on a positive note.  I started with the unfortunate fact that our culture is disintegrating (at the very least morally) because we have pretty much dropped God (and even reason) from the picture.  We have rejected every authority we possibly can and find ourselves trapped in the very slavery that Christ died to bring us out of - the slavery to sin.  But, don't despair!  As Fr. Bob noted in his homily this morning, it may not be easy or fun to live in such a world, but it is still our duty to fight for truth and God-given, common sense, morality.  Pray, fast, go stand in the cold for several hours on Wednesday - do something instead of just complaining!  (I don't mean to insinuate that you all just complain, I expect the exact opposite, but I know that often the subject of abortion, or the moral collapse of our culture, evokes despair, not hope, and I wanted to reiterate that we're in a battle on the side that is guaranteed to win.  Our job is to get to heaven and bring as much of the rest of our culture there with us.  Put the situation, the atrocities, your live, and our country, into God's merciful hands - through our Blessed Mother - and go convert the world!)

More updates will appear as I get the chance.  Sorry no pictures just yet, I hope to take some tomorrow as we tour around DC and go to the vigil Mass and of course at the March for Life itself on Wednesday.  Keep me in your prayers please, that I can also be a bit productive at least during the car rides - I have to finish up my application to the PNAC as well as my self-evaluation for this last year in college seminary.  (Oh, and I need to do all the work for my classes this week...)  

Also, I think I may have posted this video before, but it is so fantastic, I wanted to share it again...  
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Pope Francis - Person of the Year!

As you probably have heard, Pope Francis was just named Time Magazine's Person of the Year.  He receives the title which had also given to Blessed Pope John Paul II and John XXIII, (who will both be canonized in April).  I read the article, Pope Francis, The People's Pope, and I was a bit worried when I saw the opening line: "He took the name of a humble saint and then called for a church of healing. The first non-European pope in 1,200 years is poised to transform a place that measures change by the century".  Great... Another article about how Pope Francis is going to change everything about the Catholic Church and switch its teaching on abortion, gay marriage, etc.  Wonderful, another news piece that doesn't understand that the Church can't change these teaching because they are Divinely, not humanly, mandated.  They quickly realized my fears:

The papacy is mysterious and magical: it turns a septuagenarian into a superstar while revealing almost nothing about the man himself. And it raises hopes in every corner of the world—hopes that can never be fulfilled, for they are irreconcilable. The elderly traditionalist who pines for the old Latin Mass and the devout young woman who wishes she could be a priest both have hopes. The ambitious monsignor in the Vatican Curia and the evangelizing deacon in a remote Filipino village both have hopes. No Pope can make them all happy at once.

Here it comes, thought I...  But then they got it right:

And so Francis signals great change while giving the same answers to the uncomfortable questions. On the question of female priests: “We need to work harder to develop a profound theology of the woman.” Which means: no. No to abortion, because an individual life begins at conception. No to gay marriage, because the male-female bond is established by God. “The teaching of the church … is clear,” he has said, “and I am a son of the church, but”—and here he adds his prayer for himself—“it is not necessary to talk about those issues all the time.”

Again, later in the article:
The five words that have come to define both the promise and the limits of Francis’ papacy came in the form of a question: “Who am I to judge?” That was his answer when asked about homo­sexuality by a reporter in July. Many assumed Francis, with those words, was changing church doctrine. Instead, he was merely changing its tone, searching for a pragmatic path to reach the faithful who had been repelled by their church or its emphasis on strict dos and don’ts. Years of working closely with parish priests have taught him that the church seemed more comfortable with narrow issues than human complexity, and it lost congregants and credibility in the bargain. He is urging his army to think more broadly.

I was legitimately surprised!  Of course, the article isn't perfect, I could complain about some points (even in these quotations), but I'm not going to.  I think they did a really good job outlining the man who is now Pope.  The author seems to understand what the Pope is saying, knowing the background that is the 2000 years of Church Tradition.  I am just glad to see something that finally sets the record pretty straight.  Hopefully, this article will allow people to see the true depth behind Pope Francis.  He isn't changing doctrine, and his change in tone isn't because he is liberal.  Church teaching isn't liberal or conservative, it's truth.  Pope Francis, by putting a huge emphasis on love, compassion, charity, solidarity, etc. isn't undermining Church teaching, He is showing the world the beauty, goodness, and truth behind the morality that they all-too-often misunderstand as harsh, bureaucratic, rules. 

Thanks Time magazine for the great article!  Thanks Pope Francis for setting an example for the world!

Wow, I haven't written a blog post like that before.  (Let me know if it didn't make sense or if I said anything crazy - I hate it when that happens...)  I only have the metaphysics final tomorrow and a bit of polishing to do on the senior seminar paper!
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All Downhill From Here!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!
 
lots of sources!
Well, after staying up until (almost) 4AM yesterday, I finally got my metaphysics paper done and turned it in yesterday afternoon (it was a great feeling!).  I think the paper turned out pretty good in the end.  Earlier this week I was spending pretty much all my free time on that paper and it just wasn't coming together how I wanted it to.  I was talking about teleology (that things, particularly humans, have ends, in our case, happiness in God) and this allows morality/ethics to exist.  Basically, without teleology, everybody has to figure out their own end (power, money, pleasure, work, whatever), and for this reason (along with some other logical/metaphysical reasons) teleology must exist and ethics must be based on it.  It was a really cool paper and unfortunately this summary doesn't do the topic justice (my paper didn't either I imagine), but I am really glad that I finally found the sources that I needed to finish the paper off. 
 
I still have to finish up the senior seminar paper, something that I will work on for the next hour or so before meeting with Dr. Denz (the professor for that class).  Hopefully he's happy with my (very) rough draft that I gave him a few weeks back. 
 
Next week I have all the typical finals - Monday: calculus and moral issues (neither will be easy, but shouldn't be impossible either), Tuesday: Augustine and Aquinas (again, it'll take studying, but I'll be ready), Wednesday: senior seminar and psychology (senior sem. is a take-home, but will probably be one of my hardest finals, psychology is a presentation and should be easy), and Thursday: metaphysics (tough, but should go alright).  I am very glad that my finals are spaced out over the week - usually I'd want to get them done as quickly as possible, but all my classes are tough this semester, so I am glad that I should have enough time to study before each one.
 
the holly tree in Brute's courtyard
Of course, the fun doesn't stop just because everybody is getting ready for finals!  This afternoon we are going to play some football (in the snow!), and (recap from the previous post) this evening we have the first-ever Brute talent show.  The Springfield guys will be doing something, and there are a bunch of other guys who will be showing off as well.  It should be awesome!  Tomorrow there are a bunch of us going caroling at a Catholic nursing home (actually the same one that Ray and I have for our ministry) - it was a blast last year, and this year, I'm sure, won't be any different.   On Sunday evening I'm going with some guys to Cincinnati for "lessons and carols", which is some sort of Advent/Christmas concert put on by the seminary up there.
 
Fr. Joe said something quite profound in his homily this morning.  He said that Advent is a time to deepen our faith and, like the blind men in the Gospel this morning, ask Jesus to heal the places within our soul that are broken, hurt, warped, or suffering.  This same faith must then give us the insight to see our life (physically and spiritually) as it really is, a gift from God, and then give our lives back to God.  To cultivate those talents, abilities, and blessings that we have been given, and use them for the greater glory of God and the good of all His creation.  Obviously, my summary is lacking the awesomeness and persuasion that father included in his homily, but my brain is a bit fried from the past few days...
 
I hope you have all had a good (almost) first week of Advent.  I hope to get back to blogging more frequently once I knock out these finals.  May the mercy and love of the Sacred Heart enflame you with His joy, peace, love, and energy on this first Friday, especially in this beautiful season of Advent.

Oh, happy feast of St. Nicholas!

Also, I'm going to post some videos that I've found during this week (they're cool and I won't have time to post something more substantial...)
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Bishop Paprocki's Homily on Same-Sex Marriage

Today my state of Illinois became the 16th state to legalize same sex marriage.  Below is the homily given by my bishop.  Read it!  He forcefully and charitably (yes, those adjectives can go together) explains the Church's teaching on the matter, and offers prayers for those who support this evil.  Trust me, it is an absolutely phenomenal homily!  Keep prayers going up for all our bishops, standing up for the truth is hard.


Homily for Prayers of Supplication and Exorcism in Reparation for the Sin of Same-Sex Marriage 
November 20, 2013
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
Springfield, Illinois
† Most Reverend Thomas John Paprocki
Bishop of Springfield in Illinois




My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
We are gathered here today in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception for a special Holy Hour before the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament to participate in “Prayers of Supplication and Exorcism in Reparation for the Sin of Same-Sex Marriage.” I wish to preface my reflections by saying that I am conducting this prayer service and am speaking to you now with great reluctance. I did not seek to enter any controversy and I don’t relish being part of one. But I have given this matter a great deal of thought and prayer, which has led me to the conviction that God is calling me to speak out and conduct these prayers.

In our prayers, we must be open to hear where God is leading us and to embrace the path that He offers. That is a much different starting point than beginning with our own wants, desires, and conclusions. That is why we pray every day, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”


Our prayers at this time are prompted by the fact that the Governor of Illinois today is signing into Illinois law the redefinition of civil marriage, introducing not only an unprecedented novelty into our state law, but also institutionalizing an objectively sinful reality.


 It is not hateful to say that an immoral action is sinful. On the contrary, the most compassionate thing we can do is help people to turn away from sin. To ignore another person’s wrongful actions is a sign of apathy or indifference, while fraternal correction is motivated by love for that person’s well-being, as can be seen by the fact that our Lord Jesus himself urged such correction.1 Indeed, the call to repentance is at the heart of the Gospel, as Jesus proclaimed, “The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the Good News”(Mark 1:15). 

The Good News is that God’s mercy and forgiveness extend to those who repent. Mercy does not mean approving of something that is sinful, but does absolve the wrongdoer after a change of heart takes place in the sinner through the gift of God’s grace. It is not the Church that must change to conform its teachings to the views of the world, but it is each individual who is called to be configured to Christ.

As we heard in the Gospel passage that was just read, Jesus tells His disciples, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Good News to all creation. . . . Signs like these will accompany those who have professed their faith: they will use my name to expel demons” (Mark 16:15-17). Thus it is through the power of Jesus that evil is displaced from our hearts and is replaced by divine love. This change of heart involves a spiritual battle that is not easily won, but in which we receive the assistance of angels, under the leadership of Saint Michael the Archangel (cf. Daniel 12:1-3). We need not fear this battle, for Christ has conquered sin and death, and in Christ rests our hope of final victory.

As such, I do not stand here before you as a self-righteous saint who has achieved spiritual perfection, but as a sinner who has received Jesus into his heart as his Lord and Savior. To acknowledge one’s sinfulness is indeed the starting point of what it means to be a Christian. However, our Christian identity does not end with this admission of sin, but finds its salvation in accepting the saving grace of our Most Holy Redeemer, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died on the cross to forgive our sins and rose from the dead to lead us to the reward of eternal life in His Kingdom. Our second reading from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians affirms this: “It is in Christ and through His blood that we have been redeemed and our sins forgiven, so immeasurably generous is God’s favor to us” (Ephesians 1:7).

Pope Francis expressed this essential message in his recent interview published in various Jesuits publications in these words: “The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you. And the ministers of the church must be ministers of mercy above all. The confessor, for example, is always in danger of being either too much of a rigorist or too lax. Neither is merciful, because neither of them really takes responsibility for the person. The rigorist washes his hands so that he leaves it to the commandment. The loose minister washes his hands by simply saying, ‘This is not a sin’ or something like that. In pastoral ministry we must accompany people, and we must heal their wounds.”2 

This is a key point which the secularists are missing: they think that stressing God’s mercy means that sins are no longer sins. On the contrary, God’s mercy is a great gift of grace precisely because sins are sins and they call for repentance and forgiveness. 

Note from the interview, when he was asked to describe himself, Pope Francis said simply, “I am a sinner.” After a brief pause, he amplifies this self-identity in the understanding of a Christian who has been saved by Christ, saying, “I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.”3 

This is not the first time that I have offered prayers of repentance here in our Cathedral. On December 12, 2011, I offered a service of “Repentance and Prayer for those Harmed in the Church,” at which I said, “I express repentance for the sins of the members of the Church who have harmed others. Sometimes these harms were evil in themselves, such as the sins of racism and the sexual abuse of minors, as well as other forms of unchastity. At other times, the harms may have been done in the context of actions that were in themselves not sinful and may even have been necessary for pastoral or economic reasons, such as the closing of a church or school, but nevertheless were done in a way that was insensitive to the feelings of those who would be affected. Therefore we pray for all those who have been harmed.” This prayer service was modeled along the lines of Pope John Paul II's “Day of Pardon” held on the First Sunday of Lent, March 12, 2000, as part of the observation of the Great Jubilee of the new millennium, in which Pope John Paul II said that the Church “should kneel before God and implore forgiveness for the past and present sins of her sons and daughters.”

While prayers of supplication in reparation for sin may be easily understood as our pleas and entreaties to God for forgiveness of sins and deliverance from temptation, the meaning of the term “exorcism” in the title of this prayer service is not so readily apparent and requires some explanation. Indeed, some have ridiculed our Church’s use of this ancient religious practice.4 We must remember the encouragement of Pope Saint Leo the Great, who said over 1,500 years ago, “The Church is not diminished by persecutions, but rather increased.”5 It should also be noted that the bill that the Governor is signing today is called the “Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act,” which purportedly provides that “the Act does not interfere with any religious beliefs about marriage.”6 

Perhaps a large part of the negative reaction is because most people don’t know what the Church teaches about exorcism, since they get their misleading information and sensational ideas on this mainly from Hollywood. The fact is that a “minor exorcism” takes place in every Baptism and Confirmation ceremony when we renounce Satan and all his works and empty promises. This prayer service will be along those lines. I’m not saying that anyone involved in the redefinition of marriage is possessed by the devil, which, if that were the case, would require the remedy of a “Major Exorcism,” but all of us are certainly subject to the devil’s evil influences and in need of protection and deliverance from evil.  


Our prayer service today and my words are not meant to demonize anyone, but are intended to call attention to the diabolical influences of the devil that have penetrated our culture, both in the state and in the Church. These demonic influences are not readily apparent to the undiscerning eye, which is why they are so deceptive. A helpful resource in this regard is a recent book by Father Louis J. Cameli, a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago, called The Devil You Don’t Know: Recognizing and Resisting Evil in Everyday Life. While the popular tendency may be to identify the devil only with his extraordinary activity, which is diabolical possession, Father Cameli writes about the ordinary work of the devil: deception, division, diversion and discouragement.7


The deception of the Devil in same-sex marriage may be understood by recalling the words of Pope Francis when he faced a similar situation as Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 2010. Regarding the proposed redefinition of civil marriage in Argentina, then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio wrote on June 22, 2010, “The Argentine people must face, in the next few weeks, a situation whose result may gravely harm the family. It is the bill on matrimony of persons of the same sex. The identity of the family, and its survival, are in jeopardy here: father, mother, and children. The life of so many children who will be discriminated beforehand due to the lack of human maturity that God willed them to have with a father and a mother is in jeopardy. A clear rejection of the law of God, engraved in our hearts, is in jeopardy. . . . Let us not be naive: it is not a simple political struggle; it is an intention [which is] destructive of the plan of God. It is not a mere legislative project (this is a mere instrument), but rather a ‘move’ of the father of lies who wishes to confuse and deceive the children of God.”8


The Pope’s reference to the “father of lies” comes from the Gospel of John (8:44), where Jesus refers to the devil as “a liar and the father of lies.” So Pope Francis is saying that same-sex “marriage” comes from the devil and should be condemned as such.


Another major deception or distortion of marriage is the view that it is not ultimately about generating life, but rather is mainly about a romantic relationship designed for individual (not even mutual) fulfillment. That distorted understanding cuts across opposite-sex marriage and same-sex marriage proponents in our culture. We are all summoned to reflect more deeply on the truth of marriage.


It is also a deception to say that there will be no adverse effects on children being brought up in the household of a same-sex couple.9


The division brought about by the Devil due to same-sex marriage may be seen in the way our society, our families and our friendships have become so divided and polarized over this issue.

The diversion of the Devil in same-sex marriage may be seen in the fact that so much of our time, energy and resources are being spent in addressing this issue, when there are more pressing needs facing our state and our Church.

The work of discouragement by the Devil in same-sex marriage is apparent in the message being conveyed to defenders of traditional marriage that the universal redefinition of marriage is unstoppable, so we might as well just stop trying. But the legalization of abortion on demand forty years ago did not silence those who believe that abortion is contrary to God’s law. On the contrary, Roe v. Wade only heightened the need for more concerted efforts to protect all human life from conception to natural death. So, too, the legal redefinition of civil marriage does not put an end to the need for discourse and action to defend natural marriage in accord with God’s plan, but only serves to heighten the need for greater efforts in this regard.

The Prayers for “Supplication and Exorcism Which May Be Used in Particular Circumstances of the Church” are taken from the Appendices to the 2004 Latin edition of the Rite of Exorcism, the introduction to which explains, “The presence of the Devil and other demons appears and exists not only in the tempting or tormenting of persons, but also in the penetration of things and places in a certain manner by their activity, and in various forms of opposition to and persecution of the Church. If the Diocesan Bishop, in particular situations, judges it appropriate to announce gatherings of the faithful for prayer, under the leadership and direction of a Priest, elements for arranging a rite of supplication may be taken from [the texts provided in these appendices].”

Same-sex marriage is contrary to the plan of God, as described in the Bible, when Jesus cites the Book of Genesis in asking the Pharisees, “Have you not read that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female and declared, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two shall become as one?’ Thus they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore, let no man separate what God has joined.”10

Since the legal redefinition of marriage is contrary to God’s plan, those who contract civil same-sex marriage are culpable of serious sin. Politicians responsible for enacting civil same-sex marriage legislation are morally complicit as co-operators in facilitating this grave sin. We must pray for forgiveness of these sins and deliverance from this evil which has penetrated our state and our Church. The Church stands ready to extend God’s mercy to those who confess their sins with true repentance and a firm purpose of amendment in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.11

We must also affirm the teaching of the Catholic Church that homosexual persons “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.”12 The Church loves homosexual persons and looks upon them with compassion, offering assistance through support groups such as the Courage Apostolate to live in accord with the virtue of chastity.13 Indeed, all people all called to chastity, which for a man and woman united in matrimony means for the husband and wife to be faithful to each other.

In conclusion, I quote from a homily given in the second century: “Let me say also that when we are given a warning and corrected for doing something wrong, we should not be so foolish as to take offense and be angry. There are times when we are unconscious of the sins we commit because our hearts are fickle, lacking in faith. Futile desires becloud our minds. We need to pull ourselves up, therefore, because our very salvation is at stake. Those who keep God’s commandments will have reason to rejoice. For a short time in this world they may have to suffer, but they will rise again and their reward will endure for ever. No one who holds God in reverence should grieve over the hardships of this present time, for a time of blessedness awaits him. He will live again in heaven in the company of all those who have gone before him; for all eternity he will rejoice, never to know sorrow again.”14 


May God give us this grace. Amen.





NOTES
1            Gospel of St. Matthew 18:15: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault.”
2            http://www.americamagazine.org/pope-interview.
3            http://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20130919_1.htm.
4        http://voices.suntimes.com/early-and-often/politics/calling-calvin-kleinwhat-to-wear-to-an-exorcism/.
5     From a sermon by Saint Leo the Great, Pope, Liturgy of the Hours, Office of
Readings for the Memorial of the Dedication of the Baslicas of Saints Peter and Paul.
6        http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=178&GAID=10&Doc TypeID=HB&LegId=40195&SessionID=76. 
7            Father Louis J. Cameli, The Devil You Don’t Know: Recognizing and Resisting Evil in Everyday Life (Notre Dame, Indiana: Ave Maria Press, 2011.
8            http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2013/03/letter-of-cardinal-bergoglio-to.html.
9            See the New Family Structures Study of the University of Texas, 2011, http://www.familystructurestudies.com/.
10        Matthew 19:4-6, citing Genesis 1:27 and 2:24; cf. Mark 10:6-9.
11        Pope John Paul II, “Confession must be Humble, Complete, and Accompanied by a Firm Purpose of Amendment,” letter to Cardinal William W. Baum, Major Penitentiary, dated March 22, 1996, published in L'Osservatore Romano, Weekly Edition in English, April 10 1996, available online at:  http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP960322.HTM. 
12        Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2358.
13        http://www.couragerc.net/. 
14        From a homily written in the second century, Liturgy of the Hours, Office of
Readings, Saturday of the Thirty-Second Week i
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