Showing posts with label Pope Francis. Show all posts

Pope Francis Visits the NAC!

Today Pope Francis, in his first visit to a seminary to Rome, came and celebrated Mass here at the NAC!  [now Saint] John Paul II would sometimes visit a country's seminarians here in Rome before going on an Apostolic visit to that country, and Francis is doing the same thing before his trip to the United States in September.  The entire morning focussed on Bl. Junipero Serra, who Pope Francis will canonize during his trip to the U.S., and who is a tremendous example to all of us priests-in-training.  I was in the choir, so the only time I saw Pope Francis up close was as he drove away after the Mass, but it still was an amazing gift, and certainly inspired me to recommit myself to all those things that made Bl. Junipero Serra such an amazing priest.  
Quote from Fr. Harmon: "the Pope has left the premises"!
(What a day!)
Our Stained-Glass Window of Bl. Junipero Serra
Junipero Serra was born in the early 1700s, became a Franciscan (taking the name Junipero), came to the Americas (at first he was in Mexico city), became famous for his preaching and missions, and then traveled up the Pacific coast of North America, founding missions and evangelizing the Native Americans living in those areas.  Key point: He truly loved the Indians, protecting them from the abuses rampant in the Spanish army (this was all territory of Spain at this point), and calling for forgiveness, not vengeance, even after a group of the natives burned the mission and killed at least one of the friars.  His missionary zeal and fatherly love for the people was unabated by lack of food, hundreds of miles of walking between the missions (on an injured leg), dangerous circumstances, and everything else, and he confirmed thousands who converted throughout the many missions he founded.  

Pope Francis Meeting His (lucky!) Servers
Pope Francis made 3 further points about this intrepid, indefatigable, insatiable missionary to the Americas during his homily (which was given in Italian, and during which I was very grateful for my time at the Gregorian which has helped my command of that language immensely - translation here).  First, he was absolutely on-fire with missionary zeal for the saving of souls and the transmitting of the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. This man left home, family, everything, and went to a far away, and little-known, new continent to bring Christ there!  
"Like Paul and Barnabas, like the disciples in Antioch and in all of Judea, he was filled with joy and the Holy Spirit in spreading the word of the Lord. Such zeal excites us, it challenges us! ... But I wonder if today we are able to respond with the same generosity and courage to the call of God, who invites us to leave everything in order to worship him, to follow him, to rediscover him in the face of the poor, to proclaim him to those who have not known Christ and, therefore, have not experienced the embrace of his mercy."
Us waiting for Pope Francis After Mass
Point #2: He entrusted his entire life and work to Our Blessed Lady! He put an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, now patroness of the Americas, in all of His missions.  Just as Mary opened her heart so completely to God's will, Junipero asked that she would open the hearts of those he was preaching to (and didn't she!)  Our job, do the same, entrusting our lives, and our efforts at evangelization to her:

"today's mission to the continent is entrusted to her, [who is] the first, holy missionary disciple, [and] a constant presence and companion, our source of comfort and hope.  For she always hears and protects her American children."

Pope Francis Waving/Laughing at the Crowd of Us!
Finally, the Pope emphasized just how saintly Junipero Serra was, just how totally he trusted and followed and preached and lived Our Lord Jesus' call and example.  But it gets better: there are tons of awesome saints from the Americas who we should emulate too.  Pope Francis's list: contemplatives like Rose of Lima, Mariana of Quito and Teresita de los Andes; pastors who bear the scent of Christ and of his sheep, such as Toribio de Mogrovejo, Francois de Laval, and Rafael Guizar Valencia; humble workers in the vineyard of the Lord, like Juan Diego and Kateri Tekakwitha; servants of the suffering and the marginalized, like Peter Claver, Martín de Porres, Damian of Molokai, Alberto Hurtado and Rose Philippine Duchesne; founders of communities consecrated to the service of God and of the poorest, like Frances Cabrini, Elizabeth Ann Seton and Katharine Drexel; tireless missionaries, such as Friar Francisco Solano, José de Anchieta, Alonso de Barzana, Maria Antonia de Paz y Figueroa and Jose Gabriel del Rosario Brochero; and martyrs like Roque Gonzalez, Miguel Pro and Oscar Arnulfo Romero.
 "May a powerful gust of holiness sweep through all the Americas during the coming Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy!  Confident in Jesus’ promise, which we heard today in the Gospel, we ask God for this special outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  We ask the Risen Jesus, Lord of all ages, that the life of our American continent may be rooted ever more deeply in the Gospel it has received; that Christ may be ever more present in the lives of individuals, families, peoples and nations, for the greater glory of God.  We pray too that this glory may be manifested in the culture of life, brotherhood, solidarity, peace and justice, with a preferential and concrete love for the poor, through the witness of Christians of various confessions and communities, together with believers of other religious traditions, and people of upright conscience and good will. Lord Jesus, we are merely your missionary disciples, your humble co-workers so that your Kingdom may come!"
"This is my Body"
Something that struck me powerfully today was the holiness so present in Pope Francis.  He celebrated a beautiful, reverent, intimate Mass for all of us, completely absorbed by the prayers yet showing a love and excitement for us, waving and grinning as he drove off.  It's a side of the Pope that we never here in news articles, but it's the "side" of our Holy Father that truly showed me his holiness and fatherliness!  It was beautiful, awesome, fun, and another one of those amazing experiences that I've been blessed with over here!  

Let's go convert the world!


























 
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Serving for the Pope II - God's Generosity

This is a write-up I did for the Quincy Herald Whig about a month ago (they surprised me by requesting a reflection on my opportunity to serve for the Pope, so I wrote this up for them).  They published it back then in part, but here is the entire reflection (kind of a different angle than my previous post about the Mass).  In other news, I finished my oral final in Fundamental Theology, which went really well - as far as I could tell - even though I ended up taking it in Italian, as well as the one in Hebrew, which also went well (good to be done with a couple more!)  Christology is tomorrow, and is said to be one of the harder ones, so I'll be studying a good bit today and praying tomorrow!
 
“The patience of God” – God’s immense love and generosity towards us – was a point that Pope Francis returned to again and again during his homily for Christmas. It was also the idea that was running through my mind as I knelt there – in Rome, in St. Peter’s Basilica, in the first row of chairs behind Bernini’s immense baldacchino, serving Christmas Mass for the pope,– as the Holy Father pronounced the words of consecration, “This is my body… This is my blood…”, repeating the words that Our Lord pronounced so long ago, transforming, as Jesus promised, the host into Our Lord’s body, and the wine into His blood. It was an incredible moment!

Before my eyes flashed past the last several years of my life. My moving from being homeschooled, to attending community college in Quincy, to finally getting up the gumption to enter seminary and follow His “call”, discerning whether the desire in my heart to become a priest was also God’s will. I entered Bishop Bruté College Seminary in Indianapolis, studying for the diocese of Springfield, IL, in August of 2012, and Our Lord immediately made that patient, generous, love immensely evident to me. He graced me with tremendous growth in prayer, and my personal relationship with Him, with a sincere enjoyment of, and progress in, my philosophy studies, with the friendships, and fun, of being surrounded by dozens of other excellent, joyous, and eager seminarians, as well as so many other moments of excitement and happiness (sports, youth-rallies, skydiving, bar-b-quing, and so much more). God, though, has continued to amaze and astound me with His generosity because now I have been given the marvelous opportunity to study theology in Rome, here at the North American College. It’s as if Our Lord has “upped the ante”, drawing me into even deeper prayer through the magnificent churches, beautiful art, and proximity to the saints that one finds here, putting me in phenomenal, interesting, and edifying classes, surrounding me with another outstanding group of friends, classmates, and brothers, and – like this past evening – filling my days with once-in-a-lifetime opportunities of all sorts.


Washing the Pope's Hands!


At the end of the ceremony, as the choir triumphantly sang “Adeste Fidelis” during the procession out of the packed basilica, and the Pope carried the statue of the Baby Jesus to the crèche, my mind was distracted with the growing fatigue of my arms. Those processional candles were beautiful alright, but they were also heavy, and not being the tallest of the group, I had to hold mine at an uncomfortably high position, further hastening the buildup of lactic acid in my muscles... But then I glanced around and realized for the umpteenth time during that Mass that I was in St. Peter’s Basilica, mere feet from the Pope, Christ’s vicar, and celebrating the beautiful and awesome feast of Our Lord’s birth. It was a situation that reminded me, again, of everything that had happened over the last several years. It hasn’t always been easy – those philosophy classes were tough, and the theology ones in Italian are even more difficult, prayer hasn’t always felt fruitful, and so often I’m too tired to truly raise my mind to God, sometimes those other guys got on my nerves, and saying goodbye to come over to Rome certainly wasn’t easy – but in every moment, fun and stressful, easy and hard, exciting and exhausting, I can see God’s providence constantly guiding me down the way He wants me to take, making me the individual He wants me to be. Getting drawn closer to Jesus, and His joy, means being drawn closer to the cross, and further away from my own selfishness, laziness, fears, and desires. Those shepherds got to meet Christ their savior, but only after getting over there fears and trekking down into town, out of their way, to find Him. I got to serve Mass for the Pope, but only if I sweated a bit and carried around that heavy candle. As Pope Francis emphasized, God is immensely patient: this is what Christmas is all about! God humbly, innocently, without coercion, becomes one of us, to show us His love and draw us to Himself. All those incredible blessings, and difficult struggles, that I have experienced, have been His gifts – sometimes humble, sometimes frightening, sometimes small, sometimes big – and through them, God continues, ever so gently, to direct me towards his will. As it turns out, life as a seminarian here in Rome is very much like that Mass: an incredible, awesome, fun, and life-changing experience, but requiring a little soreness and trepidation as part of the process.

Not only was it incredible to be there – serving Mass for the Pope – but it was even more incredible to realize God’s love present constantly in my life. Every year, billions of people celebrate Christmas – the coming of Christ, as a man, into the world, 2000 years ago – but we forget that He wants to enter our lives at all times, not just on December 25th. So often I get distracted by the problems and struggles of life, and forget to step back and notice how much He gives me, not only in the overtly blessed, exciting and joyful moments, but also in those times of weariness, fear, and difficulty, when He desires that I return and trust in Him. So many times I forget to thank Him, or forget to have faith in Him. Yet He continues to give Himself to me, and to all of us, humbly lying there in the manger, in the Sacraments, in the Scriptures, in the encounters of daily life, patiently awaiting our approach and acceptance of Him.

“The patience of God” – it’s something God has generously shown me time and again in my own life, and it’s a gift that He gives all of us. The extraordinary, unlikely, and wonderful experience of serving Christmas Mass at St. Peter’s, for Pope Francis, has reminded me yet again of the profound truth in the saying “God will not be outdone in generosity”. You don’t, though, need to serve in a Papal Mass to see that: at Christmas we celebrate the even more extraordinary, unlikely, and wonderful event of God becoming man, of Jesus being born. That event, the coming of Christ into our world, also requires a bit of sacrifice on our part (to open ourselves up to Him), but it, even more than Mass with Pope Francis, or living in Rome, is totally worth it! 

I have ordered some "official" pictures of the Mass so hopefully in the coming weeks I can get those up here - they're a lot better than a screen-grab from the YouTube video...  Still, the experience is more important than the pictures, so I wanted to get this post up here.
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Thomas Aquinas on Nature/Grace and Faith/Reason (Videos)

Yesterday was the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas (awesome dude!), and so I thought it would be apropos to post some videos on him and his thinking.  The first one, from Taylor Marshall, speaks about Thomas's insight into human nature regarding how grace builds on nature - we're good, but fallen, and grace is what transforms, perfects, and strengthens us.  Yesterday I posted about serving for Pope Francis and how the experience made me realize - you know - the humanness of our Holy Father, and thus that we need to pray for him, and so the video seemed to be especially fitting.  The second one is from Fr. Barron and shows why Thomas's thought still is hugely important today because: (1) he shows that all truth is one - that thus faith and revelation are not only compatible with reason and science, but that they work together, and strengthen each other, (2) his proof of God based on contingency - that things rely on other things for their existence, but that at some point we have to reach some non-contingent, non-created, non-limited "thing" (which is God) or else nothing would exist at all, and (3) Thomas's explanation of us as human - and how that humanity was transformed by the incarnation of Christ, and thus makes Christian humanism, our view of the goodness of man, above that of any secular thinker.  This also goes along with stuff happening in my life - especially the material I'm studying in fundamental theology regarding faith, reason, revelation, the church (and other such important things...), as well as a fascinating conversation I had yesterday with some guys about what Christ would have known  (being both fully human and fully divine), and how that might "work" now that he has a glorified body (a topic that then went into the existence of matter outside of time and quantum states and stuff - it was great, science and faith together!) 

Enjoy!  And keep me in your prayers!
 
Back to paper writing (on modern biblical scholarship: specifically the last 200 years or so of work on understanding the formation of the Pentateuch) and studying (for Fundamental Theology)  It's so cool, I'm studying theology!
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Serving for the Pope - Awesome in More Ways Than Meets the Eye

So, I've come to the conclusion that gazillion-word blog posts are not a good thing (primarily because they take forever for me to write - so I don't often write them - but also because they take a long time to read - and most of you folks don't have an over-abundance of time, so here's a short post about my serving for the Pope this past Christmas).  I'm currently  in the midst of 2-3 weeks of oral finals (the 6 of them are spaced out pretty well - which is nice because there's less stress, but not-so-nice because it means I'm doing finals for 3 weeks...), but since my next one isn't until Friday, I decided to get an update out...
 
Background: a group of guys from Brute were going to be coming to Rome after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and so I stuck around here for the first week of Christmas break so that I could show them around and hang out with them while they were here.  Obviously, I wasn't going to miss the chance to spend time with them, and I was also pretty pumped to be able to experience Rome around Christmas and show them around the city that I had been enjoying for the past few months, but those reasons would quickly be over-shadowed by a certain even-more-amazing blessing that was given us...
 
My task, in the months leading up to their trip here, was to line up the things we'd be seeing/doing while they were here, so - besides tours of St. John Lateran's, St. Mary Major, St. Peter's, the Scavi, a trip to Assisi, different walks around Rome to see other churches, and the coliseum, and stuff like that - I also wanted to get them tickets to attend Midnight (actually 9:30 PM) Mass on Christmas at St. Peter's.  So, I contacted the sisters at the Casa Santa Maria (located right next to the Gregorian, it was the NAC before it moved up here on the Janiculum, and these days it's the house of further studies for American priests, and the place where the sisters work to line things up for American pilgrims/tourists in Rome).  Basically, I contacted them to request tickets for the 9 of us seminarians and to check into how Fr. Bob (the rector at Brute) could be able to concelebrate at Christmas Mass.  As it turned out - a couple of weeks later - the sisters were unable to get tickets for us to attend Mass (they didn't get very many this year), but Fr. Bob, who had meanwhile contacted the liturgical folks over at St. Peter's, had gotten a ticket to concelebrate and permission for us seminarians to attend Mass.  The letter, though, was in Italian, and it also - intriguingly - asked that us seminarians show up to St. Peter's the day before for a prova [Italian for "practice" or "meeting"].  I didn't know why we would have to show up for something the day before (it wasn't specific) - surely we weren't serving or something... - but the more I asked around, the more I found that there was no other reason for us to be there the day before unless we were going to be serving. 
 
Practicing before Mass!
So, long story short, we made our way into St. Peter's on the morning of the 24th, found Msgr. Cihak, who we were supposed to meet up with, and - after he asked if we were the group from Indianapolis - he immediately started assigning us different things to do during the Mass.  I was picked for carrying the 7th candle (indicating the presence of a bishop - in this case the pope), to hold the microphone for the deacon (prayers of the faithful, "the Mass is ended, go in peace", etc.) and to wash Pope Francis's hands during the offertory.  We were all looking at each other like - wait, so we're serving for the Pope! - and sure enough, we were!  We then had a practice to run through everything we'd be doing that evening (all the MC's made it super easy, literally, you just waited at your spot until they came and got you for your next task), and then we were asked to show back up that evening early enough to run through everything again, oh, and so we could meet, and help vest, the Pope before Mass!  Needless to say, we were on cloud nine for the rest of the day! 
 
 

Waiting for His Holiness!
We arrived back at St. Peter's around 8 PM, had our practice, and then spent 30 minutes anxiously in the chapel of the Pieta (which I hadn't ever seen anybody inside of, it is all behind glass) for the Pope to arrive.  20 minutes until Mass, in walked the Vicar of Christ, and moments later he was walking around greeting us and shaking our hands!  What a moment!  Looking back, even after a month, I can't quite wrap my mind around it.  It wasn't just a cool moment because I got to greet the pope - you know, he's pretty famous, the head of the Church, directly connected with St. Peter, and Christ's chosen vicar here on earth - gosh, it was so much more than that.  But, so much more amazing to me than that, was the realization that Pope Francis is a human being like the rest of us.  Maybe that should be obvious - ok, it definitely should - and don't get me wrong - he's definitely been given a position, and a responsibility, way beyond mine, and I'd guess most of yours...  But, as I shook his hand and looked into his eyes I saw a man that was excited to celebrate Christmas, and tired from a long day in a hard "job", and happy to see us serving for him, and - in so many ways - a person a lot like myself.  I don't want to underplay his role in the Church by any means, but it was such an eye-opening experience to realize that he's not just a person that shows up on TV, or gives an angelus address each week, or writes encyclicals that I try to read.  He's a person with strengths and weaknesses, joys and sorrows, favorite
foods, and books, and hobbies... 

 
 
A couple months back we had the opportunity to go on a tour of the Swiss Guards' barracks, and the guard giving us a tour mentioned that from time to time he got to be stationed outside of Pope Francis's apartment, and so he got to know the Pope fairly well, including the fact that he really liked candy but had been told by his doctors that he'd have to cut back on sweets for health reasons.  At the time I chuckled with everybody else, but that little detail didn't actually sink in until I had the chance to meet the pope and serve for him.  Seeing him - up close - during that Mass reminded me again and again that he's a man like the rest of us -  and weak like the rest of us.  Yet, he's been given a responsibility - to feed Christ's flock - that's absolutely tremendous.  Basically, I saw that he wasn't some sort of super-human character, but he still has a super-human job to do!  He didn't look invincible, or for that matter terribly weak, he just looked really normal!  What I realized during that Mass was that - above all else - he needs our prayers!  How quick we are to complain about Pope Francis - he's too vague, he's too critical, he's too liberal, he's too conservative, whatever - but how often we forget to pray for him: for his health, and strength, and holiness! 
 
So yeah, it was an amazing experience to be able to serve for the Pope!  I was thrilled while I was doing it, it'll probably be one of my top-10 experiences for the rest of my life, and it's bound to make good homily material one day (God willing).  But, as so often is the case, there's so much more to each experience than meets the eye!  This is why I love blogging about these things, it makes me reflect back on them and see the deeper meaning.  Serving for Pope Francis means serving him in so many more ways than just holding a candle and pouring water over his hands!  It means serving along-side of him in the Church, in praying for him and for the Church that he is leading, and I am also a part of. 
 

Yeah, so it was incredible, and eye-opening, and inspiring, and profound, and awesome!
 
Sorry, they did take pictures of the actual meeting with the Pope (and Mass afterwards), but I haven't bought them, so I can't put them  up here, yet...
 
 
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Videos - Saints, Popes, Priests, and Christ (how do you beat that?)

It looks like it will be a busy week!  The last few days I have been in Springfield for the ordination of Fr. Steve Arisman and Fr. Seth Brown, their first Masses, as well as my admission to candidacy for the priesthood (a pretty big step in the process), all of which will be topics for posts later this week (one thing at a time...).  This post though, will just be a few videos that I have run across recently that you really ought to see!

Here's one from Chris Stefanick.  Gosh, it seems like most of his videos end up on here, but they are all so awesome and this one is no exception.  It's about Fr. Kapaun, a chaplain during the Korean war, who completely devoted himself to his comrades, showing incredible devotion and courage in caring and saving them.  But his radical love extended even to his enemies, to those who hated him, to those who tortured him.


Video #2 is from a project called one billion stories (tons of fantastic videos on people loving and living their Catholic faith).  It's a short snippet of a young man hearing the call to enter seminary, and become a priest, and how why he is willing to give up everything for Christ, who gave up everything for him.



The third video is the vocation story of Colin Jones, a soon-to-be classmate of mine at the North American College, who I had the pleasure to meet when he was visiting another one of the guys at Brute a few months ago (or maybe it was last semester?).  Great talk about hearing the call and conversion!



Here's a video - a bit different than my usual finds - that is about "cutting the cord" (so to speak) and getting back to having real relationships with people, rather than just the more artificial, less loving, ones that we have on social networking sites and the like.  Obviously, I think there is a place for these kinds of things, but this is a good (and funny) reminder that there should be limits.



Alright, here's an awesome video - really short - about the ordination and first Masses of several used-to-be seminarians, now priests, from the Archdiocese of Denver.  I don't think I know any of these guys personally, but the video is a powerful glimpse at the first days of the priesthood of these young men!  Phenomenal!  Sorry it's not embedded - I know it'd be easier if it was embedded - but I probably spent 15 minutes trying to figure out a way to do it, and it just doesn't seem to be possible/allowed...  Sorry (click the link though - it'll make your day!)


For a 5th video, here's some clips from the Holy Father's historic trip to the Holy Land and his meeting with the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Church (which has been split from Rome for almost a millennium now).  It is a powerful, uniting, and important meeting and 21st century technology means you can see it too!  


Alright, two more videos - both from Fr. Barron.  The first one is from his in-production series on the "pivotal players" (you know, important saints and other such folks).  It looks amazing and you can watch a few minutes of introduction right now!


And finally, the last video, the first part of Fr. Barron's talk on Christ, specifically focusing on how we need to know Christ as He is found in the Scriptures (both OT and NT), as priest, prophet and king.  Stunning videography, phenomenal reminder!
 
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Lent - Sacrifice must lead to Conversion

At Mass this morning, Fr. Joe connected the topic of holiness - found in both the 1st reading and the Gospel - with the focus we should have during Lent.  Even though Lent begins pretty late this year (actually, almost as late as possible), it has still managed to sneak up on me and it wasn't until a few days ago that I actually started thinking about what I'll be doing during this penitential season.  This post won't be so much about what I'm doing for Lent (that is still being determined), but just some comments/ideas about this season in general and things that I'll be keeping in mind over the next several weeks.

Fr. Joe made the simple point this morning that our sacrifice shouldn't be the focus of Lent.  Of course, the Church calls us especially during Lent to do prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, but this can't become the focus of Lent - they can't be the goal in themselves.  I know that for myself I often think that the bigger the penance I do, or the more prayers I say, or something, the holier I will be, but the thing is that we can't become so distracted by our external sacrifices, as good as they may be, that we forget that the point of Lent is to grow in holiness, to become more like Christ.  As, Scott Hahn explains, the point of our sacrifices must "indicate a deep, interior conversion."  In other words, the goal isn't to do some awesome sacrifice, or spend hours in prayer each day, the point is to become less attached to things that are distracting us from God, and by doing that become closer united with Him and His plan for us.  A new blog that I found the other day called "The Catholic Gentleman" (which seems pretty good after a quick skimming) says about penance that "When we talk about penance, we usually think of doing things, and that is indeed part of it. But our actions will be dead, and in fact harmful, if they are not preceded by an interior conversion of heart. Penance, then, is nothing more than an interior contrition of heart displayed through outward actions.  True penance flows from love for God and a recognition of the seriousness of sin"

Father gave some tips on how specifically to do this.  If you, for instance, gives up snacking, or smoking, or watching tv, instead of just glaring at the clock and thinking about how hungry, or bored, you are, go spend those 5 minutes in the chapel, reading Scripture, helping a neighbor, or cleaning the house -  something that actively brings you closer to Christ.  Basically, don't just give something up for the sake of punishing yourself; fill that opening you have made in your life with something that you want there.  Conversion involves both removing those things in us that take us away from God (certainly sins, but also other types of distractions or desires) as well as replacing those things with activities that do.  

Pope Francis talks about in his Lenten address in a beautiful way as us becoming poor.  Pope Francis has put a huge emphasis during his papacy on caring for and loving the poor, but here he takes the analogy and says that we all must become poor.  Not, of course, in the sense that one must go live on the street or beg for food or something, but becoming poor so that Christ can fill us.  The Pope quotes from St. Paul who says that "though he [Christ] was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich." [2 Corinthians 8:9]  The fact is that when we are rich of the things of this life we don't have room for the things of the next life.  When our hearts are consumed by earthly pleasures, possessions, activities, and other things we don't have room for Christ, and without Christ there is no way for us to experience conversion.

Conversion, as I have been explaining, has the dichotomy of having to give things up so that we can be filled with better things, but it also has the dichotomy of us giving up control and letting God work on us.  We can't fix ourselves on our own.  Scott Hahn goes this direction in the second half of his article; during Lent we need to learn to rely on God's mercy. I know for myself, I want to do things on my own, fix my own problems, conquer the world with my own abilities, but while this mentality works fine in man areas of life, it doesn't work in the spiritual life.  There is no such thing as DIY salvation!  Becoming holy means allowing God to transform you.  This is one of the things that Pope Francis was trying to tell us: we have to become poor, we have to learn to rely on God, in order for Lent to truly transform us.  We can fast as much as we want, but spiritual growth means more than having the will-power to skip that meal or not indulge in ice-cream.  

There are many miracles in the New Testament that show Jesus healing or raising people who are sick, lame, blind, or even dead.  The thing is that they couldn't fix themselves on their own.  The story that comes to mind is the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years, going to many doctors who could never heal her, but she is healed just by reaching out and touching Jesus. [Mark 5:26-29]  I remember listening to a talk by Venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen when he said we are like broken pots [found it!] and can only be fixed by the potter (God).  Furthermore, we can only hold the life of Christ, grace, inside of ourselves when our pot doesn't leak, and we can't fix our own pot!  (Bishop Sheen makes many other points from this analogy, but I'm content with just this one.) 

Alright, so I know that I could keep finding other sources to quote from, but instead, I'll just recap:  Sacrifice is essential during Lent - praying, fasting, and alms-giving - but these outward actions must stem from, indicate, and further increase our internal conversion of heart.  The difficulty of penance or how much time we spend on it isn't the most important aspect of Lent, rather the opening of ourselves up to God (and then others, which is where the rest of Pope Francis's letter goes) and working with His transforming grace so that we are made more and more like Christ is.  Good luck!  Don't be glum like the pharisees, that misses the whole point.

In other news: Posts have been pretty sporadic lately because I have been really busy - partly because we are in the midst of midterms - here's hoping that I can get some more up eventually.  Next week is spring break!
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