Showing posts with label Pray. Show all posts

Vocations are Awesome!

On Monday night I (along with the other Springfield guys here at Brute) went over to a vocation night at the Newman center at Eastern Illinois University.  We prayed Evening Prayer together at 4 PM, crammed ourselves into Willie's car, and drove the 2ish hours it took to get to Charleston.  Of course, the ride was fun; we jammed to some music (I was introduced to the sound track of Space Jam, which apparently the rest of the known world has watched, but I haven't...), laughed at life, did some homework (I got, I think, 2 pages into a book...), and I took a short nap.  We got to the Newman center about an hour before everything was supposed to start, so we had an opportunity to relax a little bit, rearrange furniture down in the basement (which is also used as a St. Vincent De Paul Society, and so, has a ton of couches and stuff), and talk with Fr. John Titus, who is the priest for this Newman Center, and puts on this vocation night each year.

Around 6:00 (CT), people started arriving and I started chatting with (some of) them.  Pretty much everybody was new to me (though the other guys knew some people because we were only about 4o minutes from their homes), so I got to meet a bunch of new people.  There were 5 sisters there from a variety of different orders (2 were Dominicans, who were quite happy to find that two seminarians were named Dominic... )  Fr. Alford, the vocation director for the Springfield IL diocese, arrived right at 6:30 and dinner followed shortly after (rather tasty I might add: Jimmy-Johns, chips+salsa, carrots, fudge, brownies, and cookies).  I sat with a few of the other guys and a set of brothers who are in the process of (possibly) applying to enter next semester.  They are really cool guys, and we had a fun time eating with them.
After dinner we split into groups of guys (who went with the priests) and girls (who went with the sisters) and started the vocation side of the evening.  Fr. Alford opened the evening with a fantastic vocation talk.  Of course, I can't remember it verbatim, but one memorable thing that he said was that life is like a jig-saw puzzle.  It's up to us to choose who's picture we want to look at to fit together the puzzle.  We can look at the innumerable pictures that the world puts in front of us - cars, money, fame, whatever, or we can follow God's picture for our life.  Obviously, following God's picture is the best bet - want happiness? go to the source.  The analogy continued: the frame that we should assemble first and which guides where we put all the other pieces is our faith - it is within this guide that we need to fit all the parts of our life, otherwise our puzzle will never come together and we will never had a joyful, fulfilled, stable life.  Unfortunately, I've forgotten most of the rest of his talk, but hopefully you are able to get the gist - it was really great!

Continuing right along, after Fr. Alford another priest (of who I forget his name) of an order dedicated to Mary (maybe the Congregation of Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary?) spoke about the vocation of religious life.  Obviously, there are similarities (at least when comparing between priesthood in either case), but I loved his analogy of the diocesan priesthood as the Army or Marines - the usual hierarchy of the Church - and religion orders as special op's - filling a certain role in a specific place and time.  This priest was also the first to tell his vocation story.  He got interested in church music in high-school, redirecting his college plans from medicine (I think?) to music.  Of course, the story doesn't stop there; he eventually started practicing organ at the monastery/seminary of this religious order.  Soon enough doors started opening and he felt the call to enter the order... 
Next all of us seminarians told our stories.  Obviously, I can't recount them all here (I would mix the stories together), but I thought it was so cool to hear them all again.  The running joke is that the story changes a bit every time you tell it depending on the circumstances that are relevant at that time, and it is so true.  I heard different bits of everybody's story - some of us heard the call when we were young, some not so much; we all had different reasons why we felt we had to follow the call, we all had different obstacles to overcome, but seriously all of the stories were still inspiring!  Gosh, I remember when I was in exactly the same position as some of these guys - hanging out with seminarians, hearing their stories, asking some of the same questions... - it's so cool to be on the other side as a seminarian.  Man, it's awesome!

Alright - big, important, cool points of the discussion: Pray - a lot, that is the only way to discern God's will and have the courage to follow it.  Be not afraid - fear is never a reason to avoid or consider a vocation.  God doesn't choose the qualified, He qualifies the chosen - don't think we are all saints, or orators, or martyrs, that is why we have to surrender to God, so that He can make up for our lackings.  Watch for the signs - when you are discerning it is tough to see what to do, but look for where God is opening doors, putting a desire in your heart, telling you through other people, or giving you joy and peace.  Where are you most selfless? - God calls us all to give ourselves to others in some way, where is that for you?  No vocation is a selfish one.  Guys, you are called to  be a father regardless - whether that is spiritually (in the priesthood) or not.  I hope I didn't forget any good ones...
There you have it.  We probably discussing for an hour or two (time flies when you are having fun), and a bit before 9 PM we went back upstairs.  Every Monday they do a night-prayer-like prayer.  It was actually very beautiful.  They sang a song (that I hadn't heard before) to the Holy Spirit through several times (with different people harmonizing with it differently for each verse), then chanted a psalm (same setup), then another song (again, harmonizing it), then some intercessions (chanted), and finally the Salve Regina.  It was a bit tricky to catch the melody of each song in the first verse so that when people started harmonizing in the second, third, and fourth verses I'd know what to sing, but it was pretty.  It's really interesting, I usually wouldn't be into that kind of thing - too much flamboyance - but here I found it to be beautiful and a good 20 minutes or so of prayer.  I don't think I'd want to do it every night, but it was a good experience.

After this prayer we talked for a few more minutes with the remaining folks, and then hopped back in the car.  It was (obviously) dark out by this time and snowing - beautiful!  The ride back was tiring, but we kept the music pumping, prayed a rosary, and I drifted off into a nap for a bit.  It was an absolutely fantastic evening - man vocations are so cool!  Actually, despite only getting about 5 hours of sleep, Mass this morning was a lot more meaningful this morning.  I was just concentrating better, and praying it.  Gotta love it!

Alright, back to the books - 2 tests on Wednesday, 2 short essays due next week, and 3 long papers the week after that (though I have the rough draft done of one of those).  I can't wait until thanksgiving, at that point I'll just have finals left (should be easy... yeah...)
Brute courtyard with the first snowfall this year.
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Be Not Afraid – Be Prolife!

On October 22, 1978, then Pope John Paul II (newly elected) said in his first homily:
"Do not be afraid. Open wide the doors for Christ. To his saving power open the boundaries of States, economic and political systems, the vast fields of culture, civilization and development. Do not be afraid. ... So often today man does not know what is within him, in the depths of his mind and heart. So often he is uncertain about the meaning of his life on this earth. He is assailed by doubt, a doubt which turns into despair. We ask you therefore, we beg you with humility and trust, let Christ speak to man. He alone has words of life, yes, of eternal life." - emphasis mine
This short sentence has had a profound effect on my life (hence the name for my blog), and I think it is applicable to the topic that I want to address today, namely being active, courageous, on-fire, witnesses to Christ in our world.  Before I get started, a little background:  Yesterday night a bunch of the guys from Bruté (including myself), went to the annual pro-life dinner here in Indy.  The dinner was delicious, but the thing that had the bigger impact on me was the speeches.  The first, given by a high-school student who had won the pro-life oratory award for the year, and the second, given by Abby Johnson, who several years back had directed an abortion “clinic” before converting and becoming a pro-life advocate, were both pro-life speeches (go figure…)  However, what struck me was that neither of these speeches were patting us on the back.  We weren’t being praised for being pro-life; we were being called out, prodded, galvanized, to be more pro-life, more outspoken, more Christian.  I guess I was expecting them to just say that we all were doing a great job, that the people at the dinner were really generous donors, that they had more people at the March for Life than ever, etc.  However, instead the main message was “Wake Up!”, “Get To Work”, “Sacrifice”.  During the speeches I was like “huzzah - that’s what I’m talking about!”, but then I started to think about it and started to apply the speeches to me (instead of to everybody else), and I saw that I have a lot of work to do.  Hopefully, this post will turn out really good, but before I get going I want to give tons of credit to C.J. and Corey, who both have written exceptional (and I mean that) posts about this very topic.  They are faster at getting these things written than I am, so I am probably going to pull ideas from them (read their posts!).


OK, I began this post with the great quote from Blessed John Paul II, Be Not Afraid!  Folks, this is the heart of what it means to life out the Gospel, especially the Gospel of life, today.  Of course, I could boil it down the Gospel to something different (love comes to mind…), but here I am talking about the human side of things.  What keeps us from doing everything we need to in order to spread, protect, and relate the Gospel of life?  Fear.  We are afraid that others won’t listen, or won’t like what we are saying, or will persecute us because of it.  We are afraid that we will lost money, status, power, time, or friends, if we stand up for something that isn’t accepted.  We are afraid that we will lose something if we follow Christ.  Well folks, we will.  Christianity isn’t easy.  Jesus said pick up your cross and follow me.  Crosses were torture instruments.  (So yeah, not easy)  But, and this is a huge point, we will gain so much more than we will lose.  Look at Christ.  He became man, suffered horribly, and died – but then the resurrection happened.  Without the resurrection Christianity is nothing.  Not only would it seem that Jesus wasn’t divine (kind of a big thing, don’t you think?), our hope in an eventual afterlife and perfect happiness with God would be lost, and death and sin would be the victors.  The resurrection means that we can look to beyond this world, we can know that God has the final say, not evil, and that pain in this life can lead to everlasting bliss in the next.  Now, I’m not saying that suffering is a good thing in itself, but I think that when we pick up our cross, in this case our fear of loss (of money, power, or prestige) or doubt (of not knowing if we are capable), in order to follow Christ this is when He can bring about a resurrection, He can give us a 100-fold harvest, and He can bring us the tremendous joy of following Him.


Now wait a second, you say, – you just said Christianity was hard, it involved picking up crosses, and facing our fears for Christ, and then you immediately said that this can turn into joy – that doesn’t really follow…  But this is the deeply crazy truth of the resurrection; God can bring good out of evil, great positive out of great negative, great joy out of great sadness, great peace out of great fear.  This is where trust comes in; it’s not easy to surrender to God and say, sure, you can have my entire life, I’ll ignore the typical fears that I have and follow You.  The resurrection gives us this faith.  It is totally miraculous, supernatural, outside what we can expect, and in the same way, God’s ability to bring a greater good out of every evil, is something that takes supernatural faith.

I’m trying hard to turn this post toward what I really want to talk about – being prolife amid a culture that isn’t.  So, to begin this second section, another quote from JPII: Evangelium Vitae says (paragraph 82):
"In the proclamation of this Gospel [of life], we must not fear hostility or unpopularity, and we must refuse any compromise or ambiguity which might conform us to the world's way of thinking (cf. Rom 12:2). We must be in the world but not of the world (cf. Jn 15:19; 17:16), drawing our strength from Christ, who by his Death and Resurrection has overcome the world (cf. Jn 16:33)." - minor typo correction made
Obviously, I chose a passage that connected the first half of my post to the second, but I think that fear is really a huge obstacle to our following Christ, especially in the area of pro-life activism.  (Actually, I just noticed that Blessed Pope John Paul II connected it to the Resurrection – nice!)  In his post (link up above), C.J. said, echoing Abby Johnson, that the biggest problem that the pro-life movement has to overcome is apathy.  Corey, in his post on the same topic, said that we need to go from prayer and go!  What do these have in common?  Action!  Folks, don’t be afraid, don’t let the apathy that floods our culture infect you, don’t let human respect stop you from doing Christ’s work, don’t let hardship stop you from doing absolutely everything for Christ.  It’s time to be courageous (thanks Corey!), it’s time for action (thanks C.J.!), it’s time to get out there and fight!  Already pray? – Pray more!  Already sacrifice? –  Sacrifice more!  Already work? – Work more!  We are in a battle in which Christ asks us to give everything to Him, to trust Him in the midst of fear, hardship, and struggle, and let Him multiple are (all too often) pitiful bread and fish.  The eternal souls of billions of people are at stake, as are the lives of millions of unborn.  The respect of all life (including yours) is hanging in the balance.  Are you willing to give a bit more to save them?  Ready for a challenge? – Christ has given you the ultimate mission, get out there!  Talk to one extra person, give one extra dollar, pray one more minute after Mass.  Be not afraid!

This is a pretty good song for the occasion…  Enjoy!
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Fortnight for Freedom - Do Something! (June 21-July 4)

The Fortnight for Freedom starts tomorrow and lasts through July 4th.  Do something to stand up for Religious Freedom.  Spend an extra few minutes in prayer or fly the flag (maybe both!)
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Prayers for Boston

Well folks, I don't have too much to say about Boston.  So, I'm going to let the pope speak.  This is his letter addressed to the people of Boston through their Archbishop, Cardinal Sean O'Malley.
His Eminence Cardinal Sean O’Malley 
Archbishop of Boston
Deeply grieved by news of the loss of life and grave injuries caused by the act of violence perpetrated last evening in Boston, His Holiness Pope Francis wishes me to assure you of his sympathy and closeness in prayer. In the aftermath of this senseless tragedy, His Holiness invokes God’s peace upon the dead, his consolation upon the suffering and his strength upon all those engaged in the continuing work of relief and response. At this time of mourning the Holy Father prays that all Bostonians will be united in a resolve not to be overcome by evil, but to combat evil with good (cf. Rom 12:21), working together to build an ever more just, free and secure society for generations yet to come.
Cardinal Tarcisio BertoneSecretary of State
Two big points: pray and do good to defeat evil.  It's nothing new, just the same tools that the Church has been using for thousands of years, but it is easy enough to forget the basics when in the midst of disaster.  


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Pray Without Ceasing!

This morning for Mass we had the surprise (to me) of having a deacon assisting the priest.  In this case, it was a previous graduate of Bruté, who came back to visit, and was present for Mass.  Due to the visit of our associate vocation director (Fr. Daren Zehnle), the fact that I'm postponing working on essays, and other reasons, I don't have time to write up about the homily (sorry...).  but, he also gave the intercessions for the prayer of the faithful.  He had the usual: "For the pope, the bishops, and priests..., for the end of abortion, and respect for life..., etc.", but he also included a quick one about the North Korean dilemma.  I don't remember the exact words, but I found that the more important thing that it reminded me of was that we need to constantly pray to God.  

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18: "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."
Here is the problem: we only take spiritual things to God.  We beg God to make us more fervent, or more charitable, or more contrite for our sins, or to have a deeper relationship with Him, or thank Him for the sacraments, or praise Him for the Paschal mystery.  Well, all those things are wonderful, fantastic, just great. But God wants us to surrender everything to Him.  To pray to Him for help in every moment of life, to praise Him for everything around us, to thank Him for everything, etc.  There isn't some part of life that we shouldn't pray about, and I (maybe you too) just don't do that.  

"My Father, if it be possible,
let this cup pass from me; nevertheless,
 not as I will, but as you will."
- Matt 26:39
For me at least, I found myself talking about and looking into whether North Korea had the weapons capable to nuke us (or anybody for that matter), if we had the weapons to stop it, if Kim Jong Un is crazy enough to launch them, etc.  And I never put the issue into God's hands...  This one petition really stopped me in my tracks and reminded me of an important part of being a Christian: surrendering to God, giving my life totally, completely, utterly to Christ.  It's hard to do, hard to think about, and hard to comprehend, but everyone is called to give their lives to Christ.  Not just priests, not just nuns, not just the super holy, religious, pious, or whoever.  

Mark 8:34: "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it."
Yep, it's hard, but remember to read the rest of the passage from Thessalonians: 
"rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."  
Be joyful in following Christ's will for you!  We find the perfect example of this total submission to God in prayer in Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane (see picture), and remember how that turned out...  Happy Easter!
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