IT'S ANNIVERSARY TIME!

Adam's Ale is SIX YEARS OLD this February!  (Actually, this happened on the 3rd of February but I forgot.  That's 42 in dog years.  This blog is almost as old as I am now.)

That also means that THIS GUY is six years old:

It all started six years ago when I accidentally came across this video:

Then read her book and invited her to Cleveland to give some talks.  When she was in town she twisted my arm into starting a blog.  (Thank you Dawn.)

1,653, well 1,654 now, posts later Adam's Ale is still plugging along in its small little way. 

There have also been 7,519 posted comments by you.
The highest ranking referring site is our Akron Knight of Columbus and the Catholic Blog Site.
The page that keeps getting hits to this day is "The Official Prayer of the Catholic Church"
The highest ranking countries reading AA is the U.S., Russia, France, and Germany. (Interesting) 

Every year about this time I start to evaluate if this is the best use of my time.  I wonder if it is doing enough good to justify the part of the morning that I spend on it.  Fortunately THIS GUY:

recommends that priests blog.  And still more people read this daily than hear my daily homilies.  The only other thing that really saves it is that it give me a platform to address certain issues on which I would not otherwise have the opportunity.  So for at least the time being we will plug along.  If you like the blog, please consider saying a little prayer for it.

God bless & thanks for reading!


Fr. V

GIVE CORN YOUR SPORN

I have a friend (we’ve grown a lot since this took place) that used to think that it was hysterical to send his priest buddy suggestive material. It was never pornographic per se but it was highly suggestive. One day I had to say to him, “You know, I am trying to live a chaste life and you sending me these Emails is like sending pictures of bottles of alcohol to someone who is trying to stay away from drinking inappropriately.” It stopped from that day forward.

It is one thing not to trowel for porn or suggestive material on your computer. It is another for it to arrive from friends. It is not uncommon today for pictures to be shot from phone to phone. “Hey! Did you see this one?” No brown paper wrapping, no locked doors – but complete openness and acceptance of the practice.

Men: there is only one way that it will stop. It will not run its course and disappear. It will stop when you stop it. It takes courage (and who would have thought that there would be the day that NOT wanting porn would take courage?) There need not be any big production or announcement. Simply kindly ask that these types of messages no longer be sent to you. Others will eventually get the point.

Depending on your situation you may have a certain amount of grief dumped on you. But remember this, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” and give thanks that you were found worthy every time it happens.

Who does it hurt? Even if it is free and even if it is a picture shot voluntarily it still creates a market hungry for new models. It eats them up and spits them out creating an absurdly high suicide rate among porn stars. The money that is produced by porn is not used to support you schools or beautify your city. The men that watch it are not training themselves to look on women as human persons deserving dignity and respect. It steals lives for those who become wickedly addicted and not only their lives but away from their wives and children (or future wives and children – more poisoness than second hand smoke and far more insidious.)

And today it is becoming just as much a habit among women.

But it does not need to be so with you – from you – or around you.

Take courage.

GUEST BLOGGER - PRESENT AS PRESENT

Just in TIME for Easter CK, a regular contributor to AA, sent this guest blog in so that I could have this day away. Thank you CK - and well said!

Just about every close friend I’ve ever had has eventually said to me that they thought they were born at the wrong time. If only they had lived in a different era, they would be happy. We live in a time unprecedented in prosperity, scientific advancement, entertainment, communication, transportation, and care for disease and yet we are one of the most unhappy generations of humans that the world has ever known. More people than ever are suffering from depression and record numbers of people are trying to escape this life through suicide. We have so many things that happier generations could only dream of. What is it that makes our time in history, a time that should be utopia, so unbearable.

Recently my car’s GPS system (my most beloved modern convenience) took me through a very bad neighborhood to get me to my destination. I was relatively safe because it was still daylight, and at every traffic light I took the time to study the stores and houses and apartments. Most buildings were just boring cubes of brick with barred windows, but I was surprised to find some beautiful, stately architecture despite the shattered windows and boarded up doorways. Saddest of all were the stunning churches, their steeples piercing a lovely blue sky, abandoned and neglected in the surrounding chaos. I thought to myself how tragic that this priceless piece of sacred art stands scarred and useless where no one wishes to linger too long. Why? It is not the trees, or the streets, or the blue sky that have ruined this church’s vocation. It is theft, and obscenity, and violence, and sloth, and intemperance that surround this church and make it unapproachable - in a word, sin.

My friends and I were not born at the wrong time. We rise to the same sun, breath the same air, and tread the same earth as our predecessors. But every one of us is like a church in a bad neighborhood. We can’t find lasting love, and we feel so anxious and unsafe, and we don’t feel like we belong anywhere. It’s not the times that are wrong – WE are wrong. It is sin that makes this “the wrong time”.

If we all obeyed God’s laws of chastity no one would feel used or be abandoned and we would find true love. If we respected that life of the unborn, perhaps we would respect the lives of the born and not always be on the edge of war. If we sought first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, we wouldn’t put our trust in kings and princes, or money, or drugs, or any other false gods. We would point our hearts toward our true heavenly home and not this life and its passing anxieties. We would realize that the reason we feel like a fish out of water is because this world is not our true home.

It is we who form the times, and it is we who can transform them. Our dark times mean that every faithful Christian is a beacon that makes so many heads turn to see where they can find the light they so crave. We can do nothing, but God can do everything, and He can change the world with one person who cooperates with His grace. His will for you today is right where you are with the people you meet today. You were not born at the wrong time - this is the time He chose for you before the beginning of the world. God has to scrape the bottom of the barrel today to find the few who are willing to conform themselves to His will. That means that we who are weak, afraid, and inadequate were born for greatness. If we cancel out our own wills and embrace God’s, perhaps at the end of our lives we will find that we were noble soldiers in a great spiritual battle. Perhaps we can make the times “right” not only for ourselves, but for the generation to come.

YOU WILL BE TREATED WITH DIGNITY AND LIKE IT MISTER!

I used to work backstage in theater quite a bit before entering the seminary. Every once in a while someone would want to come backstage to meet one of the actors with whom they fell in love during the course of the evening. They would come to the door with bright eyes, shallow breathing, and deep passion. There were many occasions that I would try to dissuade them from seeking the idol of their dreams. “Go home with fantasy of the person you fell in love with,” I might say. Ah, but passion is often times not to be reasoned with and it takes no hints. So, giving in to the pressure of ardent begging their dream was fetched for them.

Quite often the person so fetched and the character portrayed on the stage were quite different people. One might be serious, strong, and brave on stage and the flighty, loud, and free from normal constraints of behavior off. So there was the inevitable crest falling of the face and the brave effort to still smile and have some spirit of flattery for the actor a that moment ago they were willing to stake the rest of the life in marriage with but now just wish to go home.

Though they had spent two hours with the person, they met a fantasy. They may know what the person who played the role looked like but they did not know the person. They did not love a person, they loved an illusion.

That is part of the problem – sin of you will – of pornography. It is not that too much of the person is exposed to you it is that that not enough of the person is. Here we find the difference between love (Scriptural love) and lust. Love seeks to give and lust seeks to take. In porn, an image of a person is taken completely apart from the soul and mind of the person, manipulated, and used to for our own personal means having nothing to do with what might be good for the other person.

“But they volunteer for it!” it might be said, “and get a paycheck! Where’s the harm?” The harm is wide reaching. Just because somebody chooses to degrade themselves does not make it alright for a Christian to participate in the degradation. (Because somebody wants to kill themselves or have an abortion or otherwise degrade themselves does not make Christian support of it Okay.) Next is our training of ourselves that there are certain persons, times, and places in which I might treat another human being without all of the dignity God wishes them to have. (A person who is nice to you but not nice to the waiter is not a nice person.) And lastly, even viewing “free porn” shows the producers of such soul rot that there is a market for such things and keeps the production in high gear and available to our children, the next generation of users.

“So, if you do not like it, turn it off.” It would be a swell thing if everyone could here confessions for a year. The seemingly easy mandate, “So turn it off,” would be exposed for the clap trap that it is. There is no freedom in porn – not for the producers, not for the “actors”, and definitely not for the viewers who wish terribly to be away from it forever.

The call is to love real people, appreciate real people, and extend dignity to all persons regardless of their desire to be respected, loved, and treated with dignity.

IF YOU WANT TO FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT, YOU FIRST HAVE TO FIND THE RIGHT RING

There are two major mistakes that people make when they fighting personal vices especially in matters of chastity. They are to be avoided at all costs for any number of reasons the most important of them being that they do not work and that they can be at least mildly heretical.

The first extreme involves the idea that, “I’m going to get all cleaned up and then I will come back to God and ask for forgiveness,” or even if one is inclined already to confession they have in their mind, “I am going to beat this FOR God.” Christopher West refers to this as “White Knuckling It.” “If I try really, really hard I will beat sin on my own!” If this were even possible we would not have needed a Savior. We are in a relationship with God a kin to a marriage. We would not say to our spouse, “I’m going to work on our relationship and then I will return to you and we will live happily ever after.” No, you work on your relationship together each aiding the other in his need.

In a like manner God does not expect, desire, or even consider that we could become saints on our own. He desires all of us, warts, bald spots, and all, not just the pretty parts. He loves us for better or for worse, good times and bad, sickness and health. We should not even try to hide or protect or deny Him access to any part of us – particularly those parts that need His healing!

The other extreme are those who cry out to God to simply take some disordered desire away from them. On the surface this seems like a reasonable enough request. “I want God want, Who I want to love above all else, to take away from me this possibility to love something else more than Him.” Yet if all of our inordinate desires were simply whisked away from us, if we had no choice but to love God, we ironically would not really love Him at all. In order to love one must have free will. If one has free will one must be able to not-love for it is only to the degree that one can not-love that one can love.

So the second step to healing (the first was to realize that healing needed to take place) is to find the right path. The right path is neither “white knuckling it” nor having our problem annihilated. The Christian’s path lies directly between these two and involves recognizing and engaging our true relationship with our God. We, the Church, are the bride and Christ is the Bridegroom and we tackle the difficulties in our relationship together. Before, during, and after every temptation to stray from our Divine Spouse we implore His assistance. He wants to help us and waits for our invitation. We need not be mavericks nor puppets on a string, but partners on our path to holiness and salvation. As Julian of Norwich explains to us that when we entrust God with our whole selves in this way, God, Who is all powerful, then can use that which is damaged in us to bring us more closely to Himself by having the very thing that is designed to pull us further away from Him actually catapult us more deeply into His heart. Such is the power and wonder of God and the frustration of the Devil!

Jumping on the right path may not get you home overnight, but at least now you will be on the right path and the possibility of getting home is greater than it was before.

1 CORINTHIANS 6:19 - GUEST BLOG

Today is a second of a two-part guest blog. If you did not read what M wrote in part one (or want to be reminded of which post it was) look here: JOHN 8:11. The first part may be a bit uncomfortable to read but she brings it home brilliantly as we travel her road to healing with her. This is a difficult topic. The hope is that if someone is on a similar path or contemplating starting down the same path, this sharing of her struggles might lead you to healing or to avoiding needing healing in the first place. Thanks for you bravery M!

PART II

The second healing I needed was from having pre-marital sex. When we were going through Pre-Cana counseling, the priest told us that if we wouldn’t refrain from pre-marital sex for religious reasons, at least do it because once you are sexually active you lose your objectivity about the relationship. Unfortunately, it was too late for us. But I know now how true it is…if you have given another person everything you can, if you have held back nothing, you can’t afford to believe he doesn’t love you.

So again, I went to the adoration chapel. Here is my conversation with God:

I need to be reconciled with my body.

I hate my body. I hate that it’s fat and ugly. I hate that when it’s not fat and ugly, it’s sexy. I hate that even when it is fat and ugly, it’s sexy. I hate that it is a source of sin.

Yes, a source of sin. It was a source of sin when I was young – I used it to get “love in all the wrong places.” I used it in desperation. I was so desperate to be loved that I sold my body…and my soul. Sometimes I think it cost me everything. I know that’s not fair. I know God write straight with our crooked paths – but sometimes I wonder – although I dare not – what would have happened if I had not been so promiscuous.

A source of sin…the sin of contraception, the sin of abortion, all the sexual sins. If I didn’t have a body, I wouldn’t be a sexual being. I could be loved for who I am, not what I look like or what physical ecstasy I bring another person. I hate that the first thing someone sees about me is my body – an empty shell. I hate my body.

If you didn’t have a body, you couldn’t get hugs.

I wouldn’t need hugs

If you didn’t have a body, you couldn’t see or hear or taste or feel

Don’t angels hear and feel (maybe not taste, but if I didn’t have taste, I probably wouldn’t be a food addict – so there!)

Angels don’t hear and feel and see the way you do. They can hear thoughts, but not the crunch of snow or the laughter of children. They cannot see rainbows or sunrises or smiles or a wink. They cannot feel the warmth of the sun or the bitter chill of arctic air.

I would give it all up

They cannot partake of the precious Body and Blood of Jesus

They dwell in his presence!

You do not.

I don’t care. I hate my body!

Hate is a very strong word.

Let me repeat, I hate my body!

Look at me.

Why…why do you always make me look at you?

Look at me.

OK

I knew what it was like to live without a body. I chose to live in one…

I didn’t!

Stop interrupting

Yes sir.

I chose more physical pain than you will ever have. I chose more emotional pain than you will ever have. I made my choices with full knowledge of the consequences, you did not. And I have forgiven you…your body is not the source of your sin, it is your mind. Your body is simply the instrument you use to carry out your sin. You hate your body because you want to separate yourself from the sin.

Hate the sin!

Separate yourself from the shame. Forgive. You were right when you decided that the person you need to forgive the most was yourself. Forgive yourself. Begin to reconcile yourself with your body. It is a gift from me…love it and use it wisely.

Love my body. What is there to love about my body?

It is relatively healthy considering how much I have abused it for the last XX years.

I can see…things I like to see – snow, flowers in the spring, the sun through the clouds, smiles. My children!

I can hear…things I like to hear – music! Rain, wind, the gentle breathing of someone asleep, a baby crying, thunder, a clock ticking, a cheering crow, my own precious name.

I can feel – things I like to feel – hugs! Smooth soft things like velvet, a baby’s skin. My own tears. Cold, warmth. Things I don’t like to feel, but that tell me something is wrong – pain.
I can taste and smell – chocolate, coffee, cinnamon, sweet and sour, bitter, salty. The Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

I can walk and run. I can use a computer.

But if I don’t blame my body, I have to take responsibility for my actions. Then I have to forgive me.

I have to forgive me for being so needy.
I have to forgive my parents for not knowing how to love me.
I have to forgive myself and my partners for taking advantage of each other.
I choose to let go. I choose to forgive.

GOD BLESS YOU

I can’t shake this image.

I was sitting in my place in the unused choir loft during mass a few months back at which was celebrated the Rite of Acceptance for RCIA. This is when the catechumens express their desire to enter into more fully the process of becoming one with Christ’s Church. As part of the ritual the sponsors make the sign of the cross on their person’s forehead, ears, eyes, lips heart, shoulders, hands, and feet. During this time the pastor is reading such things as, “Receive the sign of the cross on your forehead. It is Christ himself who now strengthens you with this sign of His love. Learn to follow Him. Receive the sign of the cross on your ears that you may hear the voice of the Lord. . . .”

Now, in RCIA there is a young couple who is preparing for marriage. He is coming into the Church and she is his sponsor. How moving it was to see her signing and blessing the man she intended to vow her life to and make the father of her children. The priest may have been saying, “Receive the sign of the cross on your lips that you may respond to the word of God,” but it seemed she was saying, “bless these lips with which you show me love, may they be chaste and may the bless our children.” When she blessed his shoulder the priest may have read, “Receive the sign of the cross on your shoulders, that you may bear the gentle yoke of Christ,” but it was as if she were blessing “the shoulders that will bear the labor of man to support the new home we establish in Godly order.”

A desire burned in me then. It was a passionate desire that all couples would love each other to such a degree that not only would they want holiness for each other but that they would take the initiative to manifest that prayer in such a fashion. I don’t have a lot of confidence in many of the things that we do in marriage prep but I do emphasize prayer and especially praying together. But this is even a step further.

I make this plea particularly to men (probably because they can be the least comfortable with it.) As spiritual head of the household do you pray daily for yourself as husband and father, and your family that they may be close to the Lord? Do you fathers bless your children? Unsure of how to do it? Get a copy of the Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers. An example can be as easy as tracing the sign of the cross on your child’s forehead and saying, “May God bless you and protect you.”

If you are not with someone and hope to be, start praying for that person now. Pray that God may bless them and that He may prepare you to be a good partner. And if you are single and plan on staying that way (like me) pray for those who enrich your life, especially your friends. How precious they are.

And finally may God bless you.

JUST ME AND MY SHADOW

N.B. – The following post mentions topics that sensitive readers might find objectionable.

Ask any golfer (or at least golfers as poor at the sport as I am) what will happen if, when they are getting ready to swing at the ball, they think to themselves, “Don’t hit that tree. Don’t hit that tree.” Unable to hit the tree intentionally on their next twenty swings, that one time they will hit it square in the center.

A spiritual director of mine once said this is due to the body’s inability to hear the word, “Don’t”. In effect, what was being said to the body was, “Hit that tree. Hit that tree.”

Many people try to overcome masturbation in much the same way. Christopher West calls it, “White Knuckling It”. We, especially men, grit out teeth, tense out muscles, and say, “I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to do it.” Anybody who works my side of the confessional screen will tell you that this method does not seem to work well. First of all, the mere fact that you are repeating this line keeps the thought alive, and secondly the body is only perceiving the positive, “I’m * going to do it. I’m * going to do it.”

So let’s say that you visit this sin often and want to stop. The first step is to stop punishing yourself too harshly about it. Be clear, I am not saying that it is not sinful, ripe for regular confession or that we shouldn’t strive to stop it, but that overly punishing yourself will only dig you deeper into it. Because why do people masturbate in the first place? Usually to feel better, to escape, or to relieve tension. What happens when you punish yourself too severely? You feel guilty, shameful, and full of tension. Well, what can you do to relieve these feelings? Ah! The horrible cycle builds on itself. So, take it to confession, keep working to eradicate this cycle from your life, but don’t over react to it – don’t give it too much power over you.

Next, don’t try to quit under your own power. Start trusting God to help you. Give the problem over to Him. Be humble. Ask for His saving help. Admit your weakness and need for assistance. Learn to rely on Him.

A priest once told us boys when we were growing up to run laps or do push ups to help overcome the urge. Well, that works as far as the adage “Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop,” but every little bit helps. And it helps to avoid being hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. But sometimes all these are out of our control.

It helps to treat your body like a temple of the Holy Spirit, treating yourself with respect and adorning your body with modesty. It helps to train yourself to start looking at others as human beings worthy of respect rather than sex objects (including those found in advertisements, television, and movies). That also means being careful what you watch and read also. Don’t place yourself in a near occasion of sin. If you know your weaknesses, avoid putting yourself in a situation that will exploit them as far as possible.

Other acts of self-denial help us learn the discipline needed to be chaste. It also helps to have a regular confessor, spiritual director, as well as a trusted friend so that the two (or more) of you can keep each other challenged and accountable to chastity. Deep prayer, perhaps holy hours, and use of the Sacraments are of course essential.

Saint Augustine once said, “The worse thing about sin is that the body remembers.” Some people have indulged in this sin for many years and the solution to getting out of it does not most usually happen overnight. One has to change his perception of humanity and sexuality. New thinking patterns during idle times or times of stress need to develop. And the start of the process can be painful. It takes time for the wound to heal and to gain your strength.

Why does the Church care about this topic anyway? Because it wants you to enjoy your God given freedom. If you know someone struggling with this issue you know that it is a destroyer of freedom. Like many vices, it is not something that a person chooses freely to do or not to do but feels a compulsion. That is not freedom. And when one is not completely free, that person cannot give him or herself completely to another. Nor can they find complete happiness because as with many such vices, it ultimately fails to satisfy. Our faith wishes to restore us to true freedom, joy, and honest fulfillment. It may be a hard battle to win, but the fight is well worth the effort!

IN OTHER NEWS:

I almost did not post yesterday’s quiz but I am sure glad I did. You guys had me laughing all day! C.O. I think had the best answers but Bob got it right. (I really thought it would be easy!)

The answers to yesterday’s picture quiz: These are different kinds of tans that are traditionally named after various jobs.

Upper left: Priest tan.
Upper right: Trucker tan.
Middle: Farmer’s tan.
Lower left: Man pretending to a nun in full habit.
Lower right: Lifeguard

Thanks for the laughs one and all.

MEN BEHAVING CHASTELY

"Is it even possible to write a book for men on how to live chastely?" This discussion was held after Dawn Eden spoke at the diocesan seminaries here in Cleveland. Dawn admitted that a large portion of her audience tends to be men who are genuinely interested in living chaste lives. And so the question is inevitably, "Why isn't there something like this out there for men?" Well, of course there is not the least of which is Christopher West's "Winning the Battle for Sexual Purity." I highly recommend this resource. But while believing that it is helpful, even greatly so, and that it is coming from a man who struggled, gained control, and written to men to help follow him (in much the same way that Dawn Eden's book "The Thrill of the Chaste" was written for women) perhaps it is not the most effective of means.

Maybe the reason that Dawn's talk draws so much male attention is that besides a strong, older, male role model that can take you down a peg if necessary (read: DAD, older brother, father figure who is present and morally fit) the other strong influence for men is women who demand to be treated with respect, integrity, and who desire to love chastely until marriage. No, men are not beasts who are always on the prowl and will take it whenever and wherever it is offered, and it is not woman's fault if a man should end up being unchaste with her, BUT I do think - IN VERY GENERAL TERMS - that men will rise to the level that is expected of them. And, if in general women think that they must be unchaste with a man in order to be loved, then men will in general oblige the experiment.

A challenge to some women out there: Write! Perhaps what we need is for you to write a book or an article to men about protecting the integrity, chastity, and virtue of the woman he says he loves: treating with honor, respect, and deference the one who may not only be his life partner, but whom he chooses to be the mother of his children.