MONDAY DIARY: ALMOST EXCRUSIATINGLY TRUE STORIES: TRUTH IN PACKAGING

Why priests at St. Sebastian should be thin and fit:

And why they are not:

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: FREEZE FRAME

Dei Verbum paragraph 12

 

A mother, seeing her son make an ugly face at one of his friends pulled him aside and said, “Son, I want to tell you a story about a little boy who always made faces like the one you made.  One day his face froze that way and he was looked on as ugly by everybody.  Do you understand what I am trying to tell you?”

 

The little boy thought about it for a moment and said, “Okay, I’ll go play with him for a while if he doesn’t have any friends because of his face.”

 

Writings, stories, and the like are subject to interpretation and occasionally we can divine the wrong message; the author intends one thing, the listener receives another.  (Just ask a priest how often that happens with his homilies.)  Scripture is no less susceptible to this.  Though it is God speaking to us, He is speaking to us through human authors.  If we want to understand what Scripture is really saying we must first determine the medium that the author is using.  The Bible is not a book.  It is a collection of books – a small library containing books on poetry, history, stories, parables, music, and the whole lot.  A parable cannot be read in the same way that a book on history is read.  And sometimes history was recorded in a different (but no less accurate way) than modern history is recorded.

 

That being said, even though the Bible is many books, there must be unity among them.  The message must be consistent from beginning to end.  And interpretation of the Scripture (held firmly in check by Sacred Tradition among Catholics) must be consistent from first century to last.  This is where the Church plays a vital role in interpreting Scripture.  And by “Church” we do not mean three old men in Rome as the common fancy makes it out to be.  Chesterton would refer to it as the democracy of the dead.  It is the understood experience of the faith beginning with Apostles, the early Church Fathers, the lived faith of 2,000 years of Catholics, and how Catholics live the faith around the world.  It will not be the case that Holy Spirit will suddenly tell the pope that it’s now Okay to have same sex marriage or that baptism should only be performed on adults.  That is not the experience of the Church going back 2,000 years.  To be able to do that as many Churches do, would be to say what was truth in 1592 is not true in 2004.  It would be just as logical to say what is true at 2:00PM on Wednesday is not true on Thursday at 6:24AM.  Truth is either truth or it is not.  Modern culture says truth is subjective.  (But then is it truth?)  The Catholic Church holds that truth is always truth and it is universal (or it is not truth.)

WITH THIS LUGNUT

Okay, I did NOT see this one coming.

 

Though I should have.

 

I remember having the discussion that if the definition of marriage was changed from its ancient understanding that was attached to procreation and family (or even sex for that matter) and base it solely on strong emotional bonds that it would lead to other forms of marriage other than just between two people and being told, “Oh no, that would NEVER happen.”  Well since then we have had the mother who wanted to marry her daughter in order to assist her in raising her daughter.  More recently we have had the case of the three women who married out west and one of them being inseminated in order for triumvirate to raise a family.

 

BUT I WASN’T IMAGINING CREATIVELY ENOUGH!

 

Yesterday (Wednesday) on NPR there was a story about the development of robots.  As they become more complicated and self-sufficient the question was asked at what point will they become “persons.”  The prediction was that their rights would develop over time.  Robots will slowing gain “rights” and eventually be able to sue.  Law suits could be filed not because the owner of a robot was seeking damages to his property but that the robot would be able to sue for violation of (his?) person.  The prediction was that 20 years following the first successful suing by a robot (against a human or another robot was not specified) there will be the first wedding.  (Again, they did not specify if it was between a robot and a person or two robots – but now we see almost anything can go.)

Here is another article on the topic.

 

Which all leads back to the sticking point: Once marriage can mean anything, it ceases to mean anything.

ONLY ONE PER PERSON PLEASE

“That’s about all I got Father unless you have some suggestions.”

 

Occasionally this is a statement that comes up at the end of someone’s confessing of sins.  And sometimes I might offer a few suggestions of commonly unconsidered things.

 

Here is one example:  Remember when you were a kid and you abused your toys and received a lecture about, “Do you know hard your parents had to work to pay for that?  It is not going to be replaced simply because you abused it.  You need to learn to take care of your things . . . etc. . . “

 

In a similar vein I ask, “Are you taking care of your body?”

 

ü  Do you get enough sleep?

ü  Are you eating well?

ü  Are you exercising?

ü  Are you following the advice of your doctor?

ü  Are you dressing modestly?

ü  Are you careful about using your senses in what you read, watch, touch . . .

 

Your body is a great gift.  Through it you receive all the graces of God and in particular the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ.  It is a Temple of the Holy Spirit.  And it was a free gift to you.  No matter how far science advances, you only really get one body.  Like the rest of your possession it should be respected and treated well, given regular maintenance (like your house or car), and honored as a sacred gift given to you by Someone you love and Who loves you. 

TUESDAY QUOTE OF THE WEEK CCCXLII

FINDNG TRUTH WHEREVER IT MAY BE FOUND:  "30  years of Our Lord's life are hidden in those words of the Gospel, 'He was subject to them.'"  Anon.

QUOTE II:  "The Lord is not calling you because you are the strongest, most talented, or most qualified.  The Lord is calling you because He loves you and He can work with you."  Anon.

 

IN OTHER NEWS:

 

You will have to do your own search for this week's video as the education filter on my computer will not let me post it to you.  (And it really is Okay!)  Plug in "Coffee with Sister Vassa" in your search engine.  There are a number of 10 minute episodes.  Please enjoy!

MONDAY DIARY: ALMOST EXCRUSIATINGLY TRUE STORIES: WHY PENMENSHIP SHOULD STILL BE TAUGHT IN SCHOOLS

When I was ordained my cousin handed me a cookbook and said, "You are now a public figure.  The only place where you will not have people telling what to do is in the bathroom and in the kitchen.  Learn to cook."  She was wrong.  There are people in the kitchen with ready ideas on how to cook whatever it is you are cooking.

 

So it is true, being a priest makes you a public figure and as such you must make certain accommodations to the people with whom you come in contact.  Sacrifices must be made.  It's the nature of the style of life.  For example, there are two types of people in the world: huggers and non-huggers.  I'm a non-hugger.  Huggers LOVE non-huggers.  It is like my dog.  He will find the one person in the group that does not care for dogs and try to prove to him that he is lovable.  Such is a hugger.

So there you go.  Over the years you grow accustomed but if I can avoid anything past the manly (with either sex) quick hug and two slaps on the back, I do. 

 

This past weekend I went with our youth to the Franciscan University of Steubenville's Youth Conference; 2000 very excited Catholic youth with all of the enthusiasm and desire to express their faith that comes with that. 

 

Mostly for the adults I think, they have emergency coffee stations in the morning.  Bleary eyed adults lumber out of the dorms like bears awaking from 6 months of hibernation (except in this case it is due to a distinct LACK of sleep) to make their way to the emergency coffee station to fill up on caffeine in order to make it through the rest of the day. 

 

But the coffee comes in Styrofoam cups, a thing I distinctly dislike.  Coffee is too important.  It is meant to be enjoyed and that includes the container from which it is drunk.  (Is "drunk" correct?)  Would you keep your diamond necklace in a shoe box?  No.  If the pope came to visit would you drive him around in a beat up late model pick up truck?  (Well, now that I think of it, this pope might like that.)  Just so, coffee should be drunk from a mug.

 

So I saw this sign written in typical teenage bubble letters.

Here's the problem with bubble letters.  They are open to interpretation.  For example, the "H" in this case could be easily mistaken for an "M" which, of course, I did.  Having a Styrofoam cup of coffee in my hands, this took place before I realized the mistake I was making:

NO POST

Travel day to Steubenville with out youth group!

See you next week on Monday or Tuesday!

AUTHORITY QUESTION

So how does one help the Church continue on her mission?  Every last member of the Body of Christ has a role in the mission.  What is yours?

 

The first step, according to Jim Lundholm-Eades of the National Leadership Roundtable, is to figure out where what your authority is within the hierarchy of the Church.  There are four types of authority.  The first is cultural.  Cultural authority is somewhat bred into us.  We respect teachers because we know if we do not, we will answer for it at home.  Little does a classroom of seven year olds realize that they could rise up and take over the school if they organized themselves.  In much the same way we culturally give some amount of deference to clergy and religious, usually amplified by a Roman collar or a habit.

 

The second is positional.  One listens to the manager at work because he has been placed in a position of authority and is able to call some resources to his aid when trying to lead the company in a certain direction.  Likewise priests or bishops, or a mother superior (or the parish secretary for that matter) etc has some given authority because of the role in which they have been placed.

 

Relational is the third.  Because you have a relationship with a person you also have some influence over them.  If your son asked you for twenty dollars for gas to get to school (assuming he doesn’t do it too often) you might be more inclined to give it to him than someone walking up to your table at a restaurant and saying, “Hey, can I have $20?”  Likewise, getting someone to go to Church is more effectively accomplished by a friends saying, “Hey, wanna come to Mass with me?” rather than a billboard that says, “Hey!  Come to Mass!”

 

And finally there is competency.  This person has authority because they are good at what they do.  You go to the dentist and listen to what he tells you because he knows about teeth.  As highly as I think of our facilities manager, even if he said to me, “Father, I have a pair of pliers and I could rip that tooth out of your head for you for a fraction of the price” I would not listen to him.  Hence, they guy who knows how to fix the boiler in the Church should have more authority over the boiler than the parochial vicar.

 

So if these are the areas of authority within the Church, the first step is figuring out where in this system you fit.  Most laity will find themselves in the relational and competency areas of authority though occasionally in the other areas.  Understanding this allows one to understand his or her responsibilities.  After that, it is best to memorize the sobriety prayer, “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”  It is also good to remember that despite human beings being involved in the running of the Church for over 2000 years, she is still here and still strong.  Evidence enough that it is the Holy Spirit running the ship and can magnify and purify our feeble efforts.

A TEST EVEN THOUGH SCHOOL IS OUT

Is your vision of who you are the same vision your friends have of you?

 

Are you as happy as you can be?

 

What kind of cabbage are you most like?

 

So, I fall for those tests that used to be in magazines that are now mostly on-line in which you answer a few questions and they tell you what character you are most like from the movie “Princess Bride” or what career choice would be best for you.

 

I fell into taking one from the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management which is a tool to help determine how healthy your parish is.  The answers were not quick and easy however and I think this may be a project I give to Parish Pastoral Council to tackle.

 

There was a presentation by the service director of the Roundtable, Mr. Jim Lundholm-Eades at the last First Friday Club of Akron.  They have past talks on line on their website HERE and this is one I would recommend though I don't think it has made it to the site yet.  Part of the talk was discerning how healthy a parish is.  A healthy parish is like a healthy marriage; when the couple’s relationship is healthy, their love then spills out to others.  When a parish is healthy, instead of being insular its ministry begins to spill out to the community.  It is like the love of God.  One of the explanations of creation is that it is an overflow of the love within the Trinity.

 

There are smart parishes.  These parishes have a vision and a plan for the future.  They understand that they can no longer just simply open their doors and people will walk in.  There must be a presence in the community (which in business they call marketing.)  They are financially solvent and/or have a realistic plan to sustain themselves.  And they are technologically savvy. 

 

There are healthy parishes.  In a healthy parish there are minimal politics (there are always politics, it is a matter of degree), minimum confusion, high moral, high productivity, and low turnover. 

 

How out going, how smart, and how healthy is your parish?  If you are in the mood, maybe take a look at the questionnaires that the Roundtable provides that begins the conversation HERE.

 

TUESDAY QUOTE OF THE WEEK CCCXLI

FINDING TRUTH WHEREVER IT MAY BE FOUND:  "If you're going to move the Church forward do it out of love and not angst.  Angst doesn't work."  Jim Lundholm-Eades from the First Friday Club talk in Akron

 

QUOTE II:  "Deal with the Church as it is.  Not as you want it to be."  same source

 

QUOTE III:  "You're Catholic.  Deal with it."  Mr. Lundholm-Eades' mother

 

IN OTHER NEWS:

 

From the Diocese of Cleveland Enewsletter:  No, it's not the parousea, it just sounds like it:  "Cleveland Catholic Bishop, Most Reverend Richard Lennon, has notified all priests and deacons in the eight counties of the Diocese that the diocesan Tribunal will no longer charge fees for marriage annulment cases, marriage dispensations, and marriage permissions."  Read more here.

From the same source:  Go here to see a listing of parish festivals and picnics.

Matt sent this in concerning Ascension Thursday becoming Ascentsion Thursday Sunday:

Victoria sent this in for Chesterton fans about the Chesterton conference in England:  "If you are feeling wishful that you’d been there, have no fear…. Nancy Brown has spent considerable time uploading videos of these talks to Youtube, and we thought it would be a great idea for local groups to know that these exist, and consider watching them (either together as a group, or individually before hand) and using them as a springboard for discussion at your meetings.

No matter how you decide to use these videos, if you will share the link below with your group members, anyone who watches them will be able to enjoy the great talks from this Chesterton Conference, without the expense of traveling!

 

To see the videos go here.

 

WARNGING:  I made the mistake of watching this while drinking coffee over my computer.  Don't do that.  THIS is why we have started the academy of Art and Culture here at St. Sebastian.  GO HERE.  (Thanks Adam)  For the safety of all, please make sure small children and animals are not present when you listen to this.

MONDAY DIARY: ALMOST EXCRUSIATINGLY TRUE STORIES: HOW LAST WEEK FELT

This is why there were no posts last week.

This week should be better!

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH

Dei Verbum Chapter III paragraph 11

 

Have you ever been in a situation to give someone advice and in the middle of it came up with some brilliant insight after which you thought, “Where the get out did THAT come from?”  Maybe it was what God wanted that person to hear and you were the instrument.

 

In a somewhat similar way (only much more dramatically so) we affirm that, although humans put hand to pen and paper and went through the action of doing the actual writing, it was the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that caused to be written what was written as Scripture.  Not so much that they were simply enlightened but that the Holy Spirit flowed through them and on to the paper so to speak far beyond simply being a muse.  Therefore we emphatically state that the author of the Scriptures was ultimately God Who caused to be written what is needed, no more and no less.

 

As such we recognize the entire canon of Scripture which was brought together (ironically for Protestants) by the Catholic Church using Sacred Tradition.  There was no single canon of the Old Testament at the time of Jesus.  The Christian Old Testament canon came to form in the fourth century and the New Testament canon after that.  It remains unchanged in the Catholic Church to this day though 500 years ago certain books were removed from the Old Testament by Martin Luther for Protestant Catholics.  It should also be noted that he wished to remove some of the New Testament books also (such as James) but was persuaded against such action.

 

Interestingly there are some things in your Bible that are NOT considered inspired.  Some of the more obvious ones are the verse numbers and such.  There are other things, however, that are less obvious.  For example, the titles of the books are not necessarily inspired.  Who the authors are of the Gospels or the Acts of the Apostles is not inspired and in some circles debated.  In another twist of irony, it is Catholic Tradition that states the actual authors of the Gospels to be Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

 

To be steeped in history is to cease being Protestant.

HOW THE NUMBERS ADD UP

Remarkable things are discoverable at your parish if you do a little research.  On this 85^th anniversary of the founding of St. Sebastian Parish we had three priests return to the parish to celebrate their 50^th anniversaries.  They were all ordained on the same day along with another classmate who has since passed away.  There is a relatively well known picture of them just before their ordination day standing around a clock with the founding pastor of the parish, each pointing to a time on the clock indicating what time their First Mass of Thanksgiving would on that Sunday.  50 years later to the day they returned to have Mass.  But this time all at the same hour.

 

Here are some interesting things we dug up to help celebrate the day:

 

150:  The number of years these three priests have ministered as ordained clergy to the people of this diocese.  That is a century and a half!

 

51:  Another priest ordained from this parish a year before joined them.

 

201: The total number of years of them together.  This is almost as many years as there has been a United States of America.

 

As a side note, there was a visiting missionary that weekend also who was celebrating 52 years and I could through in my very modest 16 as of tomorrow bringing the total number of years in the sanctuary to 269!

 

27:  The total number of men ordained to the priesthood from this parish since its inception in 1928.

 

1,214:  This number represents the total number of years priests ordained from this parish have served SO FAR.  That’s a millennium and a lot of spare change! 

 

2:  The number of seminarians currently in the seminary from this parish.

 

5:  The number of pastors that this parish has had over the past 85 years.

 

38:  This is the number of parochial vicars that have served this parish over the years.  38 men were supported by their parents, relatives, and friends, were prayed for and encouraged by their parishes, to go to seminary and become priests with the understanding that they most likely would minister to someone else.  The idea is that those other communities, where they sent their sons, would also encourage vocations so that sons of other parishes might come to their parish and minister to them, making sure that Christ was present and given to them as Eucharist, to bring pardon to sinners, to preach the Gospel, to counsel those who need it, to teach, and to administer.  Remember that and pray for vocations, encourage young men in your parish, and foster a culture of vocations.

NOTHING NEW?

Perhaps you have heard the brouhaha over the new teacher’s contracts in the Diocese of Cleveland.  I do understand the angst about them.  Essentially there is nothing different about them per se, but on the other hand there is something very different about them.

 

What is not different about them is that there is no new information in them.  What was implied before is now spelled out.  A public life lived in accord with the faith was expected before and is expected now.

 

What is different is now it is spelled out on more controversial topics.  Living in invalid marriages, publically supporting abortion rights, and a host of other points have been spelled out more explicitly.  This is partly in response to the new healthcare mandates, partly to help stave off litigation, and partly to reestablish a stronger Catholic identity in our schools.

 

Is it a good idea?  Not being a lawyer or a politician I am not sold either way.  But there is an aspect of this whole dust storm that is coming to light that illuminates a profound misunderstanding about what we are (supposed to be) doing as Catholic schools.  A reading of some Letters to the Editor as of late give example.

 

One of these letters read something like this: “It is a shame that the Catholic Church is forcing the issue on what constitutes a good Catholic.  By limiting the pool of teachers, we will be missing out on great educators, which can only harm our schools and our students.  We want our kids to have the best teachers.”

 

Such a statement betrays a deep confusion of the nature of Catholic schools.  A Catholic school is not a public school, it is not even a private school, it is a parochial school.  Unlike public schools which are becoming more and more limited in passing on culture, discipline, ideas of right and wrong, good and evil, or even God, and unlike private schools who are there to simply provide a superior education (hopefully), a Catholic school is also about the formation of the human person, imbuing ideas of the good with very clear ideas of what that is.  She passes on truth, concepts of what is holy, beautiful, and how one should live embracing the respect of life, family, the dignity of the human person, and all that entails with the 2,000 year understanding of the revealed truths of the faith.

 

It is culture that we are passing on, not simply knowledge.  If it were not for the faith and the culture we would close our schools or make them profitable private schools as has happened to so many of our colleges and high schools. 

 

So let’s say there is a police officer that comes to your child’s school to teach about staying off of drugs.  He is very effective.  The kids love him.  He is popular with the parents.  But he also has a website promoting illegal drug use and the kids know it.  He admitted to the kids that he regularly uses drugs though they should stay off of them.  He was quoted in the newspaper as saying that drugs should be made legal and available.  No matter how good he is in the classroom and while in the school building, do you really want him teaching your kids about drugs?

 

Our faith is a culture, not a set of facts in a book.  It cannot be taught like math.  It is caught, not taught.  No one can “teach Catholicism” while living a life contrary to it for then it becomes a dead message.

TUESDAY QUOTE OF THE WEEK CCCXL

FINDING TRUTH WHEREVER IT MAY BE FOUND:  "Earthly temptations come clothed in seductive guises but prove empty once they are indulged.  The things of God are often shabby on the outside but when embraced they prove nourishing and satisfying beyond all expectation."  from Eric Johnson's conversion story.

 

QUOTE II:  "We know the vanity of the praise of man, which is but a vapour, and buckle on our armour for other purposes than to win it."  from the "Talisman".

 

IN OTHER NEWS:

 

From the Diocese of Cleveland Enewsletter.  Bishop Lennon ordained 6 men to the priesthood for service in the diocese.  For pictures from the Mass and video click here.