Some of the words might seem foreign to our everyday tongue such as “dewfall” and “consubstantial.”  There will be other things that we will probably stumble over like the response “And, also, with you,” will be “And, also, with your spirit.”  We will start to remember the tough time priest had when they were trying to transition from saying John Paul II to Benedict XVI during the Eucharistic Prayer.

I do not claim to be an expert in this area, so I cannot fully comment on all the changes.  I know there has been much debate about whether the looser translations were beneficial or not.  Some of the negative ramification of looser translations could have lead to looser theology and less reverent participation in the liturgy.  Word have power, especially words that make up the liturgy of the Word of God”  As always there are people on both sides upset with change.  Some thing there have not been enough changes, others think if “ain’t broke don’t fix it.” (even though it actually could have been broke), some might claim that there should have been different changes, like the use of inclusion language.

The point is that we much side with the Church and not our own opinions. Holy obedience is a good thing!  St Benedict put it this way in his Rule, This message of mine is for you, then, if you are ready to give up your own will, once and for all, and armed with the strong and noble weapons of obedience to do battle for the true King, Christ the Lord. To be honest, it is going to be a tough transition.  I, myself, will be frustrated with my stumbling over the new translations, but we must commit ourselves to pursuing this new translation with a sporting attitude and letting the words of the Mass permeate our hearts anew!

It might even be a great opportunity for one to commit to going to Mass one more day a week (daily Mass is much shorter than Sunday Mass).  It is almost definite that those who go to Mass more often will learn the new translation faster.  And finally, what a great opportunity to challenge our hearts out of cold routine and really pray the Mass! Let us know if you have any questions about the new changes in the translation.  We will do our best to answer them.

God, being the Creator of nature, likes to get us talking about the weather. on August 5, during the papacy of Pope Liberius (352-366ad) there was a man who had vision that snow would fall on a place in room where the Lord wanted the Pope to erect a church in honor of our Lady. The Roman patrician’s name was John. His wife and him, had no error to their family and vowed to make the Blessed Virgin Mary their heiress. Pope Liberius and the patrician John had similar dreams on the same night and then woke to find an outline of snow on Esquiline Hill in Rome.

I don’t know if you check the weather in Rome often, but today’s forcast for Rome is 88 degrees Fahrenheit with 100% humidity. A miracle happen in Rome some 1700 years ago! Snow in August! Pope Liberius accepted the sign from God and erected a basilica on the spot which would one day become known as The Basilica of Mary Majors. The legendary events have become known as the story of Our Lady of Snow.

As I knelt down to say thanks, I felt the breeze of those who were scurrying by me to go pray before the tabernacle for the next 30 minutes the beautiful prayers of the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the Rosary. As Catholics, we are really good with vocal prayers like the Rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet, or praying all the prayers on the back of holy cards. We memorize prayers and say them with great fervor. And these prayers are powerful, especially since they are endorsed by the Church. I pray the Liturgy of the Hours, the Rosary, and the Divine Mercy Chaplet daily and still I find a desperate need for personal and quiet time with our Lord, speaking to Him as a friend.

The type of prayer I am speaking of is what many of the saints have called “Mental Prayer.” St Teresa of Avila said, “Mental Prayer in my opinion is nothing else than a close sharing between friend; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us.” We see Moses approaching God in this way, “The Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” (Exodus 33:11) And when our Lord says, “No longer do I call you servants…I have called you friends.” (John 15:15)

Friendship with God is necessary for the Christian Life, but how do we go about praying in this way. Here is a simple method to help with you pursuing friendship with God

1) Find a good place to prayer - This could be a prayer corner in your room, but the best place to pray is in the church before the Blessed Sacrament
2) Recognize God’s Presence - This can best be done by making some sort of act of faith
3) Read a spiritual passage - The best would be the Gospels or other sections of the Bible.
4) Put yourself in the scene
5) Speak to God about what you experience in your prayer - This is the most important part. This is the actually Conversation with Christ!
6) Say a prayer asking for mercy for your weaknesses and sins (this could also be done at the beginning…humility is a good thing!)
7) Make a concrete resolution and write it down!

Now, this is only a method. Prayer could be as simple as walking in and knelling before Our Lord and just looking at him and allowing him to look back at you, this simple glance of love could be worth a million words. There are many more methods by great saints such at St Benedict and St Ignatius. And if you are still struggling to find this friendship with God take the advice of St Josemaria Escriva, “You don’t know how to pray? Put yourself in the presence of God, and as soon as you have said, “Lord, I don’t know how to pray!” you can be sure you’ve already begun.”

Amen!

At the time I was a senior in high school on the tour of the many college campuses that I was visiting to see where I would pursue my college education. I distinctly remember driving away from Benedictine College and knowing that I had to go there. It would only be later that I would realize that I was responding the promptings of the Holy Spirit and the invitation of a 1500 year old saint.

Within 6 months of that visit, I found myself going to the Abbey daily and attending Mass and Vespers with the monks. I fell in love the solemn chants and manly silence that filled the choir stalls where the monks would pray. I found myself going there to ask God for forgiveness for my many sins and strength to walk in a lonely time. It was in the walls of St. Benedict’s Abbey that I met some of my best friends to this day and first came to believe in the Church.

In St. Benedict’s Rule, I found a masterpiece that taught me how to live! Benedict taught me order, moderation, and joy in sacrifice. He was a practical man, realizing that even things like taking your knife out of your robe before sleeping is not too small to mention. He understood the world would be changed through stability and obedience. We needed to learn to love each other and serve each other as Christ has charged us. He reminded us that wisdom often speaks through the lips of babes, so we should always listen to the younger in our care. Silence, humility, and constant conversion were his daily creed.

In our age, Pope Benedict XVI, has chosen for his namesake the name of this great monk. Some would argue that Benedictines were the foundation of which Europe was built and the reason St. Benedict was named patron of Europe in 1964 by Pope Paul VI. As we are faced with a culture that runs from commitment and embraces a false sense of freedom, we can cling to St. Benedict to help start to rebuild the world we live in once again. Today, as we celebrate his feast, we must pray for the courage to fight the battles in our own times, especially with the “weapon of obedience” (Prologue of the Rule of St. Benedict). May we learn from our Father Benedict, who is a great a patron our day!

St. Benedict…Pray for us!

]]> http://focusonline.org/blog/2008/07/10/st-benedict-changed-my-life-2/feed/ http://focusonline.org/blog/2008/07/09/gabriels-vision-tablet-just-another-scare-for-christians/ http://focusonline.org/blog/2008/07/09/gabriels-vision-tablet-just-another-scare-for-christians/#comments Wed, 09 Jul 2008 21:12:53 +0000 Matt http://focusonline.org/blog/2008/07/09/gabriels-vision-tablet-just-another-scare-for-christians/ Once again on the front page of national news media is another archaeologist proclaiming that his most recent discovery exposes Christianity as fraudulent. A tablet called, “Gabriel’s Vision of Revelation” is said to contain evidence that Jews 100 years before Christ were anticipating a messiah that would die and three days later rise from the dead. Israel Knohl, the scholar who proposed this translation of Line 80 of the tablet says, “Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus, which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship. What happens in the New Testament was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story.”

One catch is that the tablet isn’t a new discovery. The tablet has been known by archaeologists for sometime. In the first publication of the text line 80 was not fully translated because it was too difficult to determine what words were written. Knohl claims that line 80 says, “In three days you shall live, I, Gabriel, command you.” Not all archaeologists are convinced yet by Knohl’s claim, though some are and others at least acknowledge its plausibility.

This proposal, like the many others we’ve had to bear over the past few years, is really a questioning of the historicity of the Gospels of the New Testament. Whether the Jews were expecting a messiah who would die and rise three days later or not really doesn’t matter in the fundamental question that Christianity is concerned with: Is the tomb empty? If the tomb is empty, if Jesus really is risen, then it doesn’t really matter if people were expecting it or not. Some will say their expectations support the Christian claim, others argue that it hurts the Christian claim. Either way, their expectations have no effect on the outcome of reality.

It seems that the “Gabriel’s Vision” tablet shows that the type of Messiah Jesus was stood in contrast to the type of messiah the Jews expected. The tablet tells of a man who was leading a rebellion against the Romans. This is what the Jewish people were expecting. They expected an earthly Kingdom established by a coming messiah. Of course, what we see in Christ is a messiah whose ‘kingship is ‘not of this world.’ Who goes out to the ‘Hill Country of Galilee’, a place of revolution, and says, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Who tells his people to go ‘two’ miles when a Roman soldier makes you carry his bags. So, whether you want Jesus to be a messiah who is completely unexpected or a messiah who lives up to mainstream 1st century Jewish expectations, you can have both in the “Gabriel’s Vision” tablet.

In the end, expectations don’t have any effect on reality. The real question lies in whether Christianity’s claim of the empty tomb is true or not. The reality is that Jesus Christ walked this Earth and his tomb was found empty without a ‘reasonable’ explanation. After witnessing to this his followers spread throughout the world becoming the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. The Saints that have been raised up and the miracles that have been chronicled and witnessed too are innumerable. If it is all a lie then I hope someone proves it soon, but until then the evidence is too great not to react.

No one can read over today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles and think that Christianity is a boring and dead religion. What we find, when we open this small reading is fire being placed on the tongues of the Apostles, a thunderous sound erupting in their midst, and people speaking and understanding languages they had never heard.

They were inebriated in the Spirit, while men even thought they were drunk.

Now, let’s take a step back from the excitement. Where did this feast come from? We find two interpretations in the Old Testament. There is the feast of harvest, also called the feast of sevens. This is when the first fruits of grain were offered to God, but also it is the feast of Israel receiving the law and covenant on Mt. Sinai. The Holy Spirit comes on the day of the law, because the Holy Spirit is the new law. And now the law will not be written on stone tablets but on flesh, on our hearts.

The Holy Spirit brings life. On the day Pentecost, St. Peter preached and baptized 3000 people into the Church. This is drastic in comparison to Israel’s days on Mt. Sinai. After the people of Israel build and worship the golden calf, the Levites are commissioned to go and kill those continuing to partake in the horrific incident. They slaughter 3000 people on that day.

Jesus desired to send us the Holy Spirit, because we would then enter into the life of God. This Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts, gives us courage in the face of danger and many gifts to spread throughout the Church.

Finally, we should be aware that the Holy Spirit still works in amazing ways, even in our day. I have a friend who prayed over a man, who had been born with a deformed armed. Praying in the name of Jesus and asking for the healing power of the Holy Spirit, my friend saw this man’s arm be made new. The arm had no traces of ever being deformed! Do not be afraid of the Holy Spirit dwelling in you. Answer the promptings of the Spirit, for to do so is to set out on the greatest of adventures.

At first glance, we may be tempted to ask our Holy Father what he means by ensuring that young adults feel “ever more attracted by” the sacrament of marriage. Isn’t marriage a natural vocation and desire of most human beings? However, on campus, I run across a mentality of fear and apprehension regarding marriage.
Several recurrent sources appear to spawn an unnatural hesitancy to embrace the beauty of marriage. First, many of our students come from broken homes or homes where there is frequent marital tension. Even if the students’ families exemplify unity, most of their friends’ families do not. In our success-driven culture, the question, “What if I fail in my vocation and we have to get a divorce?” is a real fear for today’s youth. Secondly, in general there is a lack of commitment in men and women at the college age. They will not usually express the problem concretely, but they feel that their freedom is taken away if they do not “leave all their options open.” This failure to commit firmly toward good activities, responsibilities, and relationships also permeates their vocational discernment. Too many student have been fed a false mentality of total independence and unrestricted liberality, and they view marriage as restricting, limiting, and stunting their personal choices and development. The Ephesians 5 ideal of servitude scares them instead of inspiring them to greater love. Finally, men and women are confused by the gender and gender-role ambiguity that popular media proclaims as a good. Women rarely see men who they could trust as a protector and provider of a family. Men rarely find women who demonstrate through their selflessness that they would be ready to gracefully manage a family and support a husband. This brief analysis does not even include all the harm that sexual immorality and promiscuity has done to the image of what man and woman could and should be for each other (by reflecting the Trinitarian gift of self through a committed relationship.)

All of that forms a pretty bleak picture, yet I believe that we can restore the icon of marriage in our broken and wounded world as Benedict XVI encourages us to do. His predecessor, John Paul II, gave us a profound gift in the Theology of the Body. If you have not yet studied it (or one of Christopher West’s helpful synopses), I exhort you to do so.  Secondly, I ask married couples to revivify your own relationships and then openly share the joy you find in your vocation with others.  Too often I hear media showing the “disgruntled married couple” and I see married men and women criticizing and complaining.  Let’s restore a culture of honor that shows the beauty that a mutually loving and selfless relationship can be.  For those of you who are not married, start your vocational preparation now.  I don’t mean that the guys have to be making $200,000/yr. and the women have to be domestic goddesses with their own show on Food Network.  I do think that through prayer and growth in virtue you can work with God to become the person that He will place in His timing into a specific and beautiful marriage or religious vocation.  Couples, I ask you to be “witnesses to hope” in the ways you carry out your discernment together.  Allow your relationship to be outward focused in service (and not selfish) and invest in your friendship in addition to cultivating your romantic sensitivity to the needs of your loved one.  Gradually develop a prayer life together so that you know before your wedding day if the man will be a spiritual leader and initiator in your relationship and if the woman knows how to balance prayer time with a busy schedule (as she will need to do with a family.)  Love each other in a pure and mutually supporting way that will inspire those around you to be unafraid to discern their vocation as well at the proper time.

Marriage is a beautiful sacrament and vocation.  I’m not an idealist who doesn’t understand that every marriage will have obstacles and trials.  But God does not put pure desires and hopes in our hearts to frustrate us.  He places them there so we may aspire to the greatness beyond our natural capabilities to which He calls us.  He lovingly challenges us not to be “overcome by evil but [to] overcome evil with good.”  Do not allow yourself to be discouraged by the broken examples that surround us, but rather commit yourself to restoring the image of marriage as it was meant to be in the beginning.

In FOCUS, we frequently talk about the true and the good. I think 75% of my conversations as a missionary end up at least touching on a truth of our Faith in relation to some intellectual scrap from a class or mentioning a moral issue. However, rarely do I make a point to talk about and share a third transcendental–the beautiful. I was reminded of this by two things recently, experientially by an afternoon at an art and jazz festival with a good friend, Jennifer, and intellectually by a wonderful article I was sent by my “concert buddy” in Washington DC.

The article, “Beauty Goes Underground,” mentions a test done by The Washington Post last year. They placed Joshua Bell (a renown violin artist) dressed as a street musician with his Stradivarius violin in a NYC subway tunnel and asked him to play. They wanted to see if people were so entrenched in their daily routine that they would not even notice the casual concert in the corner, an experience that would usually cost them $100+ a ticket. Out of over a thousand people walking by in the 45 minutes he played, only 7 stopped to listen, a crowd never formed around him, and he collected a meager sum of $30 [he usually plays for $1,000 a minute]. Interestingly, the article also points out that almost every child that passed him tried to stop and listen and get their parents to do the same.

As a child, everything beautiful made me halt in awe. I still remember admiring a single blowing leaf for as long as it was visible on the ride home from school, and I vividly recall spending hours searching through our gravel driveway to find small “gems” of quartz rock. What changed? Why have we become so cold as a society? Are we really so busy that we have no time for the beautiful and only care for the utilitarian and shockingly unusual?

I propose that we reclaim the love of the beautiful in our lives. In the article, John Murphy cites Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete as “formulat[ing] the relationship this way: without beauty, truth becomes legalism and goodness becomes moralism. Beauty is how we find pleasure in truth and goodness.” If this is true, and I would assert that it is, than it is not merely good, but also necessary that we take time to incorporate beauty into our lives. How? Well, I began today by listening to my favorite men’s polyphony group as I made breakfast. Soon after, I took a deep breath of fresh air outside to appreciate the weather God gave us. After Mass, I knelt in front of a beautiful statue of Our Lady in prayer today because she lifts my mind to Christ more naturally than the “superman Jesus” statue behind the altar. I took some time to read some of Pope Benedict’s writings. Later, I put a beautiful piece of artwork on my computer desktop.  And on my way home, I paused to admire a brand-new family of ducks swimming next to my apartment.  It is easy to end a day saying, “Life is BEAUTIFUL!” if you only take the time to smell the roses.

Lastly, a beautiful life is an attractive life.  We are all called to evangelization, and an essential part of that vocation is to show others through the way you live your life and view the world something about how God lives and views His Creation.  God is the creator and essence of the Beautiful.  Let that divine attribute radiate through your life so that you may introduce others to the Source of Beauty.

This just in: Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman to be Named ‘Blessed’!

Being largely the product of a Newman Center formation, and somewhat acquainted with his life and works, I’ve long had a distinct admiration for the good Cardinal. It’s been nearly a decade since I first took refreshment from the font of the saintly don’s prolific intellect…

On a clear, brisk afternoon in the fall of 1999, I stood in the stone arch doorway on the east side of the courtyard of Newman Hall at the University of Illinois. I had gone outdoors to savor the relative quiet, the good weather, and some excellent pipe tobacco. Yes, I could have written “Confessions of an 18-Year-Old Pipe Smoker,” except that the narrative would have been rather thin. I had come to the U of I as an English major with a lot of idyllic (and antiquated) images in my head of what the college experience ought to look, sound, and feel like, and on this particular afternoon I intended simply to look at the world and think.

I stood there, doubtless in odd contrast to my peers: overweight, bespectacled, probably too young to be thoughtfully smoking a pipe, backward-turned Ivy League cap on my head. One of the most unfortunate things about my otherwise completely acceptable living situation, I thought, was that the hardwood-paneled lounge inside didn’t allow for my current pastime, else I could have been reading something (which would have perfectly completed the pretentious picture).

So, in want of more substantial reading material, I decided to ponder the large metal (bronze?) plaques adorning either side of the doorway. One quoted George Washington’s farewell address:

And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

The other cited Newman’s The Idea of a University:

Quarry the granite rock with razors, or moor the vessel with a thread of silk, then you may hope with such keen and delicate instruments as human knowledge and human reason to contend against those giants, the passion and pride of man.

While I recognized that our first President’s warning was well worth heeding, the vividness of Newman’s word-images impelled me to commit his cautionary gem to memory. I had nary an inkling then how much my years as a student–and later as a missionary–would be marked by contention “against those giants”. Still less did I realize that the most intense struggle wasn’t to be found ‘out there’ in illuminating the darkness of other souls. The intervening years have shown me the truth of Chesterton’s answer to the question “What’s wrong with the world?”: I am. The good Cardinal knew that conversion wasn’t simply a matter of neat formulas and tidy arguments to change the mind, but the more miraculous transformation of will.

I grappled off-and-on with other Important Questions during those shining years of student-hood: Why am I here? Where am I going? Who am I to become? As I stumbled through the fog, Newman’s famous “The Pillar of the Cloud”–suggested to me by an insightful priest–offered consolation I remember in my better moments of trust-in-confusion:

Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th’ encircling gloom
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home –
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene — one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor pray’d that Thou
Shouldst lead me on.
I loved to choose and see my path, but now
Lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.