Category Archives: Spirituality

Through Nothing to the Infinite: How an Atheist Lead me to God

An atheist leads me towards belief in God during a tumultuous time in my life through his use of vivid storytelling within a deeply imaginative universe.

It begs the question of, “How can a non-believer help someone to believe?” 

Saints and spiritual writers often say that God can bring good out of evil. Evil is not just found in such actions as abortion, genocide, or slavery, but when any personal will opposes the Divine, however minor the act is. Atheism is that kind, ranging from mere unthinking disbelief to the more militant. God wills us to know and love him; atheists reject that will. I am not sure where in that range J. Michael Straczynski, the creator of the 1990s sci-fi TV show, “Babylon 5,” falls. He had a Catholic background but strayed from belief somewhere along the way. One episode of his “Babylon 5” drilled me to the floor with its consideration of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. “Passing Through Gethsemane” (S3E4) made me look at Christ’s Agony in the Garden from a perspective that treated it not as some pious event memorialized in the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, but a reality to enter into so as to ponder how your actions might manifest themselves.

Straczynski is an atheist, yet he treated religious belief with a respect at variance with today’s atheists. He regarded religion as being part of the human condition serving as an excellent vehicle to explore it.

In “Passing Through Gethsemane,” a guest character, Brother Edward, (played by Brad Dourif,) is a monk dwelling on Babylon 5 with other members of his order. He has a past, which I won’t reveal for fear of spoiling the show. (Although the episode aired in 1995, streaming services enable new fans to discover the series regularly. If you already know Babylon 5, then you know about this episode.) In it, he is asked by Ambassador Delenn (played by Mira Furlan,) “What is the defining moment of your belief….the emotional core…?” Edward replies with the background on Gethsemane, and specifically that Jesus knew what was going to happen to him. In a moment of weakness, he prayed for the cup to pass from him, so he would be spared the pain of what was to come, including death. But of course, he wouldn’t be spared and he’d be arrested. Edward continues with an emphasis that Jesus didn’t have to be there when the soldiers arrived to arrest him, that he could have left and postponed the inevitable for a few hours or even days. But Jesus knew what would happen and stayed anyway. Brother Edward concludes that he honestly doesn’t know if he would have had the courage to stay.

When I first saw that episode, that latter part blew my mind. “Seriously,” I thought, “does anyone actually look at a Biblical event and personally connect it to their life? As in, what they might do if they were there and then build their faith life from that? Everyone thinks that if they were back in Jesus’ days they’d of course follow him unhesitatingly and would never be in the crowd screaming ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’ But, to seriously meditate upon a specific event, dwell on it, and make it the ‘defining moment’ and the ‘emotional core’ of their faith life?”

Perhaps a digression into what my ‘emotional core’ was like at the time. I was ‘raised Catholic’ but left the Faith nearly ten years earlier. My prayers about some complicated desperate situations weren’t answered. I also coincidentally fell prey to some atheistic and libertarian science fiction novels that convinced me organized religion was a sham and a means of exercising mass control over the populace. So I left, and life immediately got better. So much for religion. (But I never became an atheist. I did flirt with libertarianism, though.) Flash forward to how I was when “Passing Through Gethsemane” aired and you’ll read a different story. Life had gotten progressively worse. I had relocated from across the country to escape some more complicated desperate situations (these had the habit of following me) and my ‘emotional core’ meant that drinking was defining my moments. Capt. Morgan and Jose Cuervo were my saviors; here I am being mind-struck by some monk wondering if he would have had the courage to stay in Gethsemane and await the soldiers to take him to his execution. Me, who defined courage by how skillfully I can smuggle bottles into the house.

You’re probably thinking that this TV episode changed my life right then and I found a priest, went to confession, and resumed participating in the life of the Church. No. Reversion was still a few years off. But seeds were planted that started growing, eventually bearing fruit later on.

The crux of this is that faith powers a spiritual life. What I learned from that episode, ironically written by an atheist, is that for faith to have meaning it has to grip you by the scruff of your neck, shake you up and down, and demand that it be lived and taken seriously. The kind of faith that inspires people to willingly sacrifice their lives, not the faux faith that attends Mass whenever they feel like it, or sets it aside when it proves inconvenient to their political or business choices. The latter kind is mental pablum designed to make you excuse your sins and feel good about yourself.

That was in marked contrast to the faith that I had. In the years before I left the Church, my Catholicism was broad but not deep. It couldn’t have done what Brother Edward did; intimately apply some event to my own life to create an emotional core that defined it. 

A faith that defines your emotional core such as what drove Brother Edward to contemplate his place in Gethsemane fosters the willingness to firmly plant your feet and say, “This is what I am about, regardless of the passing fancies of society or what the neighbor’s think. This is me, my self-defined ‘I AM.’” It confronts the crucial significance of belief and its consequences. This is the willingness to face down death; literal death or just those things which challenge you or can kill your soul. But perhaps more importantly, that drawing from this power and courage means you have the willingness to be a transformative force in the society around you in a manner best suited to your unique talents. 

That may have been what Brother Edward was wondering. Not only the literal, “If I was in Gethsemane, would I have…,” but in drawing from that would he have had the courage to face everything challenging him, both personal and external.

These are challenges everyone faces, and an atheist started me on the way.

Are you a creative Catholic? "The Catholicpunk Manifesto" is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone, perhaps yourself, who might like Catholic devotionals for alcoholics? Please take a look at my books! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

No Temples in Heaven

There are no temples in Heaven, not now, nor after the Second Coming and Resurrection of the Dead. This serious beginning belies a fanciful development.

Revelation 21:22 – “And I saw no temple in it. For the Lord God Almighty is its temple, and the Lamb.”

(Via Catholic Public Domain Version of the Sacred Bible.)

Why do I bring this up? Why, because today is St. Patrick’s Day. Although his feast day has no real connection in and of itself to the afterlife (apart from being the day of his death and entry into Heaven) it sparked a certain nostalgia for me because as it is St. Patrick’s Day, I am wearing a hoodie sweatshirt emblazoned with “St. Patrick’s School” across the front. That school was my elementary and junior high (middle school in some places) when I was a kidlet in Oneida, New York, USA . My Mom bought the hoodie for me at a Knight’s of Columbus Breakfast back home, about 20 years ago.

In my nostalgia, I thought about the long number of years that parish has been around (mid-19th Century) and of all the people who have been members. Those dead, those currently living, and perhaps those yet to be born.

Now I start to get fanciful.

I often think about what Heaven (the post-Resurrection version) might be like. Whatever form the “New Earth and a New Heaven,” might actually take, I like to think of Heaven as a place where all the Saved, regardless of the times they had lived in, can meet and come together in whatever manner and capacity that we would have. I think that is interesting, that we will no longer be separated by space and time. No longer restricted to the time we were born in, we might be able to see Earth as it was long ago, or far ahead. How else would everyone be able to fit? 😉 People can move in time as well as space, and with the eternal nature of time, cause and effect may be meaningless.

We can meet those who didn’t live during our time on Earth, centuries ago and centuries hence. Since time is different in Eternity, we can see Earth in various periods. Earth could be like it is now, albeit good and pure and everlasting. For example, one might travel to the space corresponding to Germany, in the time corresponding to the early 1940s, but the horror will not be there. A pure and paradisiacal 1940s Germany, stripped of the Nazi evil, would be that corner of the “New Heaven and the New Earth.” “All things are made new.”

Many of the Scriptural images of Heaven depict it as a feast. A wedding feast or other some sumptuous banquet. This next part may be even more fanciful, but the sentimental and nostalgic side of me thinks that while many things may be “made new again” in Heaven, what will become of the churches that once were? Churches, temples, and such have always been a part of human communities. Obviously there is no need for temples in Heaven, as we will be in the presence of God and can worship Him directly. Heaven itself is the temple. Here’s the potentially fanciful thing: I think that churches, and other places of worship, will be the “banquet halls,” where many of the feasts take place. Imagine that: you’re in Heaven, and dining at a feast. The “dining hall” you’re in corresponds to where your childhood parish was, or the parish you shared in adulthood with your spouse and children, only since it no longer serves as a temple of worship, it now serves as that place where all who were ever members of it can dine together. Across the generations and even centuries of time, all can continually meet and dine together in one continuous banquet. Come and go as you please, there will always a table, never any waiting.

Thoughts of Heaven comfort me.

The book, A Travel Guide to Heaven, by Anthony DeStefano, influences my thoughts. It comforted me greatly in the trying times after Mom’s death.

NOTE: This is a “retropost,” a post from an old blog I wrote on “The Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven (& Purgatory) and Hell” that I shuttered a few years ago. Individual posts are being transferred to either In Exile or Sober Catholic, whichever seems appropriate. Some are backdated, others postdated, in case you’re confused as to why you never saw a particular post if you’re a diligent reader. The process should be completed by early 2022.

 

Are you a creative Catholic? "The Catholicpunk Manifesto" is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone, perhaps yourself, who might like Catholic devotionals for alcoholics? Please take a look at my books! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Novena for Justice, Peace, and Creation VII: Our Lady Queen of Peace and St. Joseph

Today begins the Seventh of the Nine Novenas for Justice, Peace, and Creation, and this one is dedicated to Our Lady Queen of Peace and St. Joseph. It runs from August 13 through August 21, 2020.

I will not post this every day as the prayers and intentions are the same for each day. I’ll just leave it here for nine days; if I need to blog in the interim, I will just blog a reminder afterwards. For the background, please read this post (especially if you need to learn about who Bob Waldrop, the creator of this Novena, was, and why I am introducing it to you.) Or go here: A Novena of Novenas for Justice, Peace, & Creation.

Don’t worry if you jump in at some point later in the 81 days. To paraphrase Bob “just pick up whenever you happen to join in.”

AFTER THIS SENTENCE, THE WRITING IS ALL THAT OF BOB WALDROP, not me, Paulcoholic.

…

General Intention:  + For the creation of structures of beauty and goodness.

7th Work of Justice and Peace: Ensure fair distribution, subsidiarity, economic opportunity, justice, and food security for everyone everywhere.

Act of Caring for Creation: Get involved!  Support public and private initiatives that promote organic gardening and farming, public/community transportation, free range and pastured flocks and herds, energy conservation, urban agriculture, water conservation, local food systems, and community capacities for food and economic security.

God, come to my assistance. Lord, make haste to help me. +  Let us pray together in peace, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, help the helpless, strengthen the fearful, comfort the sorrowful, bring justice to the poor, peace to all nations, and solidarity among all peoples.  Give us strength to stand against the demonic powers which prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.

Open our eyes to see the beauty, joy, redemption, and goodness which comes through obedience to your Son our Lord.  Teach us to be a refuge of hope for all who are oppressed by injustice and violence.

Our Lady Queen of Peace, mystical rose, pray for all who create and sustain a culture of life and love that we will do so with endurance, hope, and abundance. May the candles we light glow bright with hospitality and hope, respect and love, peace and justice. Help us to turn away from war and embrace peace. Pray for us that we will reform our ways and manners of living so that the way we live calls for peace and not war.

Holy St. Joseph, Worker and Father, In faith you welcomed our Lord when He was yet within his Mother’s womb. You opened your heart in obedience to the Word of God. You protected Jesus and Mary and provided a home for them of peace, safety, and holiness. We honor you as patron of the Poor, and all who serve them, of Workers and Carpenters and Builders. Your heroic example shows us the way that we should go and we trust in you for protection in our time of need.

Holy St. Joseph, Guide and Protector, Open the minds and hearts of all who by their actions give power to structures of sin that enable oppression. Help us to understand the consequences of sins against justice, charity, and the care of Creation. Turn oppressors from ways of darkness, and help them to embrace the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Holy St. Joseph, help the helpless, comfort the dying, bring justice to the poor, and peace to all nations. Amen.

Novena to St. John Chrysostom on behalf of the
Bishops of the United States of America 

Most Glorious and Venerable St. John Chrysostom,
Grace shining forth from your lips like a beacon has illumined the universe.
It shows to the world the treasures of poverty; it reveals to us the heights of humility.
Teaching us by your words, O Father John Chrysostom,
intercede before the Word, Christ our God, to save our souls!

Pray for the bishops of the United States of America,
who do not teach or practice the Catholic faith in its fullness,
that God will deliver them to orthodoxyand reform their ways of living,
so that as exemplars of orthopraxis, they will protect all life,
from the moment of conception to the time of natural death.

Teach them true solidarity with the poor, so that they
understand the consequences of their moral abandonment
of entire nations of human beings to a collective fate of cruelty and violence
because they were in the way of the American Empire and
its gluttonous lust for oil, supremacy, and blood.

As you refused to obey the aristocratic commands of your era,
help our bishops turn away from the political demands
that cause them to preach a false gospel of moral relativism regarding war and peace.

Having received divine grace from heaven,
with your mouth you teach all people to worship the Triune God.
Instruct our bishops with the wisdom of the Gospel,
so that they repent of their material cooperation with the objective evil of unjust war, and call all people, in authentic word and deed, to live in solidarity, peace, and justice.

All-blest and venerable St. John Chrysostom,
we praise you, for you are our teacher, revealing things divine!
Pray for us that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

O God, Who by the preaching and teaching of Saint John Chrysostom
has given us an example of fortitude in the face of persecution and political corruption, grant that we who reverence his life and ministry may also imitate
his example of fidelity to wisdom, truth, justice, and beauty,
through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Our Father . . . Hail Mary… Glory be. . .

Thoughts for the Journey.

In the May 1977 edition of the Catholic Worker newspaper, Dorothy Day wrote about events in the first years of the movement. . . “When bills piled up and creditors came, we used to go to church and pray, all of us taking turns, and we called this “the picketing of St. Joseph.” Once when I asked an unemployed chambermaid if she would take a half-hour of “picketing Saint Joseph” over at Precious Blood Church, she asked me if she was to carry a sign.”  There’s been a lot of picketing of St. Joseph since those days.

St. Joseph is our protector and guide. Each time I witness a blessing of a St. Joseph’s Table, I am always moved to tears at these words of that blessing. . . “All-provident God, the good things that grace this table remind us of your many good gifts. Bless this food, and may the prayers of Saint Joseph, who provided bread for your Son and food for the poor, sustain us and all our brothers and sisters on our journey towards your heavenly kingdom.”

Peter Maurin used to say that one of the goals of the Catholic Worker movement was to create a society “where it was easier to do good.”  It is often not easy to do good in our society, because there are great structures of sin that make it easy to do evil. But the spiritual truth of this is that every act of beauty, goodness, and wisdom weakens the structures of sin that make it easy to do evil, and strengthen the structures of beauty, goodness, and love that make it easier for us to do good.

In this year of our Lord 2018  we are 17 years into a series of unjust wars in the Middle East that originally were to protect our so-called “right” to oil and now have devolved into something we do, you know, because this is what we do. One thing has led to another thing and each new evolution of the situation is met with more violence, more war, more death and suffering. We wage war on poor people and kill them. Violence rules the day. The US Empire is presently at the top of the world heap, held up by structures of sin created by wealth and demonic evil, but like all empires, we have no place to go but down. Ash heap of history here we come! Our national bloodlust for war drives us toward that abyss.  Discerning eyes can see the coalition that is coming together that will challenge us for world hegemony. Sooner or later the rest of the world is going to gang up on us and do to us what we did to the Germans during World War II: totally destroy our nation. “Sow not in furrows of injustice, lest you reap a seven-fold harvest,” says the Bible and the prophet Sirach was surely talking to us.  That’s what structures of evil always do — collapse, crash, and burn.

Where is the Catholic Church in all this?  It is a tragedy of epic proportions faced with unjust war, the U.S. Catholic bishops did not take a stand for the Gospel of Life but instead opted for a position of moral relativism towards the unjust wars of the United States government. This gravely harms the Church’s witness to the protection of life from the moment of conception to the time of natural death. We obviously don’t believe that that’s true for the people of Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, or Iraq. If the Catholic Church in the US actually believed in their non-negotiable right to life, our bishops would have forbidden participation in those unjust wars.  The right to life is supposed to be a “non-negotiable” tenet of the Faith, but if you live in Afghanistan or Iraq, or are a soldier of the United States or one of our allies, the U.S. bishops have abandoned you to the not-so-tender mercies of unjust war.  Your right to life is apparently trumped by the American Nationalist demand for war, slaughter, death, and destruction.

Peace is the fruit of justice, as Pope Paul VI reminded us. All people are connected, rich and poor. The Gospel and these times call us therefore to the work of justice, to the celebration of life, goodness, beauty, virtue, responsibility, and joy. As we practice peace, non-violence, servant leadership, harmony, community, voluntary cooperation, and the proper stewardship of God’s creation, we may eventually get good at it, especially if we pray without ceasing.

With Christ within us, it becomes easier to understand what is important.  So we always must ask — How is my life open to the reality that Christ is alive and he loves me?  Jesus gave his life to save us and our societies from sin and oppression.  Jesus lives today and is at our side every moment of every day to enlighten, strengthen, and free us.  Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, of our journeys of justice and peace.

Act of Caring for Creation: Get involved!  Support public and private initiatives that promote organic gardening and farming, public/community transportation, free range and pastured flocks and herds, energy conservation, urban agriculture, water conservation, local food systems, and community capacities for food and economic security.

Are you a creative Catholic? "The Catholicpunk Manifesto" is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone, perhaps yourself, who might like Catholic devotionals for alcoholics? Please take a look at my books! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Novena to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Servant of God Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin.

Today begins the First of the Nine Novenas for Justice, Peace, & Creation, and this one is dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Servant of God Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. It runs from June 20 — June 28, 2020.

I will not post this every day as the intentions are the same for each day. I’ll just leave it here for nine days; if I need to blog in the interim, I will just post a reminder afterwards. For the background, please read this post on my other blog, Sober Catholic (especially if you need to learn about who Bob Waldrop, the creator of this Novena, was, and why I am introducing it to you. In short, Bob was a guy I discovered online in the early 00s. He was the founder of the St. Oscar Romero Catholic Worker House in Oklahoma City. He ran several websites that are profound and deep in their knowledge of Applied Catholicism. A few years after I joined Facebook I found him on there and I decided to connect with him. From him I learned a lot, and it was the information on his websites that started to direct my thinking of Catholicism as something more than liturgy, sacraments and prayer. I had known that, but he (along with some other sources) gave some concrete form to my thought. You’re really going to have to read that post on Sober Catholic to learn more about him and his work. He died on August 30, 2019.)

The original novena site is here: A Novena of Novenas for Justice, Peace, & Creation.

Don’t worry if you jump in at some point later in the 81 days. To paraphrase Bob “just pick up whenever you happen to join in.”

AFTER THIS SENTENCE, THE WRITING IS ALL THAT OF BOB WALDROP, not me, Paulcoholic.

…

Novena of Novenas for Justice, Peace, & Creation I: to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin (June 20 — June 28, 2020)

“Getting Started:

Begin each novena prayer with a time of quiet prayer. You may find it helpful to pray some repetitions of the Jesus Prayer (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner), a decade of the Rosary, the Chaplet of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, or a time of spiritual reading or lectio divina that will prepare your mind and your heart for the prayer to come. This could be a time for a daily examen, where you consider your actions of the day and how they relate to God’s call in your life.”

General Intentions: For the redemption of structures of violence, oppression, exploitation, and despair with beauty, goodness, mercy, and peace. Reparation for sins against life.

The First Work of Justice and Peace: Live simply and justly in solidarity with the poor and marginalized and be a good neighbor. Make no war on them, rather, be one with them in spirit, truth, and love.

Act of Caring for Creation: Pick up trash in a public place.

God, come to my assistance. Lord, make haste to help me. + Let us pray together in peace, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, help the helpless, strengthen the fearful, comfort the sorrowful, bring justice to the poor, peace to all nations, and solidarity among all peoples. Give us strength to stand against the demonic powers which prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.

Open our eyes to see the beauty, joy, redemption, and goodness which comes through obedience to your Son our Lord. Teach us to be a refuge of hope for all who are oppressed by injustice and violence.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for those who serve the poor and who accompany them in their journeys; may we who keep this sacred commemoration experience the joy and love of the grace of your Son; may His most Sacred Heart, together with yours, pierced with sorrow for the evils of the world, be a sure refuge of hope in a time of trouble for all who are oppressed by injustice and violence.

The Magnificat of Mary. My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; for He has looked with favor on His lowly servant. From this day all generations shall call me blessed.

The Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is His Name. He has mercy on those who fear Him in every generation.

He has shown the strength of His arm, He has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of His servant Israel for He has remembered His promise of mercy, the promise He made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children forever.

Dorothy Day: Dorothy Day, friend and partner of the poor, guiding spirit for the Catholic Worker, home always open to the unwanted, early, often lonely, witness in the cause of peace and conscience, eloquent pattern of gospel simplicity, Dorothy Day, disciple of the Lord, may we continue your gift of self to the needy and your untiring work for justice and peace. Help us to follow your example and dedicate our lives to the creation of structures of beauty and goodness, wisdom and mercy. Amen.

Peter Maurin: Peter Maurin, Holy Fool, teach us to give and not to take, to serve and not to rule, to help and not to crush, to nourish and not to devour. As we create a new society within the shell of the old, remind us that ideals and not deals, creed and not greed, are what makes humanity humane. Amen.

Prayer to St. John Chrysostom on behalf of the U.S. Catholic bishops.

Most Glorious and Venerable St. John Chrysostom,
Grace shining forth from your lips like a beacon
has illumined the universe.
It shows to the world the treasures of poverty;
it reveals to us the heights of humility.
Teaching us by your words, O Father John Chrysostom,
intercede before the Word, Christ our God, to save our souls!

Pray for the bishops of the United States of America,
who do not teach or practice the Catholic faith in its fullness,
that God will deliver them to orthodoxy,
and reform their ways of living,
so that as exemplars of orthopraxis, they will protect all life,
from the moment of conception to the time of natural death.

Teach them true solidarity with the poor, so that they
understand the consequences of their moral abandonment
of entire nations of human beings to a collective fate of cruelty and violence
because they were in the way of the American Empire and
its gluttonous lust for oil, supremacy, and blood.

As you refused to obey the aristocratic commands of your era,
help our bishops turn away from the political demands
that cause them to preach a false gospel of moral relativism regarding war and peace.

Having received divine grace from heaven,
with your mouth you teach all people to worship the Triune God.
Instruct our bishops with the wisdom of the Gospel,
so that they repent of their material cooperation with the objective evil of unjust war,
and call all people, in authentic word and deed, to live in solidarity, peace, and justice.

All-blest and venerable St. John Chrysostom,
we praise you, for you are our teacher, revealing things divine!
Pray for us that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

O God, Who by the preaching and teaching of Saint John Chrysostom
has given us an example of fortitude in the face of persecution and political corruption,
grant that we who reverence his life and ministry may also imitate
his example of fidelity to wisdom, truth, justice, and beauty,
through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Our Father . . . Hail Mary… Glory be. . .

Thoughts for the journey. Today many swords pierce the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Injustice, oppression, violence, war, murder, the rape of Creation — all these and more are sins and structures of sin against justice and peace. We know that within our hearts are the seeds of the problems the world faces.

This redemption begins in my heart and your heart. It all starts, as they say, with the man — or the woman — in the mirror.

If we want to see a better relationship of Christ and the world, we must ask first about our own personal relationship with Jesus. Is he the Easter Bunny? Someone who makes us feel good, but who is remote and not really involved? A cultural construct? A topic in a religious education course?

Or is Christ a living reality in my life?

We are in this for the long haul, and it will be a long haul. We will not wake up on the 82nd day after 81 days of nine novenas and discover that we have prayed and worked ourselves into a new world of justice and peace that cares for Creation as God intended for all of us. There is much more work and prayer to come.

If we think we can do this in our own strength, we are wrong.

If we are going forward in the work of justice and peace, the place to start is with an examination of our own lives. How do my sins of omission and commission create and support structures of injustice and oppression? How do I participate in and profit from the social sins and unjust wars of this age? What must be redeemed in my life so that I live in solidarity with those our society has pushed to the edge and further, into the abyss? How can I change my life so that I promote peace, rather than demanding war? Can I end (or minimize) the ecological harm I cause to Creation by my lifestyle?

Have I abandoned Christ for secular saviors? Do I bury myself in the busy-ness of life and ignore God’s call?

As you pray these novenas for the next 81 days, let this be a time when your personal relationship with Christ blooms and flowers. Our prayer for everyone who takes up these novenas is that their hearts will be open to the reality that Christ is alive and he loves each and every one of us. He gave his life to save us and our societies from sin and oppression. He lives today and is at your side every moment of every day to enlighten, strengthen, and free you. OK, I am paraphrasing Pope Francis here, but I think the point is clear: the journey of justice and peace is a journey with Christ.

If we are to change the world, each of us must begin with himself or herself as we ourselves become the change we wish to see in the world. That change is the fruit of the Spirit that grows from our personal relationship with Christ.

Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin:

Dorothy Day was an early advocate of women’s rights who wrote for radical leftist newspapers in the early years of this century. She was a bohemian as they said in those days — but when she looked in her heart of hearts, she found it empty. By the grace and providence of God, she found our Lord and was baptized into the Catholic Church. Thus began a journey which led to the founding of the Catholic Worker movement, together with Peter Maurin and the other first Workers.

It’s clear from their writings that both Dorothy and Peter experienced a tender and intimate relationship with Christ. This relationship was the source of all that they were able to do for the cause of justice and peace. Dorothy was not a stranger to activism; for years she had struggled in the streets as part of the great social battles of the first years of the 20th century — women’s suffrage, the 40 hour week, the right to join a union, justice for workers.

Peter Maurin, a French peasant who came to the United States via Canada, taught that it was a great blessing to assist the rich in coming to the assistance of the poor. Too often, “never the twain shall meet,” and certainly, in this day and age, communication between the poor and the rich is as bad as it has ever been. Communication requires that each person who wants to be heard and understood must see and hear the “Other” as a human person. It’s not easy, and it takes practice.

The program that Peter and Dorothy offered to the world was direct, personal involvement with other human beings. They called us to open houses of hospitality, to engage in clarification of thought so we would understand what needs to be done, and to found agricultural communities as the seeds of new villages. They believed in the importance of the Eucharist, the Rosary, and many traditional devotions — because their work responded to their lively interior relationship with Christ. They were suspicious of the imperial State. They wanted the Catholic Worker movement to be an organism, not an organization, that drew its strength from the Eucharist and the real presence of Christ in the lives of the workers.

As the United States empire entered a time of great triumph, they called for establishing the seeds of a new society within the “collapsing ruins of the old. ” They taught that the poor should be fed by Christians, not by large government bureaucracies. Peter wrote many “Easy Essays” — short little works, almost poetry in their simplicity, each one packed with intense theological concepts about the human person and how we relate to one another in community. He also reminded us of the nobility — and the necessity — of manual labor (something we’d often like to forget in this day of convenience and instant gratification).

Dorothy and Peter worked to create and live structures of beauty and goodness. In the midst of the slums of New York, they provided hospitality to the poor while working for social justice. They learned that the works of mercy and the works of justice and peace are one and the same, different aspects of the same journey, all going the same direction.

Long before it was a theological mantra, the “preferential option for the poor” was a living reality in the life and work of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. They were informed critics of current events, prophetically looking for the truth in the signs of their times, and finding Jesus in the poor, rejected, and marginalized.

Their example inspires us today to consider how we can ensure fair distribution, subsidiarity, economic opportunity, justice, and food security for everyone everywhere. As we open our eyes, our minds, and our hearts to the Spirit’s guidance, we can discern our response to the signs of these times. We then can see the structures of sin that bind us in poverty and war, and name the demons which oppress us.

We can buy farms and dedicate them for the purpose of raising food for the hungry. We can organize microenterprise co-operatives in every city to provide opportunity for the poor. We can look at our own individual situations, and adopt lifestyles of simplicity and frugality, rejecting the culture of materialistic conspicuous consumption in favor of a life of living simply, that others may simply live. We can minimize our use of fossil fuels and thus remove one of the major causes of war. We can buy our food directly from farmers, and stop funding the destruction of the family farm community. We can discern the cry of the widow and orphan in our own neighborhoods, and be the hands and feet of God in relieving distress and creating justice. We can open our own hearts to the reality of life in Christ, and embrace him as savior and friend.

Dorothy Day used to quote St. Catherine of Sienna — “All the way to heaven is heaven.” May this be our prayer, in Jesus’ holy name.

Caring for Creation

Our act of reparation during this 9 day novena, and going forward, is to pick up trash in a public place. You won’t have to look far, but I think there are extra blessings for picking up trash in low income neighborhoods. Trash is endemic everywhere. It is a sign of our careless attitude towards the gifts of this Earth that God has so freely given us. Much trash is useful — many items can be recycled or repurposed, but often we think only of our selfishness and do not take the time or the care to do the right thing by Creation and reduce our impact on the planet by recycling. Examine your conscience! Do you sin against God’s Creation by your casual attitude towards waste? Now is the time for actual works of penance, which is why we pick up trash in public places.

Courtesy: Bob Waldrop, St. Oscar Romero Catholic Worker House

…

(I’m, back. Thank you for reading and praying. Just a few thoughts of my own, here, on some of the language Bob used, particularly referring to the US as an “empire,” within a pejorative context. Well, it is painful, but the United States IS an Empire. While an Empire in and of itself is not a bad thing, ours is costly. Excessive tax dollars are spent on maintaining a military presence overseas we can hardly afford; money that could be spent domestically on infrastructure, healthcare, education and other things. In my thinking, there is little reason why we should still be maintaining military bases in Europe. They can potentially defend themselves. NATO served its purpose as the defense of the West against any potential Soviet/Warsaw Pact invasion; after the fall of the Communist alliance NATO should have been mothballed and the European nations taken upon themselves some form of collective defense, if needed. While engaging in military action against terrorists might have seemed a good idea in the early 00s, in reality continued action in the Middle East has only served to create more terrorists. I’m uncertain as to the solution, but the way things are going there and domestically, I think we should cut our losses and our troops recalled. )

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November!

November is just a few hours away in my time zone on Earth and it’s my favorite month. Sometimes referred to as the “Month of the Dead” because the Solemnity of All Saints (November 1st) and the Commemoration of the Souls of the Faithful Departed (known also by the shorter name of “All Souls Day” and falling on November 2nd) occur with it; not to mention cultural practices involving dead people by others sharing this globe. It is also a month of devotions for Purgatory.

I just love it. It’s a reminder of our mortality and that we are only here temporarily. Eventually we’ll die and wind up somewhere for Eternity. We are all living “In Exile” here (nice name for a blog. Hmmm.. 🙂 )

It’s also the month my Mom died in 2005. An event that was a tragic part of a series of events alienating me from my blood family. It brought the month into a clear focus for me and spurred me to explore its wonders. It opened up for me the vistas of death and beyond. On death as a passage and the gate through which we pass to our destiny.

Sometimes I yearn for death; not as an escape from Earthly problems but just as a desire to go Home. November helps me to ponder that and be reminded it isn’t time yet (I think) and I have things remaining to do down here.

I just have to do them.

 

 

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Mass of the Ages

Today I went to a Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite (also known as the “Traditional Latin Mass.”) It was a Missa Cantata, or “Sung Mass.”

I had some idea of what to expect; I had gone to one (also a “Missa Cantata”) before, perhaps 15 years ago. I had no clue then as to what was going on. This time I was better informed from prior study.

I loved it, although I still didn’t quite understand everything. My knowledge of Latin is about what you’d expect: my only sources of it are EWTN Masses and Looney Tunes cartoons. 😉

Adding to my lack of adequate comprehension was that much of the Mass is silent; the priest says most of what he says quietly, unlike the Ordinary Form of the Mass (the one you’re used to.) I tried to follow along in a missal the parish had but was largely unsuccessful. I had been advised by numerous people that I should dispense with using a missal for the first few times I attend an EF Mass; I should just “experience it,” to “take it all in” and basically treat it (at first) like a devotional, such as a Holy Hour. Then, once more familiar with the whole event from just observing, find a missal and follow along. So, for the next few times I go I will ignore the missal.

The priest is offering the sacrifice on behalf of the people; we observe and unite our prayers to his. The offering of the Mass is between him and God, we are present but in a less participatory role than in the OF. I may have said this with less than precise terminology. If in error, I will accept charitable correction. But this is what I believe I’ve gleaned from my study and observation. The Mass is a sacrifice, the priest offers it, we observe. The OF Mass has altered this understanding, and I think the manner in which it was done has been detrimental to contemporary Catholicism. The emphasis seems to have shifted from worshiping God to the Mass being some sort of communal celebration about us.

Anyway, it was a transcendental experience; despite my newness to it I sensed that something was different, something otherwordly was taking place. A kind of awesome mystery. I felt completely detached from the outside world, something that rarely ever happens to me at an Ordinary Form Mass. I can just imagine the experience after I am more familiar with it.

This is the “Mass of the Ages,” the Mass the Catholic Church celebrated for centuries prior to Vatican II. I felt somehow connected to those who had celebrated it before… not just ordinary priests and laity, but saints. This is the Mass that St. Maximilian Kolbe offered.

They say that Vatican II created a rupture in the continuity of tradition between the contemporary Church and the one of ages past. I will not comment on that but it is apparent that we lost a lot. Although I will not become bitter, angry and resentful over “what we lost,” for I well know what those emotions can lead to, I will develop a much greater interest in the liturgy and its importance in life. I already have to some great degree taken the liturgy to be something more than something done on Sundays or how you pray. I do live a fairly liturgical life: from taking a keen interest in the liturgical seasons and deriving a personal connection or life application from them to praying the Divine Office. The liturgical year contributes to the ebb and flow of my life, almost like the temporal seasons and their connection to growing things.

I will be attending the Mass in both forms. My wife shows little interest in the EF. That’s all right. I like a good OF Mass said with due and proper attention to the rubrics. (The OF lends itself to abuse.)

I will blog about this more over the coming weeks.

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The lot up the road

I live in a rural area; the road we live on is zoned “agricultural.” There are a number of houses along it, but all are pretty widely-spaced apart. During the early morning when the weather is nice I like to go for walks up the road with a Rosary in hand and pray while strolling. I say “up the road” as there is a rise in the grade to crest the top (the road climbs over a hill). Soon after starting out from the end of our driveway there is a pleasant pastoral vista of an empty field “up the road” backed by a long row of evergreens and other trees. (For some crazy reason, I get an almost irresistible urge to grab a copy of Grit magazine and start reading.)

firstshot”

second

The other day when I was driving home from somewhere I saw to my dismay a sign posted along the roadside by this vacant field, “SOLD: nameofhousingdeveloper and phonenumber.”

Rats. Someone is going to build a house (or houses?) there.

While I don’t begrudge or hold a resentment against anyone from wanting to build a home along a nice, quiet, rural street, I couldn’t help but feel that “I wish they picked somewhere else!”

I stood there with Rosary in hand pondering the scene in my pajamas. Yes, I go for walks along the street in the morning still dressed in my jam-jams. As I said, it’s a rural street, hardly anyone else is around. So there I am, Rosary in my right hand, slippers on feet, floppy gray socks, plaid pajama bottoms and baseball-sleeved shirt with coffee stains on front, and faded thin bathrobe wafting a little in the breeze, the rare vehicle taking wide berths around me (despite my being along the shoulder of the roadside-there are no sidewalks, either.)

Where was I? Oh, yes, pondering the scene. So I’m staring vacantly across the road at the sweet empty field of various grasses and weedy flowers and I’m trying to get all spiritual about it as I want to write a blog post about something, anything. And something did develop in my consciousness.

fourth

Someone’s going to build a house there. Maybe more than one. That land has been there for like, millions of years and probably no one has ever lived there before, (population density being on the profoundly low side prior to European colonization of North America). Given the perpetually uncertain future, who knows how long the presumed housing will last and if anyone will replace it centuries hence? So, for uncounted eons no one’s ever lived on that spot until a year or so from now.

We are not here, then we are here, then we are not here, again. The land remains. No wonder some misguided people worship the created instead of the Creator. And it is a wonder that while in the “we are here” phase, some other people, also misguided, confuse “ownership” with a moral absolute to do whatever they wish with the land they own. I am by no means denigrating the private ownership of land; on the contrary, that concept is the bulwark of freedom and autonomy. But we should be cognizant that the things we “own” are far more ancient than we are, and others will come after us and may wish to enjoy the land, too.

We “own” the land but should be mindful that it is more like “held in trust” for future people. What does that have to do with someone possibly building a house on that lot? Probably nothing, really. People come and people go, their dwellings, too. The land remains. And my brain takes off and arrives at conclusions unknown from the starting ponder.

Although my walk was this morning, it didn’t occur to me to take a camera, hence the late afternoon photos.

fifth

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I see… people in need of intercessory prayers

OK, that’s not quite as pop culture-iconic like the movie line, “I see dead people,” but that’s what I’ve been seeing over these past few years.

What?

All right, here goes: Ever since I relocated to western New York State in 2007 I’ve been seeing people who remind me of persons I’ve known in the past. Could be anyone: old school mates, work colleagues, whomever. At first it would be just in my current parish during Mass. In fact, I blogged about it previously “…This brings up something else, a phenomenon I’ve noticed at my home parish, and nowhere else: Every so often I see people who bear a striking resemblance to someone from my old, hometown parish, either a physical similarity, or “something about them” is reminiscent. Odd. It would be one thing if I experienced this at other parishes, but that has not happened, only where I attend Mass now. (Source: Strange Sightings in Church.

Well, it’s changed. It is no longer just in my home parish, it is happening in a lot of other places and numerous times a day. They are no longer just people “from my old, hometown parish,” but people from throughout my life, its various periods and places lived. And it’s not as if these people were particularly special to me, sometimes I’ve forgotten their names.

Wierd.

So, what to do? I pray for them. There must be a reason I am beset with this “gift.” For some reason, in a mysterious way that the Lord isn’t sharing with me, I have been selected to perform the Spiritual Work of Mercy known as “praying for the living and the dead” on a daily basis.

I already have an interest in death and dying and the afterlife (see my death blog “The Four Last Things – Death. Judgment. Heaven. Hell.” So perhaps this is a more practical application.

This is also applicable for use in a protagonist in a novel that’s on the backburner…

Hmmm… I wonder…

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Lacunae

Sometimes it is within the lacunae of the day, or of one’s life, that you discover meaning.

###

Sometimes I get overly excited about an article that comes across my social media feeds. The one in the attached link at the end is one of them.

Normally when I share something online, I quote some interesting snippets. But not this one, please READ THE WHOLE article.

It would appeal to people highly critical of the “modern world,” and about how things are done and what that’s done to us.

Also, if you grokked “Small is Beautiful,” by E.F. Schumacher, you’ll dig this piece.

Against Productivity

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Peter and John rushing to the Tomb

I saw a beautiful painting in an article yesterday while perusing the news online. “The Disciples Peter and John Running to the Sepulchre on the Morning of the Resurrection” by Swiss painter Eugène Burnand, is an image that draws you into it. You are just THERE.

Peter-and-John-Running-to-the-Tomb-1898-590x320

Source is right here:

The Greatest Easter Painting Ever Made.

In my opinion, John looks like Roddy McDowell and Peter kinda looks like James Farentino, who played him in the epic TV miniseries, “Jesus of Nazareth.”

Are you a creative Catholic? "The Catholicpunk Manifesto" is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

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