Every now and then I wish I was a parish priest. This never occurs out of any reasonable desire for such a life, but mostly because I with the parish priests we do have were better at their jobs, a job which I as a layman am incapable of fulfilling.
Understanding that, if I were a parish priest next Sunday's homily would be on the Eucharist. It's relevant for a few reasons: one, it means thanksgiving, and my parishioners would be fresh off their Thanksgiving festivities, likely to enjoy left over turkey after mass. Such a topic is a sermon on it's own, but more to the point, I'd address what's going on in Rhode Island, with our pro-abortion supposedly-Catholic Congressman Patrick Kennedy. If you haven't heard, here's the long and short of it: Bishop Tobin reminded Congressman Kennedy that his pro-abortion stance is in fundamental disagreement with the Church's teachings. Kennedy said "that doesn't make me any less Catholic"; Bp. Tobin said "well, actually it does... being Catholic means you assent to Catholic teaching. Because of this, it isn't proper for you to receive the Eucharist".
So today I went to the dreaded (unfortunately!) Newman Center, giving it one last chance to redeem itself by presenting Church history in a positive light, or impressing the necessity of the sacraments, or faithfully teaching Church teaching. Unfortunately I was let down on all three fronts. What got me most worked up was the comment "I have largely ignored the Bishops and The Pope. I have no time for anybody who is going to say that you cannot receive The Eucharist".
I have no doubt that this gentleman speaks out of an understanding of the love and community of The Church, which is a fundamental message of the Gospel, no doubt. I don't think he is as much of a schismatic as he professes, I think he's just uneducated. And furthermore I think the majority of Catholics are just like him; the majority of non-Catholics no doubt simply do not understand the Church. So as a parish priest I would rectify the situation.
See, The Eucharist is The Body of Jesus. That is central to the whole thing. He said "this is my body", and that explains it quite well... that fact, as you might have guessed, has some implications, to put it mildly. Firstly, The Eucharist ought to be treated with extreme reverence: its God after all. I would encourage my parishioners to receive the Eucharist on the tongue, rather than holding Jesus in their hands. It's curious that we will use a fork so that our mashed potatoes and gravy doesn't touch our hands, but we won't take a simple measure to avoid The Eucharist touching our hands. But more to the point, the individual receiving The Eucharist must be in a state to do so! It's not as if we can ever merit receiving Jesus, or merit anything he did for us, or merit the fact that he existed at all, but what we can do is at least show a little respect.
Perhaps a whimsical example would illustrate the situation: imagine a average looking high school nerd right around prom time. By some miraculous event he ends up going to the prom with the best looking (read "most modest"), nicest (read "most Christian") gal in the school! In preparing for the prom he surely realizes that he is not worthy of such a wonderful date, nor is anything he does in the duration of the night going to earn him any merit, so is he going to show up in jeans, without having showered? No! He's going to dress himself up nice, clean his car and use a spray of cologne! That's what the Eucharist is like! It's not as if you are ever going to impress upon God the necessity of him giving you Jesus; he gives it to you out of love, just like the girl goes with the boy out of love, not out of any self-interest.
Make sure that you are in a worthy state to receive, lest you offend the God who so lovingly gave himself to you. Bp. Tobin isn't being a jerk; he's actually being all the more loving: he doesn't want Congressman Kennedy to have the grave sin of a sinful communion on his soul! And it truly would be sinful, lest we believe that The Church does not express the will of God in it's teachings, at which point you're really unprepared to receive the Eucharist anyways.
Recently I convinced an (now former!) nonpracticing Catholic to being going to Sunday mass with me. Unfortunately he did not go to Confession before. Now, time comes around to receive the Eucharist, and he gets in line! I said "wait! Did you go to confession?" and he said "No..." with a mostly-confused, slightly-angered look on his face. Thanks be to God he did not receive the Eucharist, and he later thanked me for reminding him. But what's going on! I haven't been Catholic for a whole year yet, and somehow these kids who were raised in The Church aren't aware, or at least it's not a pressing issue, that they need to be free of mortal sin, as a bare minimum, to receive the Eucharist? I'm proud to report that he went to confession for the first time in 5 years and became the second person I have had a meal with at Eau Claire who is in full standing with the Roman Catholic Church! He confessed to 82 year old, nearly miniature, Monsignor Klimick, who, so the penitent reported, dropped his Bible when he reported that it had been 5 years since his last confession. I made sure to find an extra loving priest for his return confession, and aside from his slippery fingers, I'm sure Monsignor Klimick fit the bill: the crusty priests are the real softies.
Hopefully you could walk away from mass understanding why it is that The Eucharist is not fit for reception by anybody who is not in full communion with The Church. It's not an elite club, and it's not a superiority thing: it's an issue of gratitude for what you are doing, and ultimately the Church hierarchy is only interested in protecting it's members, and it's non-members, from grave sin, nothing more, nothing less. Like everything else in life, you have to do a little work to reap the rewards of The Eucharist, and what a reward it is!
On The Eucharist
November 23, 2009 | |
UGH!
November 21, 2009 | |
How could any young Catholic boy not feel like they're missing out on something getting married?
Would you have some decency please!
November 12, 2009 | |
So last night I showed up to what I thought was going to be a rather innocent residence hall association meeting, only to soon learn that the next activity set for planning is "Sex in the Dark". Initially I figured "can't (and surely don't) people have sex in the dark on their own accord... what do we have to plan this for." I found out soon enough that the idea is to gather in a hall basement, turn off the lights so that nobody can see each other, and ask "experts" (anonymously, read without consequence) questions about sex. I quote experts, because I doubt anything real like this, or even this will come up (by the way, isn't New Advent the best thing since sliced bread? I verified this humorous bit on just that website today).
So, I was pretty well disgusted with it all when, much to my dismay, I walked past the pro-choice club meeting today. Now, I don't mean to disparage their existence, because, while they are misguided and wrong, that doesn't negate their right to have a club, in the same way that it wouldn't be right to deny advocates of another Jewish Holocaust the right to organize (right?). But it was their sign that set me off. I should point out that groups usually don't have signs, much less a larger piece of presentation board with condoms all over it. Now, please tell me, what does the pro-choice movement even stand for now? It used to be, "this poor woman was raped, she should not have to give birth to the resulting kid", which is a tragic circumstance indeed, and it is at least understandable how a misguided person, poorly trained in ethics (and it's difficulties) might have lapsed.
But it's just sex all the time now! Sex, sex, sex! Lets have sex without consequence (good or bad I might add)! Lets have sex without cares (for ourselves our the person we "love", if we are even that noble)! Lets have sex for no reason at all! If you got the parts, you mind as well use them, right?
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Rapture
October 28, 2009 | |
As you know, I'm reading St. Theresa of late. I couldn't help but laughing today. After treating 4 stages of prayer she treats rapture. She says offhandedly: "sometimes my whole body has been affected, to the point of being raised up from the ground," and continues "but once, when we were together in choir, and I was on my knees and about to communicate, it caused me the greatest distress. It seemed to me a most extraordinary thing [no kidding...] and I thought there would be a great deal of talk about it [understandable]; so I ordered the nuns not to speak of it. On other occasions, when I have felt that the Lord was going to enrapture me (once it happened during a sermon, on our paternal festival, when some great ladies were present), I have lain on the ground and the sisters have come and held me down, but none the less the rapture has been observed.
I didn't think I'd ever be provoked to laughter reading about rapture, but God is just too weird to let anything he does be normal.
P(Contemplative) ^ P(Healthy) = .98
October 22, 2009 | |
Lately I've been pondering all sorts of ways I could become rich and famous using statistics.
My first idea was to become the actuary of the monasteries. I have no idea how monasteries handle their health care needs, but I could do a monster survey, taking into account everything that is cool about all the different types of monks (contemplative/active, eat meat/don't eat meat, sleep/don't sleep, wear the habit/don't wear the habit) and statistically determine how much money these monasteries ought to save for health care expenses! Unfortunately I don't think monasteries are looking for elaborate mathematics to ensure health... they're too cool to care about such things.
But then I figured that I could write a news column. Everybody loves a witty news column right? Each week I would go out on the streets with a tape recorder, and ease-drop on people's conversations, and later record different aspects of their speech. For instance, while sitting at the lunch table I often hear about the excessive drinking habits of the friends of those sitting around me. I would mathematically show (to put some teeth behind the decidedly light commentary) that students here are more likely to use the word "fucked up" or "trashed" to describe an inebriated friend than simply "drunk". Of course I'd have to insert a good quantity of wit into the whole thing, but I would show how it is that these students seem to be enamored with destruction and ruin. Perhaps the surprisingly well-written and well-balanced newspaper on campus will have more interest in me than the Carmelites.
Unfortunately I didn't come up with this idea, but another genius did: over at CentSports.com they give you 10 cents for signing up to their sports gambling website. You get the 10 cents completely free, and when you get $20 you can cash out your money. The idea is genius when you consider the math involved (the study of risks: actuarial science!). See, the 10 cents doesn't actually exist. The company could have absolutely no money in their bank account when they started, and give out 10 cents to the whole world. It's only by time that the user multiplies his money 200 times that he can get a single cent out of the company. How prone is the company to a freak sports event? How many clicks (advertising money) does it take to win your $20? How many users will stop using the website after a while, turning their clicks into pure profit? The math behind this would be wonderful!
Party Sufferings!
October 12, 2009 | |
So I've been reading St. Theresa's "Life" in the library recently. I don't know why, but it seems so romantic to me to go into the library every time I want to read the book, and go to the section BX, second stack in, second shelf from the bottom, and select the book. I re-read her chapter treating the beginning prayer life today. She was discussing how it is that beginners are anxious about their prayers and agonize over their spiritual progress, rather than commending yourself to God. She also touched on sufferings, and how it is that the Lord sees fit to give us sufferings, but that we must patiently endure them, because he loves us, and how could we doubt that in his infinite love and wisdom he isn't always bringing us closer to him, even if it doesn't feel good.
It was the sort of reading that easily starts to fly over your head, not because of it's wild complexity, like St. Thomas, but because of it's wild simplicity. Now, on my way to the library I saw in a field a large snow penis. It's not uncommon to see artistic renderings of the twig and berries here on campus. About a week ago several large rocks were assembled to the effect that all those walking over the river bridge were gifted with the sight of the larger-than-life one-eyed trousersnake. So, while I'm reading about prayer, and how great God is, and thanking him for all the wonderful sufferings he gives me, and asking him if just maybe he'd let me be a Carmelite because all my experience with the Carmelites, including Theresa, tells me that they are really cool, and I'd like to suffer the rest of my life, only to gain my reward at death; all I could think about was plowing through this penis. It's been some time since I've played football, but I've been watching football on TV on Sundays (as part of my commitment to myself to spend 2 hours a week being simply lazy) and I had in my mind a rushing defensive end, having shoved his blocker aside, who is running at the quarterback. The unsuspecting passer has his back turned to the warrior, and, when he least expects it, he is nailed in the back, torn down like a gazelle on the Serengetie. Alas, Theresa dedicated some time to the distractions which come in prayer when you are attached to this world.
So I did it. I walked out of the library and the bell tower rang 7pm. I knew it was meant to be, for after all, who can say that they ran into a snow penis at 7pm on October the Twelfth, in the Year of Our Lord 2009! God truly blesses his children! I advanced towards the snow creation, and when I was about 100 feet away I broke into a run. I had some pro-life literature with me, so it was decided early on that I should transfer that from my right arm to my left arm. Completing the transfer I put out my right arm, in preparation for the splitting blow. I lowered my shoulder, and pow! The penis broke in two!
I then immediately thought of St. Therese of the Little Flower, who, when she was caught being noisy simply ran away! She stood on the top of the stairs proclaiming victory over her desire to defend herself, even though she was most guilty. Of course I wasn't guilty of anything. Sure, there were plenty of giggling girls who were photographing the penis who would be disappointed when they saw the decimation. And sure, I was inflicting my anti-penis sculpture values on the rest of the campus. But it was so worth it. So I ran away like a little child until I rounded the corner.
So, I implore you: accept the sufferings of the Lord most humbly. Perhaps he will give you a pain, or keep you up all night unable to sleep, or let everybody be wholly indifferent to you so that your vanity has no fields to sow itself in! Or best yet, maybe he'll inflict you with the misuse of His Name, and the Blessed Name of His Son all day! And this world doesn't even compare. As wonderful as it was to slam into the snow penis, that strikes me as utterly boring compared to the wonders of Heaven.
Blessed be God.
Blessed be His Holy Name.
Blessed be Jesus Christ, True God and True Man.
Blessed be the Name of Jesus. Blessed be His Most Sacred Heart.
Blessed be His Most Precious Blood.
Blessed be Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete. Blessed be the Great Mother of God, Mary Most Holy.
Blessed be her Holy and Immaculate Conception.
Blessed be her Glorious Assumption.
Blessed be the Name of Mary, Virgin and Mother.
Blessed be Saint Joseph, her most Chaste Spouse.
Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saints.
