Category: Catholic Topics

Grace and Generosity

Today in the car my eldest daughter was wishing for soft, cushion-y flip-flops.  “Maybe for your birthday,” I say.

“My birthday is in February.”

“So write a letter to Santa now, telling him what to look for on summer clearance in August.”

Children start composing letters aloud.

Then I suggest, “Wait a minute.  Not Santa.  Write to the Easter Bunny.”

Mr. Boy begins: “Dear Easter Bunny, I have been very good this year . . .”

And I correct: “No.  It’s Dear Easter Bunny, I have been very bad this year.  That is why I am thankful for Easter. If I were good, I wouldn’t need it . . .”

***

–> One of the advantages of homeschooling, is that the children labor under no illusions about mom’s sins.

Sometimes people who see me teach as a catechist get the wrong idea.  They see how I run a class for an hour (So much energy! So focused on the children! So kind! So enthusiastic!) and imagine my own kids must be getting that 16 hours a day.

Um, no.

Just because I can do something for an hour does not mean I can do it all day every day.

But the thing about being a catechist, is that there’s a certain pressure to be an unrealistically good person.  Talking to friends who have worked in ministry elsewhere (non-catholic, as it happens), it seems to be par for the course.  You’re a Christian Leader.  You’re a Teacher and an Example.  And if you screw-up, You’re Fired.

It isn’t enough to be competent at your work.  Your work is not only to teach what is right and wrong, but to somehow meet spec.  Our #1 message is that we are all wretched sinners in need of a Savior, but if you’re a priest / minister / catechist, you’d better not be especially needful of that Savior.

That’s not real.

I’m fortunate, in that although I certainly get tempted to commit enormous sins, I mostly stick to goofing off and yelling at my kids as the bread and butter of my sinfulness.  So I guess I have a job as long as I can keep that up.

But here’s what: Everybody faces temptation.  I have been very moved by the humility of ordinary Christians who will openly acknowledge horrid sins.  I did it, I should not have done it, I am sorry I did it, I will never do it again so help me God. 

Public ministry discourages that humility.  It discourages it slowly and insidiously, by first teaching you to deny the venial sins.  What will people think if they find out I ______?  Will they refuse to let me minister to _______ if they hear that I _______?  I am not alone among catholic volunteers in being a tad nervous about confessing to my own parish priest.  I work for the guy — what if he gets the wrong idea when he hears my confession?

[I do, anyway, though not as often as would be good for me.  A lousy prayer life is one of my other besetting sins.]

So I am unsurprised when I hear that some Famous Catholic is by all appearances guilty of some tremendous sin, but is unable to admit to having done wrong.  To see clerics justify their serious sins, and maybe even leave the church over them?  Well, I’ve seen other ministers brush off lesser sins.  It is a staircase.  At the bottom you put on a good face for the public; as unseemly bits seep out here and there, what you cannot hide, you must somehow justify.  By the time a serious temptation comes along, the habit of fleeing condemnation is long since engrained.

Forgiveness is only way out.

You want honest clergy?  Learn to forgive.  Not to deny, not to downplay, not to ignore.  To forgive.   Where sin abounds, grace must abound all the more.

The Christian paradox is that where grace abounds, sin loses its hold.  For if I know I will be forgiven, then I can admit I was wrong.  And if I can admit I was wrong, and only if I can admit I was wrong, then I can begin the work of repairing my soul.

The Rite by Matt Baglio

The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist, by Matt Baglio, Doubleday, 2009

I recommend this book, on the condition that you read the whole thing.  Otherwise, skip.  Just not healthy any other way.  –>> And no I have not seen the film, [which Father L. reviewed here, and has even more to say on the whole topic here]  and no I’m not planning to see the film, because I am too impatient to watch things when I could be reading instead.  Also I see on the author’s page that the paperback has updated material in it — my comments here are based on the edition above.

Anyhow, back to the book.  Here’s what it is, per the author:

The purpose of this book is not to promote any one faith over another, but to offer a detailed account of one priest’s journey from a rational skeptic to a practicing exorcist. I didn’t set out to write with any preconceived bias and as such the book is written in a straightforward journalistic style, which means that I give respect to the beliefs and testimonies on all sides, including medical science.

And that’s what it is.  We follow Fr. Gary Thomas (a real guy) as he heads to Rome on sabbatical in 2005, after being freshly appointed diocesan exorcist.  His travails are, wow, amazingly normal.  If you spend any amount of time in the Catholic Church, you will totally recognize the place.   You couldn’t write fiction like this.  Fr. Thomas does finally manage to secure an apprenticeship with a practicing exorcist, and the book version does clearly show the humdrum, hard, dull work that goes with the territory.

[Interestingly — the reports of boring catholic exorcisms match very closely to what I have heard described by evangelical protestants who have experience with boring exorcisms of their own.  Different details as far as the methods of the exorcists, but identical phenomenon on the recipients’ end.]

The author sticks to the straightforward, journalistic style all the way through.  It is not a “catholic” book in the sense of trying to evangelize or prove a point of the faith.  The reporting could come straight out of the Herald Tribune.  But it is a firmly catholic book in the sense that any book which earnestly reports the truth is necessarily catholic.

In addition to following Fr. Thomas’s personal story, the book explains catholic teaching on the supernatural in very clear terms.  There is also an examination of how demon possession relates to psychological disorders, including interviews with secular researchers who reject supernatural explanations.  [One of the first jobs of the exorcist is to find a qualified psychiatrist to rule out natural causes.]   One of the reasons I think it is important to stick with the book through to the end, is that it is not at all clear how things are going to turn out, or whether the book will ultimately end up affirming the catholic faith.  [It does.  It can’t help it.  Tell a true story, that’s what you end up with.]

The book follows Fr. Thomas through to his first “for real”, no-doubts-about-it exorcism, in 2007, after he is back home in the states and settled in to his parish assignment.  And here’s the conclusion, so you can rest easy, since if you are smart you will naturally be quite wary of picking up books on these sorts of topics:

These prayers do have power, he thought.  It was a visceral reminder that the age-old conflict between good and evil, sin and salvation, was far from over.  Not only did this validate his calling as a priest, and his choice to become an exorcist, but it was a powerful confirmation of one of the deepest mysteries of his faith.  Even though evil existed in the world, there was a way to defeat it.

Will there be fake news in Heaven?

The IC is having a book-release party for Felon Blames 1970s Church Architecture for Life of Sin. Go take a look.

Someone was asking me yesterday which blogs I follow, and of course I completely blanked out.  (Um, look at my sidebar?).  But I believe I’ve read every single post by the Ironic Catholic since however many years ago it was I discovered the place.   And probably on that day I scrolled through the entire archive.

Intelligent, clean-cut catholic satire that *is* funny and *is not* mean.  How many other writers could sit in the middle of that venn diagram?

Mothers & More

Here’s a great article on “Why Mothers Matter”, h/t to the Pulp.it for pointing it out.  Totally made my day.  (Yes, I am goofing off.  Bad mother! Clean house!  Make children clean house!)

–> Which explains why St. Thomas More re-married so quickly after the death of his first wife.  As Butler’s Lives points out:

More was a man of sense as well as sensibility, and he had four young children on his hands: so he married a widow, seven years older than himself, an experienced housewife, talkative, kindly and full of unimaginative common sense.

Apparently she didn’t appreciate his jokes, though, which the biographer observes was an “undeniable trial of patience” — for which spouse the text does not specify.

A quick saint bleg on that topic:  Our VBS-alternative (“Terrific Tuesdays”) will feature St. Thomas More, St. Joan of Arc, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Therese of Lisieux, and St. Martin de Porres.  If you happen to be sitting on a linky-link treasure trove of free-to-copy coloring sheets, puzzles, clip art, and the like, I would be most grateful to learn your secrets.  Thank you!

–> FYI if you are in a similar boat, I’ve been mining the My Catholic Pray and Play Activity Book for generic worksheets.  Nicely done, good little resource for elementary-age catechists to keep in the drawer.  The sheets are reproducibles for non-commercial use.

***

And this is a random other lives-of-saints observation I stumbled upon last night, and had to share.  From Butler’s Lives, further down on July 9th (same as More), concerning the martyrdom of Sts. Nicholas Pieck and Companions, Martyrs of Gorkum in 1572.  This was a Calvinist round-up in the Netherlands, and the clergy arrested included not only the saintly types, but also St. James Lacops, who “had been very slack in his religious observance and contumacious under reproof”, as well as St. Andrew Wouters, who “went straight from the irregular life to imprisonment and martydom”.

Here is the bit I found to be a timeless reminder:

. . . when already Father Pieck had been flung off the ladder, speaking words of encouragement, the courage of some failed them; it is a significant warning against judging the character of our neighbour or pretending to read his heart that, while a priest of blameless life recanted in a moment of weakness, the two who had been an occasion of scandle gave their lives without a tremor.

More reading – nice ranty sermon for you

Change “missionary” to “parent”, and this is the rant that has me writing the homeschooling book. 

To customize, insert “teacher”, “DRE” “Pastor” or “___your name here____”.

I would add, this is the kind of judging others we should be wary of.  It’s easy to know whether one ought to steal or murder (no).  Not so easy to know what I should do today, and what prayers to pray, and how to explain to the children they really must learn math. Really.  And handwriting.  And not punching people.  Except sometimes.

Oh wait.  Divine Mercy.  Scratch that punching thing.  Oops.

Or not.  Legitimate self-defense only, I promise.

Happy Easter & an Exultet bleg

Pithless Thoughts wins the award for my favorite Easter blog post.

Happy Easter.

And how do you say that in Elvish?  I so want to know.

*********

Bleg:  I’m looking for just the right recording of the Exultet.  Have searched around a little bit on You Tube, but didn’t find what I wanted.  Here’s what we need:

  • In English.  English and only English.
  • Sung by a guy.
  • Just the basic chant, optional simple accompaniment, no musical showing off.
  • Nice clear recording.

Something a non-musical guy, but who can more or less sing your basic hymns thanks to years of repetition, could listen to over and over and over again, and eventually get the tune good and stuck in his head.

If you find it, please let me know!  Thank you.

nothing new under the sun

On the topic of catholic education, a friend points me to this encyclical (Dec/21/1929), which in turn quotes this one (Jan/10/1890).  Worthy reading, and not only for internet debate purposes.  ==> Though you will quickly learn not to quote to selectively, lest your opponent trounce you with a counter-quote from the same document.

So there’s something to do tonight, in order to not think about eating.  For example if your next door neighbors are grilling steaks.

The popes.  The internet.  Powerful combination.

More language stuff – Audio Bibles

Free audio bibles, in about a zillion languages.  Download as an MPS, or scroll down to the bottom and listen online.   Mighty mighty handy if you are studying a foreign language.  Or just wish to amuse yourself.

***

Funny story, and I can’t be the only one:  So I found that link via Gwenn Mangine, the very down-to-earth evangelical missionary in Haiti.  I go take a look at the bible site, click a selection to listen to, and then flip back to Google Reader to see what else she has to say.  Click on the next unread post, and read this:

I once read a comment by Lady Abbess Benedict Duss, OSB to the effect that the chant in Latin was the most effective and most complete and transcendent prayer of praise outside of the mass. I don’t doubt it.

And I thought: Really?  I had no idea she was such a fan of Latin Chant!  What do you know?!

What you know, though, is that it was the Anchoress who said that.  I had two different windows with Reader open, and I’d unwittingly clicked on the other one.

–> Happens all the time.  I think I’m reading one blog, but I’ve actually clicked on a different one.  They all look the same in Reader.  And I’m thinking, “Wow, what an interesting thing for that writer to say . . .”

Really tests your ideas, when you don’t have the context of who is saying it, and you have to judge the ideas on their own merit.  Google Reader needs a ‘shuffle’ button.  Would help the brain, I feel sure.

 

My Thursday Reading.

Links Round-Up today:

John McNichol has up part 1 and part 2 of the Argument from Design for explaining God’s existence.  The man breathes apologetics for teens.  It’s as if he does this for a living or something.

Mrs. Darwin has a cautionary tale about writing. If it seems like people wrote better books in the past, it’s because you haven’t been made to read them all. I buy vintage books from thrift stores — I know.  She tells the truth.  (That said: I have found some absolute treasures in catholic non-fiction that are now out of print.  Kills me.)

–> Mrs. D goes on to share Betty Duffy’s happy news, which is why Mrs. Duffy’s writing career is apparently again on hold for procreation.  (Congratulations!).  I’m so there.  (Not pregnant, just educating people.)  Ever used the expression, “Don’t you have anything better to do?” to criticize somebody?  When I think about my vocation, that’s what I ask myself.  Is there something better I could be doing?  Well, I could put the kids in the school, any little ones in day care, and pursue a number of other more profitable and prestigious careers.  They’d be fun.  They’d be worthwhile.  They would be good work.  But none of them would be better.  I’m doing the best one.  The riskiest one, too.  But worth it.

Dorian reviews a nice Catholic music curriulum.  My two oldest did Kindermusik one year, and it was great — huge help — and so I’m with Dorian.  These things are good. But here’s what, and follows my plea: I listened to the sample tracks.  They are quite musical.  But my fifth graders would fall apart laughing if I played one of those in class.  Yes they would.

Dear Music Publishers,

Please, please, oh please record a plain, boring, musically non-descript sing-along CD for use in catholic religious ed.  Miniscule ranges.  Transparent accompaniments.  NO CHORAL VOICES.  Sung by some lady (or guy) who sounds like a fifth grade teacher, not a Famous Musician.

Thank you.

Jennifer.

And if you haven’t bust out laughing like a 10 year old after listening the music samples (perhaps you are not a 10 year old?), read  this review of the IC’s Communion of Saints book by Allen’s Brain. It is funny.  The Communion of Saints series is even funnier.  Highly recommended.

 

I’m outta here. Happy Thursday.

 

Everyday Theology and the Wider Culture

This post at Real Hope for Haiti is part of a larger series, but I think it stands on its own.  The topic is: How do (rural) Haitians view God and the spirit world in general, and how does this impact their lives?  It matters to Christian missionaries, because it turns out [I am told] that if you show up in Haiti expecting to evangelize the same way you did back home, there are going to be a few misunderstandings.

I like the article most of all because it makes me think about American Christianity.  What are our spiritual assumptions?  What is it, when we turn to God, that we are seeking?  Or when we don’t turn to God, what keeps us away?

–> As I mentally run through the hypothetical scenario, How would I explain Christianity in a way that is meaningful to a rural Haitian?, it turns on a part of my brain that I need to use more.  Because the people I actually know (none of whom are rural Haitians, as it happens), they have problems and assumptions and experiences that matter.  Eternally matter.  If I am to be of any use, I need to meet them with the Gospel where they need it most.  And that’s probably a different place than where I am myself, or ever was.

***

The funny thing is that you can get a little nervous.  We explain God this way ________.  If I change how I explain God to someone else, am I changing the Gospel?

Always a risk, of course.  But there is also this: God is immense.

–>  I’ve never had anyone ask me, “I’m trying to figure out how to deal with the spirit world, because this Christianity thing is interesting, but there are these spirits I need to placate, and I need to make sure I’m not going to end up in more trouble rather than less.  Can you help me out here?”  So I suspect that conversation might go a little differently than my usual 5th grade CCD class.

But it would be the same God.  An unchanging, logically coherent, morally watertight God.  No relativistic your-truth-is-different-from-my-truth wishwash about it.  The answers aren’t different because God is any different to a suburban American 5th grader and a rural Haitian farm.  The answers are only different because the questions are different.

[And no, neither of them are allowed to remarry if they murder their spouse.  Bet that question comes up both places.  Sheesh.  People.]