[The following story of mine originally appeared in the November 2006 issue of Catholic World Report. I published it here at the time and thought I would repeat it for those who missed it the first time around. — Dawn]
The most immediate effect of writing a book on chastity for marriage-minded single women, as I have done, is that you lose your amateur standing. You can no longer merely be on the winning side of the battle against sexual temptation. Instead, you become a professional, expected to answer questions on “how far is too far,” and an easy target for variations on Oscar Levant’s legendary epigram, “I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin.”
It took a never-married friend who read an advance copy of my book, The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On, to remind me that chastity is, for some women, not just a lifestyle, but life. The friend, who is in her late 40s, told me she was glad I mentioned the prospect that the reader might never get married.
She was being generous. The book mentions the possibility of a lifetime as a chaste single woman only in passing. At the time that I wrote it, I didn't know how to expand upon the prospect of lifetime singlehood without making it sound like a death sentence.
It wasn't until the book was at the publisher — and after reporter Nadine O'Regan of the Irish Times asked me point-blank how it felt to realize that I might never meet the right one — that I began to articulate the sentiments that had been forming in the back of my mind.
"Experience has shown me that I'm not getting more unhappy. I'm getting happier," I said. "So, as depressing as it may be to think of another five years, or a lifetime, of not being married, the depression is only in me in the fear. Actually living out a chaste lifestyle indefinitely is not sad. I'm accomplishing so much with my life that I didn't think I'd be able to accomplish."
G.K. Chesterton writes in his Autobiography that, according to the Penny Catechism he read before entering the Church, "[t]he two sins against Hope are presumption and despair." We don't usually think of hope as something that can be sinned against. But it is a virtue, and presumption and despair are its corresponding vices. More than that, it is, along with faith and charity, one of the three theological virtues, meaning that it is directed towards God.
A person living chastely while longing to be married is living in hope. I believe such hope is virtuous because it is directed towards a virtuous goal — and that goal is not centered upon wedding vows.
Here I run up against the difficulties of the language we use when describing the single life. I don't believe that one desiring marriage should merely "stop looking," as advice columnists would have it, nor that one should "cultivate other interests" or "just be the best person you can be."
Back in 1989, singer/songwriter Lucinda Williams, with her catchy tune “Passionate Kisses” encapsulated the mentality of that “Greed Decade” and beyond: "Shouldn't I have this, shouldn't I have this, shouldn't I have all of this ... Give me what I deserve, 'cause it's my right." In our consumer culture, we are immersed in that kind of entitlement mentality, so much so that denying one’s own wants is seen as equivalent to denying one’s own rights. Well, call me radical, call me crazy, but it's becoming increasingly apparent — especially as I spend time with religious faithful and with people who do charitable work — that what I imagine are the most important things for me to accomplish in life are not necessarily those that God considers most important.
What seems like an eternity for us here on Earth is less than the blink of an eye in Heaven. Moreover, there are no marriages in Heaven. In Heaven, we will find our spiritual children — those whom we have helped come to the faith — which, for a single person, could well exceed the number of children of a married one. (Isaiah 54:1: “Sing, O barren ... for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord.”)
The hope in which I strive to live, then, is that Jesus, through Mary, will enable the graces He has given me through the gift of conversion to come to full flower. This is the "hope [that] maketh not ashamed," as Paul writes in Romans 5, "because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us."
Make no mistake about it, I want to be married and experience the love and companionship of a husband on every level — physical, emotional, and spiritual. And, sure, I think about it a lot. But when I think about the short time we have on Earth, I feel the need to focus on discerning God's will for my life from day to day. It's a will that requires me to become more loving to everyone — as opposed to becoming more attractive to that special someone out there.
As a late convert to chastity, I sometimes have a hard time explaining my vocation to people — and not just to those who think it’s bizarre to forgo premarital sex. There are Catholics of traditional upbringing who look at me as if they’d never met a 38-year-old woman who wasn’t either a mother or a nun. When I wrote on my blog about the response I gave to the Irish Times reporter, a male reader commented, “[T]hough there might be something to be said for ‘easing’ into the idea of a lifetime of singleness, at some point, I think that making an affirmative commitment to single lay celibacy would give that life the same focus and purpose that men and women living holy orders or marriage enjoy.”
I believe that a small but significant number of people share that reader’s perspective, in that they are uncomfortable with the idea of uncertainty. They can’t imagine themselves leading a chaste single life for an extended period of time, and so they feel uneasy at the idea that someone would choose a life lacking the “focus and purpose” of celibacy vows. To them, the idea of an unmarried person’s attempting to live chastely without consecrating their choice before God is the equivalent of a couple’s shacking up rather than making their union official. I feel as though they think I’m just playing at chastity.
When it comes to faith, God recognizes no mushy middle. On the one hand, the Bible is filled with exhortations to take a stand, perhaps most eloquently in Revelation 3, when Jesus tells the Laodicean church to be cold or hot — but not lukewarm. But on the other, the Bible makes clear that our life on Earth is an ongoing study in reconciliation. “I have been a stranger in a strange land,” said Moses, and God’s people have always been strangers among the worldly. The Lord wants us to rely solely upon Him for direction, as David writes in the 25th Psalm: “Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord; for he shall pluck my feet out of the net.”
In other words, as I see it, we are supposed to be absolutely certain of where we stand — but not so sure about where we’re going.
Through Jesus’ reconciling the world to himself, Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5, we as Christians are given the “ministry of reconciliation.” This ministry is intended to be ongoing. It does not end when one lives under vows, regardless of the sense of closure such vows may provide.
A friend of mine, while training me to volunteer at a charity that helped homebound senior citizens, warned me not to assume that a healthy-looking client was able to take good care of himself. “Not all disabilities are visible,” she said.
In the same way, not all abilities are visible. It is impossible to tell from observing someone’s life what spiritual graces that person has received. "The world admires only spectacular sacrifice," wrote St. Josemaria Escriva, "because it does not realize the value of sacrifice that is hidden and silent."
Compared to those who are married or live in a monastery, a chaste single person may seem to lack a sense of being grounded or having a spiritual home. In truth, they may have a home within the home of this world — a spiritual place where they maintain deeply rooted faith even under shifting and unpredictable external circumstances. “For in the time of trouble, he shall hide me in his pavilion,” sang David in Psalm 27.
If I live my entire life waiting in hope of marriage, I can’t imagine how that could be a tragedy — as long as, while I wait, my eyes are not on a fantasy of my future husband, but on Jesus.
The only way to truly discover one’s vocation is to act on it, as one understands it, in the present moment — to step out in faith.
St. Maximilian Kolbe wrote, “If you have the will to love, you already give proof that you love. What counts is the will to love.” In living day-to-day in the vocation of single, unvowed chastity, I am relying upon God to take my will — to grow in love of Him and my fellow human beings — and put it into action. In making that my goal, I have hope that, whatever my vocation proves to be, Our Lady of Grace will grant me the grace to, as St. Maximilian Kolbe put it, “love without limits.”
More Jesuit photos from the Life archive here. Many of the images are quite stunning, including some, also from Bourke-White's 1953 photo essay, that feature a robed Byzantine-rite Jesuit priest.
If you're wondering how it got to be Society of Jesus week in these parts, this is The Dawn Patrol's brain on Father Daniel A. Lord S.J..
UPDATED WITH NEW LINK: Coterie of many collars Jesuits, Boston College students march together for life
Jesuit scholastic Joe Laramie sends this photo of himself (the bearded gent seated at left) and others from Boston College at the March for Life. All told, eight young Jesuits and 30 BC undergrads joined about 299,962 others at what Barbara Curtis aptly calls "the most underreported event in the nation."
I would say the second most underreported event is the influx of dynamic young men into the Jesuit order who are attracted to the charism laid out in St. Ignatius Loyola's foundations, including its loyalty to the Magisterium. Some of them, including Father Sean Raftis S.J., produced the official Jesuit publication "Standing for the Unborn," which provides forceful arguments for why faithful Catholics should see the right to life as the unbreachable foundation of all social justice.
MORE: Fellow S.J. aficionado Karen Hall runs the fine blog Some Wear Clerics "for faithful sons of St. Ignatius and those who pray for them."
UPDATE: John Brown S.J. of companionofjesus.com sends a link to photos of another Jesuit-led March for Life contingent, adding, "See if you can find me; Aaron Pidel, S.J.; Nathan O'Halloran, S.J.; Fr. David Brown, S.J.; Fr. Chris Collins, S.J.; Danny Tesvich, S.J.; Fr. Richard Hermes, SJ or any other unabashedly pro-life Jesuits!"
Photo courtesy of Abigail Craycraft, undergrad president of the BC Pro-Life Club.
Last week, one of my professors (not at Dominican House of Studies, but at another school where I am taking a class) referred to the evangelical counsels—poverty, chastity, and obedience—as "poverty, virginity, and obedience."
I raised my hand and asked if he was using "virginity" to mean unmarried chastity. He said virginity was a more appropriate word than chastity because virginity implies a "complete self-gift" to God, while chastity by definition is according to one's state of life. For married people, chastity includes sex, he noted, because sex is appropriate within the marital bond. So, yes, he did mean unmarried chastity, and in this, he said, he was following the terminology used by Hans Urs von Balthasar—calling "virginity" an offering up of one's entire sexual being, whether or not one is a physical virgin.
The word virginity in his eyes, then, applies not to the state of virginity, but to the act of being chaste for the kingdom. To me, that relativizes the term beyond recognition.
Such an alteration made me uncomfortable, so I asked priests and religious about it. Some of them said it downgraded chastity. To me, it downgraded virginity, as I will explain. In any case, wrote to the professor to ask his permission to refer to the counsels in class by their traditional names, and he granted it.
The experience inspired me to research the Church's traditional teaching on virginity. I found a good overview in the Catholic Encyclopedia entry on the subject, which goes into the physical and spiritual aspects of virginity.
In my talks, like the January 2008 one below, I discuss the meaning of the spiritual aspect, a k a "secondary virginity." (No one I know likes that term, least of all myself, but I have yet to find one to replace it; "purity" and "sexual integrity" are too general.)
The problem I have with labeling "virginity" under the traditional vows, as though vowed chastity were equal to virginity, is that it implies the Church views secondary virginity as equal to actual virginity in every respect, which it simply does not.
The ancient vocation of the consecrated virgin, which was revived during the Second Vatican Council, reflects the Church's belief that a woman who dedicates her virginity to the Lord is a special sign to the world. If it were not so, it would not matter whether Mary was pure of heart, mind, and body for her entire life. There is a reason she is the Blessed Virgin and not the Blessed Secondary Virgin Mary.
For me, what it comes down to is that it is always better to never have sinned than to have sinned. That doesn't mean that one who has escaped a fall may pride oneself as being better than one who has fallen. Nor does it mean one cannot grow from the experience of repenting of a fall. But, as I told a young woman who suggested my experience of recovering from a sinful lifestyle had made me "wise," someone who never committed such sins has wisdom that I will never know. There is a reason Mary is called Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom, and not Our Lady, Who Got Wise.
The final point about St. Jude's prayers continuing even when his statue had been hidden away really hits home. Over the years, the saints continue to overwhelm me with their interest in both helping us get to heaven and giving us much-needed aid in our earthly lives.
'What would we do if God called us?' A homily by FATHER SEAN RAFTIS, S.J.
Homily for the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, 2009
When we get phone calls, we all react differently, depending on who is calling and what the phone call is about. Sometimes we are excited to get a call and sometimes we might be nervous. Sometimes we want to answer the phone and sometimes we don’t. What would we do if God called us? Well, he does call us.
In today’s Gospel, Our Lord called some members of the Apostolic College. The Latin word for “calling” is “vocare." Just as Jesus called the disciples, he calls all of us, and we all have a vocation, no matter who we are, no matter what age we are. Also, it is never, ever too late to answer God’s call. God has eternal call-waiting.
What qualities did Jesus seek when he called Andrew, Simon, James, and John to help him in his mission as Saviour and Redeemer? He looked for people used to hard work and people who have been through life’s struggles. So that’s something you have in common with the disciples, and that’s a pretty good deal.
They could have refused to serve Our Lord because they might not have felt ready or suited or at a disadvantage compared so those to whom they would preach. But they gave generously of themselves and surrendered to Our Lord and trusted in Our Lord and put themselves completely at His disposal. They didn’t know what was going to happen, but they trusted Our Lord and surrendered to Him. So should we.
You know what the meaning of life is? St. Ignatius of Loyola wrote that it is this: to “praise, reverence, and serve God.” That’s it — pretty simple. God calls all of us to participate in his saving work of kindness and mercy.
When we call someone, we don’t talk to every person the same way, say the exact same things, and propose the same activities to the persons on the other end. We adapt to each person according to age, disposition, their needs, their sensitivities, senses of humor, and so on. We might need to have someone pick up groceries, we might need to be encouraged, we may need to have our broken heart soothed, share sadness, tell a funny story, or we may simply want others to pass along some good news.
Our Lord does the same thing. He calls each of us in a different way according to our personality. Like the cells in a body, we have a function in the body of Christ, and we are all nourished by the Eucharist which gives us the strength that we need to carry on our Lord’s work.
We need to ask ourselves: how am I answering my call from Our Lord? Often when we think of the Holy Spirit calling us, we think of a lightning bolt or some earth-shattering event that gets our attention. But God calls us, like he called the prophet Elijah, in that still, small voice. That voice is inside of us, and it is called a conscience, hopefully a well-formed conscience that conforms to Catholic faith and all the Church’s teachings.
We often want to know what God’s will is in our lives. Just the fact that we desire to know his will is a sign that we are cooperating with God’s will. God’s will is in our desires — that is, our holy desires.
We all have a calling — in the big picture and in the everyday activities of our lives. Perhaps it is to prayer; it might be being a witness to the Catholic faith in your profession in some way; it may be entering public life and being a faithful Catholic as a public servant. It might be praying the Rosary every day; it may be helping a handicapped person getting to Mass, it may be visiting the sick or elderly or saying a kind word to someone in need of encouragement. It may be volunteering in the parish for any number of charitable activities. You may be called to marriage, to the single life, to the religious life or to the priesthood. We are to answer the call of Christ the King every day and to obey our Lord’s instruction to always repent.
The very best way to answer his call is by being here at Mass. You don’t know what the graces are that He gives you and that you communicate to others for your being here at Mass today. You are answering the call to give thanks as Jesus gave thanks to the Heavenly father and to eat the bread of the Angels, the food from the side of eternity.
God’s on the line right now. How are you going to answer Him?
The current Arlington Catholic Herald has the lovely conversion story of my dear friend Jeff, a former Methodist pastor whose journey home to Rome began with an attraction to the symphonic music of Rimsky-Korsakov.
The EWTN Web site has a profile of Monsignor Smith that tells about how he helped to preserve the Faith during the "silly season" that erupted after Humanae Vitae.
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen.
I was surprised to find that today's edition of La Estrella, Panama's oldest newspaper, featured an article on me.
While my Spanish is not strong, it appears the article is taken from the Sunday Times of London article I wrote two years ago. Reinforcing this suspicion is that the reporter is under the impression that I am British, and seems unaware that my book The Thrill of the Chaste has now been published in Spanish. Still, it is wonderful to see The Thrill still getting press two years after its publication.
RELATED: I wasn't happy with the way my Sunday Times article was altered by the editor, who sensationalized it, so I was glad to have the opportunity to rewrite it for Canada's National Post. That version in turn was published in Spanish by the Colombia newspaper El Espectador, in what I'm told is a good translation.
Come hear me speak in D.C. before & after March for Life
Following are my latest "Tour of the Chaste" dates, including talks at Washington's John Paul II Cultural Center before and after the March for Life. Note that the January 23 talk is a training for chastity speakers. Both the D.C. talks are free and open to all.
If you can't make it to my talks, you can watch me online courtesy of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, who have posted a downloadable video interview with me on my conversion, St. Maximilian Kolbe, and my work promoting chastity.
January 21
Chastity conference, John Paul II Cultural Center, Washington, D.C., sponsored by Chastity Programs International. The event, also featuring Goretti Group speakers Angela King Santero and Rocky Rhoades, runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; my talk begins at 3:45 p.m. Free admission; all are welcome.
January 23
Training session for chastity speakers at John Paul II Cultural Center, Washington, D.C., sponsored by Chastity Programs International. The event, also featuring Goretti Group speakers Angela King Santero and Rocky Rhoades, runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; my talk begins at 3:45 p.m. Free admission; all are welcome.
February 9
"SexFest Catholic Style," the Dartmouth College Catholic campus ministry's answer to the college's "SexFest." Event open to Dartmouth students only. For details, contact Father Francis Belanger at Dartmouth's Aquinas House.
March 7
Philadelphia Natural Family Planning Network, annual conference, Trinity Parish Center at Our Lady of Good Counsel, Southhampton, Pa. I will be the keynote speaker, giving two talks, one on my life story and one on "The Thrill of the Chaste." For details, visit pnfpn.org.
Buy The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On at Amazon.com.
"CHASTE" icon created at Obamicon.Me. Thanks to Kevin Walsh for the tip and suggested caption.
"God has given us a free will. Unless we had a free will, we could not love. God never coerces us but invites us to return our love for His selfless love of us. He invites us to do this by conforming, surrendering and sacrificing our wills to His. ... Every moment of our lives is a providential expression of God's love for us, inviting us to respond no matter what the cost is to ourselves."
The point is not whether a match is made in heaven, but whether it helps you get there
"I reject ... this modern fascination with 'discerning who[m] God wants you to marry.' Obviously we want to discern God’s will in all things to the best of our ability, but what exactly are we discerning and how precise can we be with our discernment? In my extensive reading of history, here is how it has always been done:
"The discernment process has always been whether or not to get married, not to whom one gets married.
"That is, in the Middle Ages and beyond there is a great focus in spiritual writings on discerning whether you are called to celibacy or the married state. But once one discerns they are called to the married life, there is almost nothing like we see nowadays about 'figuring out who[m] God wants you to marry.' There is a lot written, however, about how to best “pick” your spouse. That is to say, the choice of a spouse was not seen as a matter of God’s will but as a matter of human prudence, much like picking a good house or picking a good piece of fruit from the market. Love was never seen to be the basis for a marriage, though it was sought after to arise after the fact by mutual affection and sharing of a common life. The woman (or man) who married simply out of love was considered a fool, and there are no records that I know of any person being taught to ask who God wanted them to marry. It was seen as something that a person was supposed to use their human judgment (common sense) on and not try to be all vocationally oriented with. A man chose a wife based on several factors, and once the marriage was consummated, love was seen to be a worthy thing that could grow on the basis of that union, but it was not deemed essential. My RCIA classes always marvel when we get to the class on the Sacrament of Matrimony and they see that 'love' is not required for either the form or matter of the sacrament."
"I dislike when people presume they are following traditional morality when in reality they are pursuing novelties. I’ve said this before: withholding your child from dating until they are 18 or 19 is not traditional morality. Talking about discerning whom God wants you to marry is not traditional morality. Adhering to the novel 'courting' ideal where a boy and girl spend all their time together hanging out with the family is not traditional either. I’m not saying these are bad ideas – in our society, they may be necessary to protect chastity. But let’s stop pretending that we are going back to some lost moral code with these things, because we are not. We are simply adapting to the times and slapping the 'traditional morality' label on it. If we were really being traditional, the father would find a husband for the daughter with no spiritual discernment at all, would base his judgment on financial factors, would betroth the two of them and marry her off around age 16. The wife would be expected to run the husband’s household and prosper him financially, and maybe down the road they would grow to love each other. That’s tradition. I’m not saying it’s the best way, but that is the traditional way – and anything else that claims to be 'traditional' is really just a novelty. Maybe a good novelty, but a novelty nonetheless."
"When other nations are attacked in war, and they defend themselves, counterattack, and consequently take over the territory of the enemy, they get to keep that territory, especially if needed in order to prevent the area from being used as a launching pad for later attacks. But Israel is unique in the world in that, not only were they denied international recognition as a nation for years, that is, denied the right to even exist, they are denied the right to keep lands seized from their enemies in war.
"When other enemies start wars and attack peaceful countries, they forfeit the territories from which the attacks began, and they subject themselves to legitimate occupation for as long as the victorious country chooses. But when 'Palestine' starts war after war (or, more precisely, continues to engage in the same war, interrupted every now and then with dishonest and false cease-fires, the sole purpose of which is to prevent the ultimate losing of the war and to give time to re-arm), it is to be given support, and given back the lands that it occupied for a short period of time, but were never part of some nonexistent country of Palestine.
"Meanwhile, we are assured that the root cause of rockets and car bombs and kidnappings and restaurant bombs and masked gunmen dressed as civilians shooting innocent Israelis and Palestinians alike, is not because the terror groups and their many supporters in Palestinian areas have chosen to engage in criminal terroristic behavior, but rather, it is because of the Jews. It is the fault of the Jews. And when I say the Jews, I mean, the Jews, not the Israelis. Because if Israel were not a Jewish state, if it were Muslim or even secular, it would not be the one to blame."
News you won't see on CNN: The night Hamas struck an Israeli synagogue
While the United Nations cries out against Israel for defending itself—and takes no notice of Hamas' using its own citizens as human shields—residents of the Israeli town of Sderot, one mile from Gaza, have lived under Hamas rocket fire for eight years.
This extraordinarily moving video shows what happened at a Sderot synagogue on May 17, 2007, the night it was struck by a Qassam rocket just after congregants celebrated a scribe's completion of the temple's new Torah.
SderotMedia.com, a citizens-journalism site in the hard-hit town, made the above video as well as this one, taped on Thursday, after a Qassam rocket severely damaged a Sderot home. It relates how one of the firefighters responding to the hit discovered it was the home of his own parents—who were unhurt, thank God.
These and other videos on SderotMedia.com hint at the human toll that Hamas rocket attacks have taken on Israel for years. Sderot's suffering has been almost entirely ignored by the international media, save for rare exceptions such as last week's account from Associated Press journalist Amy Teibel. She reported:
After eight years of rocket barrages from Gaza, the people of Sderot have the drill down: The Code Red alert warning of incoming rocket fire sends them rushing into one of the many safe rooms scattered across the town. ...
The rockets that usually land in Sderot are crude projectiles manufactured in Gaza. But they can maim or kill, and when they land close, they set off a terrifying blast. ...
Albert el-Harrat came to Sderot 47 years ago, when it was a tent camp. "People are waiting and praying that the offensive will continue until it's completed," _ that is, until the rocket fire stops.
"We don't want to attack civilians. We want to attack the Hamas leaders who order people to attack (our) civilians," he says. ...
Israel's military campaign hasn't stopped the rocket fire, so the government has shut down schools across the south. Sderot residents joke that kids have been put under house arrest, but not all of them are unhappy. Bomb shelters have been transformed into makeshift clubhouses, where kids under the supervision of soldiers or volunteers can play games, do art projects or just hang out.
At the end of the video directly above, a daughter of the couple whose house was hit sums it up:
"This has been the routine for eight years, not one day and not two. We get used to this, but we must not become desensitized to this, not for one second. I hope that with the help of God, and I pray to God, that this will be the last Qassam."*
TAKE ACTION: Give to the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Emergency Fund to help Israeli children and other civilians living in areas targeted by Hamas rockets. Nearly 40 Grad missiles have struck in or around Beer-Sheva since December 30. Warning sirens generally sound three to four times a day.
My brother lives in the Negev and has seen firsthand the vital work that BGU-Negev is doing, some of which you can see in the video on the fund's Web site. Its volunteers are aiding the elderly and others in need, delivering meals, manning hotlines, providing day care, and running programs for children, who are often deprived of daylight due to the long hours they must spend in bomb shelters.
PLEASE PRAY: For my brother; his bride, who is expecting their first child, and for peace in the Holy Land.
*The video's subtitles leave out the "o" in God's name because Orthodox Jews do not say or write His name, for fear of breaking the commandment against taking it in vain.
Unlike governments that seek to protect their citizens, Hamas engages in what one columnist aptly calls human sacrifice, carrying out its rocket attacks from mosques, schools, and other locations where it may use innocent civilians as human shields.
Here, from the Israel Defense Forces' YouTube channel, is what Israeli soldiers found when they entered a Gaza mosque that had been used to launch rocket attacks.
As Mona Charen observes, "Hamas has perfected a kind of camera-ready human sacrifice—placing its launchers in playgrounds, hospitals, and neighborhoods crowded with mothers and children."
"It would be hard to argue that Therese of Lisieux, or Mother Teresa, lacked a 'personal relationship with God.' And yet, for both of them, that relationship was often experienced as loneliness and abandonment. Therese said she had been 'assailed by the worst temptations of atheism.' Mother Teresa wrote that she experienced 'just that terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing.' She wrote of a feeling of 'terrible separation.' She lived in the moment of Christ's cry from the Cross: 'My God, my God, why have You abandoned me?'
"And yet both Therese and Teresa spoke of God as someone real and known, someone Whose withdrawal left salt water in the footprints of His past consolations. All Christians must seek to enter into the life of Christ, to be baptized into His death so that we might rise in His life; Mother Teresa received the terrible gift of being baptized into His crucifixion. That is one way to have a relationship with God. It is a real gift, just as martyrdom is a gift."
What's wrong in Baltimore is right in Arlington as Legion priest gives spiritual direction to minors
Baltimore Archbishop Edwin O'Brien last June told Legion of Christ priests to stop giving spiritual direction to minors. But on the other side of the Potomac, in the Diocese of Arlington, Legionaries continue to give such direction to high-school boys, despite concerns from O'Brien and others that the children may be pressured into religious vocations.
The introduction to ZENIT's interview yesterday with Rev. Michael Sliney L.C., "7 Things Teenage Boys Most Need," says the Legionary priest "acts a spiritual director" for high-school boys.
Diocese of Arlington Bishop Paul Loverde has yet to display the concerns of his Baltimore counterpart, whose call for a halt to the Legion's direction of minors was part of a wider demand for "greater transparency and accountability" from the religious congregation and its lay arm, Regnum Christi.
Here are some things parents of teenage boys should know that were omitted from ZENIT's article: the complaints O'Brien received about the "heavily persuasive methods" the Legion uses with young people, as he described them in an interview with the National Catholic Reporter's John Allen:
Can you describe what led you to issue this letter?
When I came into the archdiocese, I was told by our Vicar General that there had been a long series of exchanges between the cardinal and the locals of the Legionaries about programs going on in the archdiocese that our pastors didn’t know about, didn’t know the extent of them, didn’t know the nature of them. There were seemingly heavily persuasive methods used on young people, high schoolers especially, regarding vocations.
Have the Legionaries generated a lot of vocations in Baltimore?
I don’t know. Once again, we don’t know. They have the Woodmont school in our archdiocese. [Note: The Woodmont Academy is a private K-8 Catholic school with an enrollment of over 300 located in Cooksville, Maryland.] Academically, they’re abiding by all the expectations of our Superintendent of Education. We’ve got no problems there.
But what goes on in the one-on-one counseling … there seems to be a tendency to say, ‘We represent God. You can tell us anything, and you better believe that what we tell you is from God too. If your parents disagree, we know better. We’re in the God business, and they’re really not.’ This is a caricature, but it’s there.
They sponsor father/son weekends. The father drives 14 hours, brings the kid up to New Hampshire and drops the kid off at 11:00 at night. Where’s the farther going to stay? Well, there’s a place about 40 miles away you can stay, so the father’s sleeping in the car overnight. Next day they’re ready for the hike, but no, the fathers don’t go, it’s just the counselors and the kids. That’s the tendency.
Who’s in charge of this? Who’s responsible? Each time you meet with an official, [they say], ‘Oh, no, that didn’t happen, did it? You should have let us know right away. That’s not right.’ But it happens over and over again. [Read the full interview.]
Please pray for my brother Adam and his wonderful bride Judith, pictured here at their engagement party. Just married (or about to be; they've been waiting for their Israeli marriage paperwork to clear) they e-mailed me this morning with the blessed news that "we are pregnant (about 8 weeks)!"
Adam is about to graduate from an Israeli medical school. He discovered his vocation in medicine while volunteering for an American Jewish doctor at a Missionaries of Charity clinic in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He loves working with children, and especially—like the Missionaries of Charity—with the poorest of the poor. I am so proud of my brother, and so happy as he begins his new life as a husband and father.
A captured Hamas map of a Gaza City neighborhood shows how the terrorist group plants powerful explosives in highly populated areas to increase casualties among its own civilians, as Israel Defense Forces Lt. Barak Raz explains.
"Hamas turn a Gaza neighborhood into a warzone. This map, confiscated Wednesday (Jan. 7) by IDF paratroopers operating in the north of Gaza, shows how Hamas uses an entire neighborhood, rigging it with explosive devices and putting the entire civilian population at great risk. The map shows the al-Tatraa neighborhood in Gaza City divided into three areas of operation (red, blue and green). The dots on the map indicate where Hamas operatives had planted a variety of IEDs (improvised explosive devices), with the colors indicating the type of IED. Additional marks show sniper positions next to mosques. Next to the entrance of the el-Tawid mosque near to Shauuda Plaza at the top left of the map there is a sniper posting with marking indicating the direction of fire marked on the map. At the bottom center of the map there is a gas station where Hamas planted an IED which, if activated, could cause a very large explosion throughout the neighborhood. An overall study of the map demonstrates how Hamas deliberately uses civilians, using them as live targets and hiding behind them; they plant IEDs at the entrances of homes, they booby trap homes and they use places of worship, all with no regard to collateral damage or civilian lives."
'Say No to Reproduction'—say what? A guest post by BENDER
I asked Dawn yesterday if she had seen this little gem from "Freethinker" at Feministing, which has been making the rounds.
Along with the emancipation of women, sexual liberation has become very much a part of politics around the world. To the conservatives, both these issues challenge 'family values'.
But what if there were no families? What if we say no to reproduction?
My understanding of reproduction is that it is the basis of the institutions of marriage and family, and those two provide the moorings to the structure of gender and sexual oppression. [...]
So it makes sense to say that if the world has to change, reproduction has to go. Of course there is an ecological responsibility to reduce the human population, or even end it [...] but an ecological consciousness is not how I came to my decision to remain child-free.
Because reproduction is seen as a psychological need, even a biological impulse, that would supposedly override any rational concerns arising out of a sense of responsibility, ecological or otherwise, I would like to propose emotional conditioning to counter such a need or impulse to reproduce. ... [Read the full post.]
Now, if someone were to say something like this to me in my presence, my likely response would be to look at my watch and say with a smile, "Wow, look at the time. I gotta go. Good luck with that no reproduction thing." and then walk away.
So what was my response when Dawn wrote back asking if I wanted to write a guest post on it? Ha!
I wrote back:
Thank you, Dawn, I would be delighted to write a guest post sometime, but on this? After thinking about it last night and this morning, I still don't have a clue as to how to respond to this.
I know how to start -- quoting Thomas Paine from an open letter to British General William Howe,
"To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture. Enjoy, sir, your insensibility of feeling and reflecting. It is the prerogative of animals. And no man will envy you these honors, in which a savage only can be your rival and a bear your master."
But after noting that you can't reason with someone who has abandoned reason and embraced irrationality, I am pretty much at a loss for words. I could ridicule. I could point out that, if serious, this is simply the inherently nihilistic contraceptive mentality writ large and taken to its extreme logical conclusion. I could talk about how a world without children, a world without reproduction, was chillingly depicted in the movie Children of Men. I could note that this is simply of a piece in a time when, on multiple fronts, we are fast seeking to embrace national suicide, if not worldly suicide.
But mostly, all I can do is simply shake my head and shrug my shoulders while being dismayed that anyone would give such ideas a serious hearing, much less holding such ideas themselves. How did we get to such a point? Should anyone really have to point out the absurdities of these ideas?
We now live in a world where things that once would have been universally rejected as being abominations are instead not merely accepted, but taken to be matter-of-course -- sometimes even by those who should know better. From abortion to partial-birth infanticide to embryo-killing stem cell research to other embryonic and fetal experimentation to severing procreation from marriage and family to in vitro fertilization, severing procreation from marital sex, to surrogate motherhood to cloning to human-animal hybridization to advocating medicalized suicide to directly euthanizing the disabled, sick, and elderly, even to the extent of a torturous death by dehydration and starvation, and on and on. Once upon a time these things would have been understood everywhere as the chamber of horrors that they are, seen only in such works of fiction as Frankenstein, Brave New World, and the aforementioned Children of Men.
Truth, not only moral truth, but scientific truth, is turned on its head. What was once obviously and indisputably false is now held to be true. What was once wrong is now a right. At best, relativism is the new truth. We are indeed being "tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine," which only results in "a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires."
And how does one engage in a dialogue with a dictatorship of relativism?? "To reason with despots is throwing reason away." For years and years and years the pro-life movement has tirelessly tried to use reason in engaging the world and in defense of the truth of the inherent dignity of the human person. However, while there has been some movement on the abortion front, things like cloning and embryo-killing research comes out of nowhere to receive world-wide acclaim. Clearly, to reason in a dictatorship of relativism is throwing reason away.
So, what to do? What to say when presented with the irrational idea of "say no to reproduction"?
At the same time, turning away in despair is not an answer either. We may not be able to reason with those who have embraced such nihilism, but perhaps we can try to innoculate some others from becoming infected with the worldly disease of relativism. Perhaps we cannot change and restore society at large, but must instead convince and convert one person at a time. One by one, teaching and encouraging in the light of truth. One neighbor at a time, one friend at a time, one student at a time, one child at a time.
-- So, that was my response to Dawn's kind invitation. I don't know if that makes for a "guest post," but like I said, I am really at a loss as to how to engage someone like Freethinker. So there you are. Wow, look at the time. I gotta go.
Dustbury's Charles G. Hill observes that PETA's attempt to market fish as "sea kittens" (so that people will stop eating them) is net a new angle, but rather a recast of the organization's tired old clams.
Personally, I've haddock with PETA's oysterous complaints. They're all pretty sealy if you ask me. And, as Charles reminds me, I didn't have much patience when the organization tried a similar tuna in another plaice. Back in 2004, it claimed fish were brilliant soles that didn't deserve to be brutally krilled. In response to that bass canard, I wrote, "If they're so smart, how come they get caught?"
Abortionist blogger pleads for money to terminate black mentally disabled teen's baby
The abortionclinicdays blog currently features a story by abortionist "Nell" about a woman with the African-American name of DaShay, a psychologically abusive mother who phoned to inquire about having the child of her mentally disabled 17-year-old daughter, Alia, killed in the womb.
The story is a tragic microcosm of the manipulations and crimes of the abortion industry—including the targeting of minority and disabled children for extermination, and the failure to report the abuse of underage and disabled women. Nell is singlemindedly fixed on how she will get paid, ignoring the mother's abusiveness and coercion. The daughter, from Nell's account, seems to lack the ability to understand what an abortion is—the deliberate killing of a child in the womb—let alone consent legally to sex.
Nell describes what happened after DaShay, who was "pretty angry, cursing her daughter up and down for having sex," put her daughter on the phone:
Alia answered my questions slowly, but kept confirming that she did not want to be pregnant. Even though she was 17, she sounded younger. Mom was in the background shouting lots of questions, so I asked to speak to DaShay again.
"Look--my daughter has one baby and I got her baby. I adopted him because she can't care for him. She's got a disability, she can't care for herself, she can't learn, she was in special classes but went and dropped out. I been laid off. We only get a little bit of money for her disability. She can't have another baby! We are on welfare--do you hear me? WEL...FARE. WELFARE! Understand? We got nothing. Now what's this gonna cost? Thirty? Fifty dollars for the pills?"
Because of where she lived, DaShay's welfare would not cover the cost of an abortion. "Actually, it's going to be closer to $350," I explained again why it was different than needing Plan B. She started screaming at her daughter, "$350? What am I supposed to do! Where we gonna get money? Where'd that little boy go who said he's gonna help you?"
Nell shows no concern that the poor Alia, having already given birth to one child, has potentially been the victim not only of statutory rape (depending upon the age of consent in her state), but also of actual rape (since, being mentally disabled, she may not be capable of legal consent).
The abortionist does, however, show great concern over how she will get her blood money:
When DaShay calmed down again, we went over her finances. She was right--they were just barely surviving. I don't know how she was making it work. We went through the steps to get her some emergency help from the National Abortion Foundation, but still weren't able to get the whole cost covered. We made a plan where she would try to come up with a portion and I would start calling around to some other emergency abortion funds to find part of it. We scheduled Alia's appointment for two weeks in the future, to give each of us a chance to try to come up with some more money. I'm still waiting for phone calls back from the emergency funds and I don't know what's going to happen.
Nell adds that she can't wait for our next President to take office, presumably so he will fulfill his promise to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would require taxpayers to fund abortions:
All I know is I can't wait for a day when our national health care policy and our leadership can find a solution so that no woman's unplanned pregnancy creates this kind of crisis. After eight years of the Bush Presidency can you even imagine a world where women and mothers get their basic medical needs met? One week to go until a leadership change. Godspeed, President Obama!
One organization that helps women nationally is WRRAP. They are wonderful, just wonderful. I could tell you so many stories of women they have helped! Pregnant women who have lost their jobs, women who are homeless, women whose personal finances are committed to their children. Even working women sometimes earn too little to be able to pay for an abortion and still pay their rent. WRRAP's staff is volunteer so whatever you donate goes right to the clinics for a specific woman whose situation we present to them. Whenever WRRAP has money, they immediately spread it around! And I have never seen such an increase in requests!
These days, with so many women losing their jobs, losing hours at work, losing their homes, the requests are greater than ever. As a result, WRRAP is always short of funds. Any amount you care to send will be so appreciated, is so needed!
Abortionclinicdays, whose bloggers hide their identity, is powered by Blogs.com, a division of SixApart, which owns MovableType, Vox, and TypePad. Readers who use those services can tell the company what they think of its potentially helping an abortionist cover up sexual abuse of the mentally disabled.
Visit FightFOCA.com to join the effort to prevent the Freedom of Choice Act from becoming law.
Support organizations such as Expectant Mother Care that help pregnant women get financial aid, social services, prenatal care, and safety from abusers.
"Forget, for the moment, Gaza. Forget that the Palestinian people are the most comprehensively wrecked people on the face of the earth. For the past sixty years they have been entrusted to the care of the United Nations, the Arab League, the PLO, Hamas and the 'global community' — and the results are pretty much what you’d expect. You would have to be very hardhearted not to weep at the sight of dead Palestinian children, but you would also have to accord a measure of blame to the Hamas officials who choose to use grade schools as launch pads for Israeli-bound rockets, and to the UN refugee agency that turns a blind eye to it. And, even if you don’t deplore Fatah and Hamas for marinating their infants in a sick death cult in which martyrdom in the course of Jew-killing is the greatest goal to which a citizen can aspire, any fair-minded visitor to the West Bank or Gaza in the decade and a half in which the 'Palestinian Authority' has exercised sovereign powers roughly equivalent to those of the nascent Irish Free State in 1922 would have to concede that the Palestinian 'nationalist movement' has a profound shortage of nationalists interested in running a nation, or indeed capable of doing so. There is fault on both sides, of course, and Israel has few good long-term options. But, if this was a conventional ethno-nationalist dispute, it would have been over long ago.
"So, as I said, forget Gaza. And instead ponder the reaction to Gaza in Scandinavia, France, the United Kingdom, Canada, and golly, even Florida. As the delegitimization of Israel has metastasized, we are assured that criticism of the Jewish state is not the same as anti-Semitism. We are further assured that anti-Zionism is not the same as anti-Semitism, which is a wee bit more of a stretch. Only Israel attracts an intellectually respectable movement querying its very existence."
Courtesy of the wonderful Franciscans of the Immaculate at AirMaria.com, here is the latest Sunday homily, for yesterday's Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, by Father Joseph Tito of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception, Baltic, Connecticut. This time, the friars running the cameras added some fine shots of the beautifully renovated church—click the arrow to watch:
In part of the sermon, Father Tito quotes a homily by Father Phil Bloom. A Seattle priest who hosted me for talks at his church last May, Father Bloom is a sort of underground star of the homiletic world, as he thoughtfully posts his sermons in advance, to inspire his brother priests. And are they ever inspired! My parish priest in Washington, D.C. yesterday likewise borrowed the very same Father Bloom point that Father Tito quotes, about how a baptism is not a guarantee of sanctity. He said, "Some terrible people were baptized. Adolph Hitler. Joseph Stalin. Your mother-in-law."
Actually, the "mother-in-law" part was my pastor's addition. It went over very well.
"Adult stem cells, which include cord blood, placenta and other tissue stem cells, are actually helping patients right now. Thousands of patients have benefited, and lives (have been) saved, for over 70 different diseases and conditions, as verified by published scientific results. Yet most people haven't heard of adult stem cells, or don't know that they're different from embryonic stem cells. If we really cared about the patients first, we would focus on what works and what is ethical; the two go hand in hand. People need to hear and understand this message."
— Dr. David Prentice, from an interview for CitizenLink.com. Dr. Prentice is a friend, and I do some consulting for his employer.
RELATED: To learn more about adult stem-cell research, visit the Do No Harm Web site.
News you may have missed: Italian priest creates iBreviary
Father Paolo Padrini, a diocesan priest in Piemonte, Italy, writes asking that I mention his iBreviary, an application that, for 99 cents, brings the Liturgy of the Hours to the iPhone and iPod Touch. I don't have the necessary hardware, but The Curt Jester's Jeff Miller does and offers a favorable review.
The Small Faces' 1968 "Song of a Baker" was going through my head one morning last semester as I headed out of the Brookland-CUA Metro on my way to class at Dominican House of Studies, and I thought about how Eucharistic it sounded.
I don't know what the group's bass player and lead singer on the track, Ronnie Lane, or guitarist Steve Marriott, had in mind when they wrote it, but its lyrics fit very neatly with the meaning of the offering in the Mass of bread "which earth has given and human hands have made":
There's wheat in the field And water in the stream And salt in the mine And an aching in me
I can no longer stand and wonder 'Cause I'm driven by this hunger So I'll jug some water Bake some flour Store some salt and wait the hour
While I'm thinking of love Love is thinking for me And the baker will come And the baker I'll be ...
Then there are the references to jugging water, storing salt, and waiting the hour, and it's not too much of a stretch to see in them Gospel images—Cana, salt and light, awaiting the bridegroom ...
The Small Faces' album containing "Song of a Baker," Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake, was one of the first albums I bought when I began my obsession with Mod-era music as a teen. I listened to it and loved it during the time of my life when I felt most separated from God. It is comforting to think that, even as it seemed I was so far from grace, He prompted my will to go out towards a song that offered a principle of return.
I had the honor of meeting him a few times and hearing him preach. As a writer, he is known for his fiery orthodoxy, but in person he had a gentle and very pastoral manner. I am thankful for his life and very sorry we have lost his presence in this world.
Remembering the Vatican's 'total rejection' of anti-Zionism
As a Jewish convert to Catholicism who desires ardently that everyone, especially my loved ones, should find the salvation granted through Jesus Christ, I am distressed to see, following Israel's attempt to stop Hamas's violence against its citizens, some Catholics claim the true villain in the conflict is Zionism itself.
It is true that the Catholic Church, unlike some Protestant churches (particularly Evangelical ones), does not hold that political Israel fulfills a biblical mandate. But, while not endorsing Zionism, the Church totally rejects anti-Zionism, maintains that the Jews and Palestinians each have a right to a homeland, and insists that Israel itself has a right to exist.
Those who proclaim or hold otherwise are acting contrary to Magisterial statements. More than that, I believe very strongly from my own experience that they are doing a great disservice to Catholicism by projecting a distorted image of the Church, reeking of Feeneyism, that risks alienating Jews who might otherwise be receptive to the Faith.
As we approach the 40th anniversary of Nostra Aetate - the ground-breaking declaration of the Second Vatican Council which repudiated the deicide charge against Jews, reaffirmed the Jewish roots of Christianity and rejected anti-Semitism - we take note of the many positive changes within the Catholic Church with respect to her relationship with the Jewish People. These past forty years of our fraternal dialogue stand in stark contrast to almost two millennia of a "teaching of contempt" and all its painful consequences. We draw encouragement from the fruits of our collective strivings which include the recognition of the unique and unbroken covenantal relationship between God and the Jewish People and the total rejection of anti-Semitism in all its forms, including anti-Zionism as a more recent manifestation of anti-Semitism.
Pope John Paul II himself spoke repeatedly of Israel's right to exist in peace and security, as in a 1987 address to U.S. Jewish leaders in which he quoted an earlier Apostolic Letter of his [emphasis in the original]:
After the tragic extermination of the Shoah, the Jewish people began a new period in their history. They have a right to a homeland as does any civil nation, according to international law. "For the Jewish people who live in the State of Israel and who preserve in that land such precious testimonies to their history and their faith, we must ask for the desired security and the due tranquillity that is the prerogative of every nation and condition of life and of progress for every society" (Ioannis Pauli PP. II Redemptionis Anno, die 20 apr. 1984: Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II, VII, 1 (1984) 1072).
People of good will may disagree on political solutions to Holy Land strife, but all should condemn anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism as being clearly outside the mind of the Church.
RELATED:
Ha'aretz covered reaction from Jews to the 2004 Joint Declaration condemning anti-Zionism.
Rabbi David Rosen, a former chief rabbi of Ireland and director of the American Jewish Committee’s department of interreligious affairs, writing in the Forward, explains what is meant by the Church's former "teaching of contempt" mentioned in the Joint Statement above, and details how the Vatican II document "Nostra Aetate" definitively rejected such teaching.
A 1975 Vatican document, "Notes on the correct way to present the Jews and Judaism in preaching and catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church," further elucidates how the Church's relationship with Israel and the Jewish people is to be understood by Catholics.
Kathryn Jean Lopez reports that Father George Rutler, who gave him last rites, says that "he is not expected to live long" and suggests "that it is appropriate that prayers be offered for a holy death."
UPDATE, 1/8/08: Father Neuhaus passed away this morning—see January 8 post above.
From the Israel Defense Forces' YouTube channel, here is a history of Hamas' escalation of violence and antagonism against Israel, including its program of radical Islamic indoctrination in the Gaza Strip. A juxtaposition of Hamas and IDF tactics starts at about 4:20.
The following video from October 29, 2007, shows a typical Hamas tactic: using civilians, particularly children, as human shields. Hamas terrorists used a UN-operated boys school to launch mortar attacks against Israeli civilians.
"Imagine a siren that gives you 30 seconds to find shelter before a Kassam rocket falls from the sky and explodes, spraying its lethal shrapnel in all directions. Now imagine this happens day after day, month after month, year after year.
"If you can imagine that, you can begin to understand the terror to which hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been subjected. Three years ago Israel withdrew from every square inch of Gaza. And since that withdrawal, our civilians have been targeted by more than 6,000 rockets and mortars fired from Gaza. In the face of this relentless bombardment, Israel has acted with a restraint that other countries, faced with a similar threat, would find hard to fathom. Israel's government has finally decided to respond.
"For this action to succeed, we must first have moral clarity. There is no moral equivalence between Israel, a democracy which seeks peace and targets the terrorists, and Hamas, an Iranian-backed terror organization that seeks Israel's destruction and targets the innocent. ...
"We fight to defend ourselves, but in so doing we are also fighting a fanatical ideology that seeks to reverse the course of history and throw the civilized world back into a new dark age. The struggle between militant Islam and modernity -- whether fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, India or Gaza -- will decide our common future. It is a battle we cannot afford to lose." [Read the full article.]
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While on retreat at the mother house of the Sisters of Charity of Our Lady, Mother of the Church, in Baltic, Connecticut, between Christmas and New Year's, I had the added delight of visiting Baltic's parish church, St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception.
These shots that I snapped with my cell phone—the first two during Eucharistic Adoration, the rest after a morning Mass—give a hint of the Romanesque beauty of the church, which was restored a few years ago under the direction of its wonderful pastor, Father Joseph Tito.
During the restoration, Father Tito managed to acquire the altarpiece from a Brooklyn church that was being converted into condominiums. I believe the altar itself, as well as the tabernacle, were likewise acquired during the restoration, which gloriously undid a post-Vatican II wreckovation. Father Tito told me that the parishioners were so happy when the tabernacle was restored to the center after years of exile.
See what looks like a lace covering on the tabernacle? Look closer.
It's a trick of the eye. What appears to be lace is actually a clear gauze curtain over a marbleized lace frontispiece. The frontispiece actually was donated separately from the tabernacle and, providentially, fit it perfectly.
What a beautiful place to visit the Lord. I miss it so much already.
One of the great joys of my retreat last week was worshiping in the beautiful St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception Church in Baltic, Conn., and hearing Pastor Joseph Tito's homilies. Now, thanks to AirMaria.com, Father Tito's Epiphany homily is available online. Watch it and be blessed.
Following his announcement that he was dropping the pesky "a" from his moniker, angry atheists urged the newly dubbed Raving Theist to get himself to a nunnery.
Instead, he's gotten himself to a punnery.
Witness his latest headlines, which I think are meant to lampoon his former godless compadres, who accuse him of turning "Pastafarian." He essentially says he has left the pasta behind to become Mr. Rice Guy, which is why his old pals are steamed.
Note my comment to his post—No. 23—in which I say I look forward to worshiping with him on the feast day of his patron saint.
Father Angelo Mary Geiger, a Franciscan Friar of the Immaculate, writing about AirMaria.com's interview with me, builds upon my observation that Mary is wrongly feared by some who think her purity makes her unapproachable:
Those who do not understand purity feel judged by it because its practice is so “daunting” and “unreachable.” But chastity is not to be feared. It is a fire that burns, but it also purifies and inflames with true love.
The way to promote it is not merely to articulate a high moral standard in a way that is intellectually compelling, but to show the beauty of purity. ...[Read the full post.]
Reading Father Angelo's commentary, I remembered that the insights I voiced which inspired him were themselves inspired by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen's The World's First Love.
Several times in the book, Sheen emphasizes Mary's historic role as "Refuge of Sinners." He writes that her experience of losing Jesus when He was twelve, and then, after three days of searching, finding Him in the Temple, gave her empathy for all who are separated from Him:
Marcel Proust says that when he was a young man he went to his mother and recollected many of the evil things which he had done in his ignorance and passion, and which his own mother could not understand, but to which she listened without understanding. He said that somehow or other she lessened their importance with a gentleness and compassion and lifted the weight of his conscience. But how can Mary know what the un-Christed suffer, or sympathize with the bleeding soul-wounds of the sinners? As the pure lily rests immaculate on a foul pond, so Mary came to know what sin is in a moment which matched, in her love's capacity as a creature, what Our Lord felt on the Cross.
What is sin? Sin is separation from God and an alienation from love. But Mary lost God, too! She lost him not morally but physically, during those seemingly endless three days when Her Divine Son was only twelve years of age. Searching, questioning, knocking from door to door, pleading and begging, Mary came to know something of the despairing emptiness of those who have not yet found Christ. This was the moment of her widowhood of the soul, when Mary came to know how every sinner feels—not because she sinned, but because she felt the effect of sin, namely, the loss of God and the loneliness of the soul. To every soul who is lost, she can still truly address the same words: "Son, we have sought thee sorrowing."
* * *
In the same post where he writes about my interview, Father Angelo makes some excellent points about how the act of giving someone the Miraculous Medal can be more powerful than preaching to him or her about the faith. I have experienced that at times like when I gave a Miraculous Medal to Jane Fonda, or when I gave one to a Planned Parenthood nurse practitioner as she wrote out prescriptions for the morning-after pill at the University of Illinois' "Sex Out Loud" fair. A person whose ears are closed to arguments may yet be touched by a fellow human being's making eye contact and offering a free gift.
During my lovely retreat in Connecticut earlier this week, while making a visit to the mother house of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate in Griswold, Connecticut, my prayers in the back pew of the chapel were interrupted by a friar handing me a note.
Seeing the piece of paper in the gray-hooded young man's hand, my first thought was that it would say, "The chapel closes in five minutes." Instead, to my surprise, it was a request for me to do a video interview for the order's Web site, AirMaria.com.
It was a joy to meet the all-Franciscan Air Maria video crew and offer them my appreciation of the great saint who inspired their multifaceted media ministry, Maximilian Kolbe. A high-quality version of the video may be viewed or downloaded at AirMaria.com, or you can watch it in the low-fi YouTube clips below. The AirMaria.com version has TV-style opening credits and would be a good discussion-starter for a church or campus ministry's young-adult group.
The interview was done in St. Joseph's Chapel, a beautiful stone structure outside the friary's main house. The heater was out, which is why I am dressed like the Michelin Man.
In Part 1, I begin to discuss the role St. Maximilian played in my conversion to Catholicism, which began while I was a copy editor at the New York Post. In Part 2, I continue the story and talk about how the saint's faith led me to develop a devotion to Mary. The final clip includes my observations on the fear that lies at the root of feminists' attacks on Marian devotion. (Although I did not mention any particular feminists, I had Amanda Marcotte in mind.) If you have time only to watch one of the clips, I recommend that segment.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
My book The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On is available from Amazon.com. All commissions on Amazon purchases made through this blog go to help pregnant women who suffer from hyperemesis gravidarum; for details, click here.
Thanks to Catholic Fire for being the first to blog about my interview.
Note: I'm still officially on vacation from blogging; will resume posting next week.
author Father James Martin S.J. sends this charming clip from his new DVD 
, was one of the first albums I bought when I began my obsession with Mod-era music as a teen. I listened to it and loved it during the time of my life when I felt most separated from God. It is comforting to think that, even as it seemed I was so far from grace, 
, given me by a Catholic friend, was one of the first Catholic books I read following my conversion to Christianity, making him part of the web of grace that led me into the Church. 
's "Little Way" to sanctity.
