An interesting analogy from Deacon Curtis Turner at the Archdiocese of Washington (DC) Blog:
Recently, I had invited a friend of mine who had fallen away from the Church to come to Mass. It was probably the first time he had been to Mass in three or four years. After Mass, he said to me, “I probably won’t come back – This did nothing for me.”
Read the whole thing here.
Yawn. Nothing new or edgy here. From The Hollywood Reporter (HT The Anchoress)
Comedy Central might censor every image of the Prophet Muhammad on “South Park,” yet the network is developing a whole animated series around Jesus Christ.
As part of the network’s upfront presentation to advertisers (full slate here), Comedy Central is set to announce “JC,” a half-hour show about Christ wanting to escape the shadow of his “powerful but apathetic father” and live a regular life in New York City.
In the show, God is preoccupied with playing video games while Christ, “the ultimate fish out of water,” tries to adjust to life in the big city.
The Lord Jesus, the divine Teacher and Model of all perfection, preached holiness of life to each and everyone of His disciples of every condition. He Himself stands as the author and consummator of this holiness of life: “Be you therefore perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect”. Lumen Gentium (Vatican II)
To be a Christian is to be more than a mere follower. We are called to imitate Jesus, our savior, who suffered and died out of great love for fallen man. It seems impossible for we are, indeed, weak vessels. But with God’s grace all things are possible.
We are all called to be saints. To be a saint does not always mean doing great heroic acts or becoming a martyr. St. Therese of Lisieux defined a saint as one who does ordinary things in extraordinary ways with great love.
This is a call to greatness of soul. Blessed Mother Teresa said, “Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.” In other words, when we strive to be faithful to God in the small trials we build up our spiritual muscles. We grow in human virtue.
Virtue is doing the right thing, at the right time, in the right way for the right reasons.
It is not easy, and it is not possible without God. Still we are called to holiness, called to be saints, called to greatness:
Striving for greatness is at the heart of a virtue called “magnanimity,” which means “greatness of soul.” This is the virtue by which man pursues what is great and honorable in his life, even if it is difficult. St. Thomas Aquinas describes it as a “stretching forth of the mind to great things.”1 The magnanimous person seeks to do great acts, “things as are deserving of honor.
Read the whole thing at the Catholic Education Resource Center.
This video produced by Spirit Juice Studios was shown at the Illinois Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Chicago. HT: Thomas Peters
This says it all. I am simply Catholic. Not Liberal. Not Conservative. Not a Democrat. Not a Republican. Not a an Independent. Just a Catholic. Thinking with the mind of the Church
I get asked that question a lot. Well. It is a blessing. It is also difficult. Many (most?) parishioners do not realize that Deacon Larry has a full time job. He is a production manager for a small plastics manufacturing firm. He works well over 40 hours a week, and he is on call 24/7. Most evenings he rushes home from work, grabs a bite to eat, and then heads up to church for a meeting or to a funeral home to preside at a vigil. Then he comes home and we try and talk together before calling it a night. It’s a good thing that I am a low maintenance kind of gal.
Parishioners do not realize that Deacons usually are not paid by the Church. Some Deacon’s do have full time (paid) jobs in the parish or diocese. Deacons, however, are meant to be a bridge between the lay and clerical state. Therefore most deacons work in the secular world.
The hardest part of being a deacon’s wife, for me, is trying to not blur the line between my role as a lay catechist and his role as a member of the clergy. Prior to my husband’s ordination we worked together in several church ministries.
Since his ordination, we have tried to figure out how to work it. At first I had an overreaction to the “we were ordained” mentality of some of the older deacons and their wives. And no we are not a deacon couple. So at first I pulled away from our shared ministry. But that didn’t really work. Now we both coordinate the RCIA program, teach the Baptism class, and I help him with the Youth Group. I try to make it clear that he is the deacon and I am not.
Sundays are marathons for us. Deacon starts with the 7:30 mass, then RCIA, 11:00 Mass, Baptism class, home for lunch and a nap, and concludes with the Youth Group. I share the schedule. Well I sometimes opt for the 11: Mass and I don’t always go to the Youth Group. Deacon Larry is much more energetic than I am. He is the energizer bunny on steroids.
Being a Deacons wife is a blessing. The eve of my husbands ordination, I had a dark night of the soul. It suddenly occurred to me that, after four years of formation with Larry that I didn’t know if I was up to the demands and sacrifices that the life would demand. “What was I thinking when I gave my consent to the bishop?” I prayed most of the night. God let me know that He would give me all of the grace and strength that I needed. If I let Him.
The above verse from the second reading of the Fifth Sunday in Lent has been on my mind. The death and resurrection of Jesus ended our slavery to sin. St. Gregory of Nysaa wrote:
“This is the beginning of a new creation. On this day, as the prophet says, God makes a new heaven and a new earth. What is this new heaven? you may ask. It is the firmament of our faith in Christ. What is this new earth? A good heart, a heart like the earth, which drinks up the rain that falls on it and yields a rich harvest….This day destroyed the pangs of death and brought to birth the firstborn of the dead.”
The sacrifice of Christ restored to us what Adam lost. The right order of the world is restored. Heaven is open to us. We are living in the midst of a new creation as we journey to the completion of a new heaven and a new earth. We are all called to share in the glory of Jesus.
Yet as St. Paul says we all fall short of the glory of God. Jesus conquered sin and death. We still sin. We still suffer. Too many lives are broken.
I often wonder why we find it so hard to unite ourselves to Christ. It is not as if Jesus has left us alone. God is near.
“Obviously with our own power we are weak and limited. There is always a resistance to love in us and in our existence, there are many difficulties that provoke divisions, resentment and rancor. But the Lord promised us to be present in our life, making us capable of this generous and total love, which knows how to overcome all obstacles. If we are united to Christ, we can truly love in this world. Loving others as Jesus loved us is possible only with that strength that is communicated to us in our relationship with him, especially in the Eucharist, in which his Sacrifice of love that generated love is made present in a real way.” (Pope Benedict XVI)
All sin is a turning away from God’s love. It is a failure to love others the way Christ loves us . It often seems impossible. I sometimes joke that it would be easy to be a Christian if it weren’t for other people.
But we were not created to live lives of isolation. We are called to live in unity—communion—with each other and God the Holy Trinity. We cannot do this without God.
That is why Jesus gave us the Sacraments. They are the ordinary way that Jesus touches us and enters into a relationship with us. It is the ordinary way that Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit invites us into the very life of God.
It is going to take time to build this site. More to come on Monday.
A Deacon's Wife 