cui servire regnare est

To serve Him is perfect freedom- an ancient Latin phrase that was featured in last month's Magnificat. That phrase is so full of goodness. It is so beautiful to meditate on the fact that the fulfillment of our purpose, to love and serve the Lord, liberates us.

So what is the alternative? Restlessness. Augustine comments, Our heart is restless until it rests in you. And that sums up the human condition so perfectly, as well as the American condition.

We had a fantastic speaker at the Diocesan teacher inservice. In reference to our American culture he brought up a comment he heard that describes America's priorities as, More is better. Faster is better. How true!

But how were we made? Fr. Andre Louf wrote in his meditation On the Lookout, God knows that humans are by nature slow and even slothful, and that it takes a long time for us to become mature adults and finally to bear fruit. It has not been given to humans to reach perfection overnight; our conversion requires much time.

To serve Him is perfect freedom...Our heart is restless until it rests in you...Our conversion requires much time...The Lord gives us all we need exactly when we need it. We have to be still, be vigilant, be prayerful, but most of all to be patient. To serve him is not only freedom from the evils of this world, but it is freedom from our own selves and our restlessness.

If we were to determine our fulfillment, if everything were to happen on our terms, nothing would be enough, and we would become increasingly restless. America is the prime example of what happens when humanity lets its impulses run rampant.

We, as humans, have the tendency to love each other, or own selves, more than God. And when our love is disordered, we cannot be fulfilled. We are restless. When we try to find fulfillment in each other, we will always come up short. And the ironic part is that we actually love each other more, when we love God first. We love each other BETTER when we love God first.

When we love the Lord as we should, we not only cease to worry, but we cease to hunger. If we labor with patience for the Lord, then our self-imposed burdens are lifted. All of a sudden the love and the peace of the Lord is our nourishment and we are finally satiated. How good is our God? He is so faithful! Glory be to God! Alleluia!

Jesus IS THE GOOD SAMARITAN!!!!

I have to thank Fr. Baker for the inspiration for this blog. His homily really blew me away this evening. The gospel was Luke's version of the Good Samaritan. I love the Good Samaritan story. It's Social Justice 101, and it was one of the first stories we covered in class. I've already blogged on it because it is a perfect example of how Christians often disregard the poor in our daily lives. BUT there is more. Who knew that Jesus IS the Good Samaritan?

So we all hear the Good Samaritan and walk away with the message of compassion and how we should be compassionate to the poor. Go above and beyond for them, that's what Jesus would do. And we see the hypocrisy of those religious figures who do not have compassion for the poor.

But Fr.Baker said that's not the point. The point is that Jesus is in fact the Good Samaritan and that humanity is the beaten, disregarded Jew on the side of the road. Humanity was not saved by priests or pious people. JESUS had to step into humanity to save us. And not only that, Jesus took us to the inn, and said He would be coming back. So the inn is the church and that is where we are nourished until Jesus returns. MIND BLOWN.

Another important dimension of this new perspective on the Good

Samaritan is that it reinforces Jesus' message that the church is His body on Earth. Jesus not only left us His Advocate, so we would not be orphans, but He left the church. The church not only brings us Christ in the Holy Eucharist, but it unites us through fellowship and solidarity in ways in which we would not otherwise be united. It is truly Christ's temple on Earth.

It is so amazing to think about all the ways the Bible points to Jesus as our Lord and Savior. It's so awe inspiring and exciting because, as Fr. Baker so eloquently said, if we seek Jesus, we will find him. We have but to look for Jesus and He is everywhere. We simply must open our eyes.

And that is so true for every faith journey. We don't have to depend on ourselves or our own strength or ability. If that isn't Good News, I don't know what is. Praise Baby Jesus!

Man Does Not Live By Bread Alone

"He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and your fathers, in order to show you that not by bread alone does man live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord." (Deut 8:3)

I have given a lot of thought about how I am going to

teach my students growing up in this world that celebrates pride and luxury about the divine virtues of humility and poverty. As I read Pope Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth, I have not only become more cognoscente of exactly how brilliant our pope is, but I see how Jesus' redemption, and thus humanity's redemption, is the compelling answer to our modern dilemma.

Benedict XVI so eloquently states, "It is in this world that we are obliged to resist the delusions of false philosophies and to recognize that we do not live by bread alone, but first and foremost by obedience to God's word. Only when this obedience is put into practice does the attitude develop that is also capable of providing bread for all."

The theme of appetite is reoccurring. Temperance of appetite is the quintessential human predicament. Our overindulgence of all goods (food, sex, posessions) has usurped God's primacy. Benedict XVI state's, "At the heart of all temptation, as we see here, is the act of pushing God aside because we perceive him as secondary, if not actually superfluous and annoying, in comparison with all the apparently far most urgent matters that fill our lives."

Benedict XVI makes it clear that we cannot serve God as we should, we cannot assign God His proper place in our lives, until we have first been nourished by the word of God, made manifest in Jesus Christ. And that nourishment compels us to live justly, thus alleviating the injustice that we impose on others.

And then the question arises, how much should and can we do to alleviate injustice? Is it backwards to work for justice, as opposed to working to spread the word of God? If we simultaneously preach the Good News and work for justice, is faith given its proper place?

FEED MY SHEEP!!!!!

Last week I attended a Catholic youth group event in downtown Nashville. As I was exiting the church with a friend, we were approached by a homeless man. He was clearly drunk or on drugs. He asked us for money and we gave the typical response, "I can't give you money, but if you are hungry I can buy you something to eat." He replied, "Never mind, I just need a few dollars, I can see you are busy with your conversation. Never mind. I was just thinking you might have a few dollars, never mind." And he walked away.

So naturally we looked at each other and began to analyze the situation. We did what we were supposed to do right? Yet my conscience begged to differ. As the man walked away I knew I hadn't properly addressed his problem, but somehow I couldn't see the solution. Literally a few feet from the entrance of a church, two Christians could not figure out how to be Christ to a man in desperation. And the man walked away unsatisfied.

One of the final stories in the gospel of John

is that of Jesus and Peter.

Jesus asks Peter, "Simon, son of John,

do you love me more than these?"

He [Peter] said to him, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you."

He [Jesus] said to him, "Feed my lambs."

He then said to him a second time,

"Simon, son of John, do you love me?"

He said to him, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you."

He said to him, "Tend my sheep."

He said to him a third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?"

Peter was distressed that he had said to him a third time, "Do you love me?" and he said to him, "Lord you know everything; you know that I love you."

Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep."

This passage is so powerful and I never realized it until now. I, much like Peter, always wondered why Jesus repeated his question three times. It must be for emphasis, was my final conclusion.

Then I was reading a book about the Catholic worker and how Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin preached the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy in regard to serving the poor. In one of his essays Peter writes,

"In the first centuries

of Christianity

the hungry were fed

at a personal sacrifice,

the naked were clothed

at a personal sacrifice,

the homeless were sheltered

at a personal sacrifice.

And because the poor

were fed, clothed, and sheltered

at a personal sacrifice,

the pagans used to say

about the Christians,

'See how they love each other.'"

And then my "Aha" moment came. Jesus, in His gentle manner, wasn't just simply repeating His question to Peter, He was imploring Peter to search his conscience for the depth of his love to see how much he could sacrifice to "feed my sheep." And Jesus had to repeat, had to all but grab Peter by the shoulders and shake him, because our human tendency and hardness of heart often leads us to forget that truly acting out of love requires deep meditation and sacrifice. And poor Peter was so confused because he knew he loved Jesus, but much like myself, he just didn't get it.

The Lord clearly told us to "Love thy neighbor as thyself" and then just in case we didn't get it, gave us many parables, including the one of the Good Samaritan. And even at the conclusion of the Good Samaritan Jesus goes so far as to DEFINE who our neighbor is. Once again, Christ is all but grabbing us by the shoulders and shaking us, imploring, "FEED MY SHEEP!!!" But sometimes we still don't get it.

The Good Samaritan didn't encounter a man on the side of the road and do the minimum.

He picked the Jewish man up in his arms, at a time when Jewish people looked down upon Samaritans, and acted out of true love and charity by providing for that man's every need. And who even knows the Samaritan's financial status. I imagine he wasn't wealthy because he remarked that if the innkeeper need more money he would have to pay it on his way back.

And so my thoughts are brought back to the moral dilemma of the desperate homeless man. I did not address his desperation with charity and kindness. I could have done much more than offer food to a man that wasn't asking for food. He was asking for compassion. We could have prayed with the man, and invited him to eat with us in order to take the time to respond to his need. We could have offered to call a mission to pick the man up if he needed a place to stay. We could have showed the general interest and concern we would have showed if a friend of ours had stumbled into that parking lot in desperation.

MORALITY - " God was the 'sort of person who is always snooping around to see if anyone is enjoying himself and then trying to stop it."

I've been dancing around moral topics so I might as well dive in. Morality cannot be thoroughly discussed in one blog, so I hope this will be "Morality Part One", and if it is of interest I can continue.

For some reason I have only recently made the connection between morality and love. Love is the precondition for Christian morality. Given the recent revolution that has taken place in my heart and my relationship with the Lord I feel very inspired to share (not in detail of course;) ) my own struggles with morality in hopes that it will help others to once and for all walk away from those "gray areas" that inhibit us from truly loving and serving the Lord.

God is love. In John 14:15, Jesus says "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you." This is a great passage to read, reflect and pray upon. Jesus, in a few powerful sentences, has given us the formula for how to effectively live the Christian life. If we allow ourselves to truly fall in love with God, then we will not only be obligated to keep God's commandments, we will be compelled to do so. In loving the Lord, we enable ourselves to perceive the Spirit's presence in us, and the Spirit gives us our strength. How beautiful. We have but to love the Lord, and He gives us all we need. Literally! How good is God's grace!

C.S. Lewis has a great discussion of morality and Christian behavior in Mere Christianity. He begins discussing morality by saying, "There is a story about a schoolboy who was asked what he thought God was like. He replied that, as far as he could make out, God was the 'sort of person who is always snooping around to see if anyone is enjoying himself and then trying to stop it.' " This simple anecdote has a lot of truth to it. Our relationship with the Lord is a conditional one. We must love the Lord with our whole hearts and our whole minds. And of course love is an action. There is a surrender of our will and our own desires that is a prerequisite for loving the Lord.

Many people resist Christianity on the basis that it is contrary to human nature. God is seen as this celestial parent who is unfair, constantly nagging us to obey Him. How can Christianity possibly be true when so many people have so much trouble keeping its commandments? The irony is that Jesus Christ is the answer to that question. Jesus did and continues to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

The beauty of God is that God knows us infinitely better than we could ever know ourselves. Yet He still gives us chances to succeed, where He knows we will fail, in order to show us that He has faith in us, so surely we can put our trust in Him. The Old Testament is full of stories of how God gives His chosen people chance after chance after chance to obey Him. And in the greatest act of love, God then responds to our indignation by doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves. And all of this is done so that we may dwell in Him, and Him in us, so that we may experience pure and sincere joy. God's grace is truly incomprehensible.

So how do we love God? As Jesus so eloquently stated, "keep my commands." ALL OF THEM. Lewis says, "We have all departed from that total plan in different ways, and each of us wants to make out that his own modification of the original plan is the plan itself." It's not easy. No one but Jesus Himself has managed to do it. But God in His infinite love and grace gave us another part of Himself, the Holy Spirit, to call upon when (not if) things become difficult. And if we but call upon the Lord, He will help us. Children of God are really quite spoiled.

So personally, once I started giving up those things that were not of the Lord (alot of my music, tv, movies, clothes, conduct towards men) the results were immediate! The Lord gave me the strength to no longer be tempted by that which was not pleasing to Him. It's just the beginning, I have a lot more work to do, but I am just so amazed and awestruck by God's grace. God is so good that He facilitates our journey to Him by showing us that He is our joy! We cannot be truly happy until we love God as we should. And it makes perfect sense. In our own relationships with each other, once we fall in love, we find sacrifice is not only feasible, it can be a joyful expression of our devotion to our beloved. So if we can love the created as we should, then of course we can (and should) love the Creator that much more.

Strong Men

I have noticed a growing trend of men struggling to succeed and I have wondered if my own bitterness gave me a jaded perspective, or if there was in fact a cultural trend of men having difficultly growing into healthy adults.

I think it is very true that society, in a particularly sick way, is doing all it can to pollute the minds of youth and warp them into hypersexual consuming monsters. And the truth as with all 

things, is that if parents are unable (or ill-equipped) to step up to the plate to combat the bombardment of negative messaging, youth truly become victims who are forced to fend for themselves. 

What's interesting is the result has become strong women vs. strong men. When homes become broken, more often than not, women are left to raise the children. The end result damages both

girls and boys, but the damage on the male psyche seems to be more permanent.

In her book, "Let Boys Be Boys: 7 Secrets to Raising Healthy Sons." Dr. Meg Meeker published the following statistics:

• 72% of girls graduate from high school while 65% of boys graduate
• 44% of college grads are men while 56% are women
• 10% of boys under the age of 13 have had sexual intercourse, compared with 4% of girls 
• 63% of male high school seniors have had sex

Dr. Meeker's findings are very interesting and her books are thought provoking and are correct in calling parents to take responsibility. What's also interesting is that Dr. Meeker does promote a bit of misogyny by stating, "You can't have a revolution without causalities and in the feminist revolution , the causalities were boys." I think that statement has some truth in the fact that there is a false feminism that demonizes men instead of uplifting women. Clearly women can not be empowered at the expense of men, but men can not be rescued at the expense of women either. 

Rather than point the finger at women, the ones who are often the heroines when men leave them to single handily raise families, the finger should be pointed at families in general. Both men and women are responsible for the healthy upbringing of the children they create and both women and men play a vital, valuable role in that process. Our goal should be to ensure that every person grows up with an understanding of their dignity and strength. 

Love Thee Notre Dame

As a gradute of the University of Notre Dame, I have been waiting and waiting to tackle the huge controversy of President Obama speaking at the 164th Commencement Celebration of my alma mater. After watching both President Jenkins's address and Obama's speech I have never been more proud to call myself a domer.

I love that Father Jenkins destroyed all arguments against the inconsistency of the invitation by voicing his disapproval of Obama's abortion policies but also praising the good 

Obama has done for our country and the historical context of his election. Jenkins's stance is that in inviting Obama to Notre Dame he is intitating dialogue, a true facet of change. He quotes our beloved Pope John Paul II by saying, a Catholic university should be, “a primary and privileged place for a fruitful dialogue between the Gospel and culture.” Fr. Jenkins and Provost Burish also celebrated the accomplishments of former University of Notre Dame President Fr. Theodore Hesburgh and his historical and infamious involvement in the civil rights movement. Jenkins and Burish honored Obama with a copy of the infamous image of Dr. King with Fr. Hesburgh, "the minister and the priest."

 

Father Jenkins goes on to quote the Vatican Council, "Respect and love ought to be extended also to those who think or act differently than we do in social, political and even religious matters. In fact, the more deeply we come to understand their ways of thinking through such courtesy and love, the more easily will we be able to enter into dialogue with them." That is a powerful, compelling defense.

Of course the opposition was vehement. Mr. Randall Terry has a particularly distasteful website that remarks,"Would you invite Pilate after he condemned Christ?" First of all let's get our facts straight. Pontius Pilate washed his hands of Jesus Christ's death sentence. Matthew 27: 23-27 clearly states, " 'I [Pilate] am innocent of this man's blood. Look to it yourselves.' And the whole people said in reply, 'His blood be upon us and upon our children.' " Mr. Terry I urge you to reread your Bible.

Second of all, yes it is important that we recognize and voice our opinion that Obama's pro-choice policies are wrong. Yet it is equally important that we recognize all the good that Obama has and will do for our country. And that dignity is paramount in our Catholic tradition.

I could go on to write about the hypocrisy of there having been no controversy surrounding President Bush's reception of an honorary degree from the University of Notre Dame given the death toll of the Iraqi war he commissioned. We may not turn a blind eye to the babies that have died because of Obama's policies but what about the 4,296 adult casualties that have occurred in Iraq? War, especially premptive war, is also inconsistent with our Catholic pro-life doctrine. 

The true victory here is that the University of Notre Dame, THE Catholic institution, engaged our pro-life President in a sincere dialogue about abortion and held him accountable for his thoughts and policies. In a sincere and gracious manner, the University of Notre Dame did in fact challenge President Obama. And we also established that we are all on the same team as Christian Americans. Obama stated, "So let us work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions, let's reduce unintended pregnancies. Let's make adoption more available. Let's provide care and support for women who do carry their children to term. Let's honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded not only in sound science, but also in clear ethics, as well as respect for the equality of women.Those are things we can do." We may have yet to win the war, but clearly, today, we won a battle against abortion.

At the end of the day hopefully Father Jenkins and President Obama have taught us two important lessons. We cannot let a single ideological difference, no matter how fundamental, overshadow the reality of our similarities. And we cannot achieve a common ground without dialogue between opposing parties. The irony of this controversy is that the vigilante pro-lifers were in fact fighting against this momentual occasion that in fact brought Catholics one step closer to to ending abortion, in a truly dignifed fashion. WE ARE ND! GOBAMA!

Check our Fr. Jenkins's speech and Obama's speech.