Everything to Lose

The kids and I watched Creed II the other night. It was good. As anyone from Philly knows, Rocky Balboa, the underdog boxer-with-heart from Kensington, faced off against fighter Apollo Creed in Rocky I and II. In the Creed series of movies, Rocky trains Apollo's son Adonis after Apollo is killed in the ring. The back story in Creed II is that the boxer that killed him, the Russian Ivan Drago, is training his son Viktor to face off against Adonis.

Adonis is a good fighter with a good life--he's recently engaged to his sweetheart with a baby on the way, lives in a nice house, and is the reigning WBC heavyweight champion. Viktor, on the other hand, is an absolute animal. Scenes of him training in Kiev show how hungry he is to dominate, how focused, and how savage.

One scene that stayed with me was when Rocky was counseling Adonis not to go back in the ring with him after he is brutally beaten and sent to the hospital by Drago (who was disqualified from the match). "Listen to me," he tells Adonis, "you got everything to lose. He's got nothing to lose. When a fighter ain't got nothing to lose, he's dangerous."

When Creed gets out of the hospital and starts physical therapy, he's unnerved and not in the right headspace. Boxing is as much a mental sport as it is physical, and his doubts, fear, and lack of drive are a liability. Still, he knows he has to take the fight with Viktor to defend the title. The best thing Rocky did was realize this and travels with Adonis to the desert (symbolic) to train for an undetermined amount of time with convicts and other outcasts with "nothing to lose" in order to break and rebuild him. 

As a disciple of Jesus Christ, Rocky's warning to Adonis about Viktor chaffs me spirit: He's got nothing to lose...and you have everything to lose. Now that I am married with kids, comfortably employed, a homeowner, etc., I realize I am in Adonis' shoes: I've got everything to lose. 

And what have I really given up to follow the Lord Christ? Is it more that I fit the Lord's calling into my existing life? Sure, bloom where you're planted and all that. Set roots, be an active member of your parish. And yet, there is no disputing how comfortable and insulated I am, not only materially, but spiritually.

No one knew more about the snares of comfort than St. Francis of Assisi. a young man hungry for the Lord. He referred to money as "dung" and equated it with the Devil himself. He held nothing in possession, so that he had nothing to lose...and everything to gain from the storehouse of Heaven. 

St. Francis was bold as well. When he approached the Muslim leader of Palestine, Muhammad Al-Kamil, he had no thought of his own life but only the conversion of the Sultan and securing of peace. In the minds of people who play it safe, it was a certain death sentence. But St. Francis was hungry for souls. He trained in poverty and self-denial to a radical degree. His life was unorthodox. And yet he was one of the greatest saints in the Church. 

As a married man, I am not called to live the life of a religious. But that doesn't excuse me from the call to forfeit my life in order to gain it, to hold nothing back, to listen and respond right away without hesitation. The Lord knows that only those who sell everything in order to buy the Pearl of great price deserve it. Ananias and Sapphira held back some of their earnings and lying about it and were struck dead (Acts 5:4), while St. Francis' life was spared. But even if he was killed by the Muslims, he would have welcomed his fate. 

We can see two portraits of King David: the ruddy, fearless boy who steps up to the Philistine and defies him to his face, and the comfortable King in middle-age strolling around the palace when he should have been with his men at war. The fearless shepherd boy seeking to give glory to Israel gains the head of the giant; the same man in later years as a king with everything would inevitably fall into grave sin by pursuing his carnal desires.

I'm risk averse by nature. I invest conservatively, and am careful when I drive, watch my health, etc., and even more so as I've gotten older.  After all, I have people depending on me being here. I do my best to work within my state of life to live out my calling, but if I am honest there is a lot I don't do and am not open to or will even consider, rationalizing it as "God wouldn't want me to that" of "I can't leave my job" or "someone else will do it." My "training" in the life of faith is in a pampered, familiar gym. 

I wasn't always this way. I didn't give a second thought to hitchhiking to Mexico City just to pay homage to Our Lady of Guadalupe in my twenties. Or living in a drug-infested gang neighborhood to serve the poor because the Lord said to in the bible. Or taking off my $200 Italian leather hiking boots to give to a barefoot homeless man on the streets of Philadelphia because I had shoes and he didn't. What happened to me? Somewhere along the line, I gained some prudence, but like Adonis Creed, I lost the hunger, and am no longer dangerous to the Enemy.

We need to take risks for the Lord as an exercise in faith in order to win the crown. The tighter we hold to the things we have and own, the less apt we are to do just that. Only an empty hand can accept a gift. And a fighter who is hungry enough will eventually unseat the one who isn't.

The Dignity Of Men

I'd like to solicit your prayers if I may; this Thursday is the first of a monthly series at our parish for men. Like men, it's not complicated: a half hour of adoration and rosary as a collective in the church, followed by a talk on one of the virtues in the basement with discussion and fraternity to follow over beer and wings. In my mind, it's a good formula: there is an active "doing" as a collective (adoration/rosary); there is a practical and tangible outcomes-focused objective (cultivating the virtues); and there is food and drink. 

I've always believed that when you build up men, you build up the family, and when you build up the family, you can begin to rebuild the Church. Surprisingly, we didn't have anything like this at our parish, so I proposed the idea first to a small group of men, then to our pastor, both of whom affirmed the need and supported the idea. I also feel a bit of pressure since it has the potential to be a big crowd, and I want it to be a worthwhile thing for all involved.

 What I like about this idea is that it's a low bar of entry: if you are a man, you can come--whether retired or teenager, blue collar or academic, single or married, trad or not, black or white, from the city or the suburbs. The Church is not, nor should it be, a country-club clique. She is Mother to all men.

My wife and I went to a mid-day holy hour last week while visiting New Orleans, and what struck me was that the half a dozen adorers in the church were all men. In the front pew, a young African American man sat motionless before the Lord; a few rows behind him, a Hispanic construction worker also prayed, with his head resting on his hands. To the left of him, a professional looking man in his thirties in a blue suit knelt before the Lord, presumably on his lunch break. All men, all different walks of life, all there for the same reason: to seek consolation and offer worship. 

This isn't some forced DEI exercise, but the natural response to a Lord who does not discriminate in his call. Neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, but all one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:28). For the Lord does not see as men see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart (1 Sam 16:7). 

Men's ministry can be tough; it can sometimes play to caricatures, or as my friend Boniface calls it, engage in "man-pandering." Men have their own language and code, and you need to learn to speak to that in order to get buy-in as well as earn respect. 

But unlike women, men are not mysterious. Wives are often amazed to realize how uncomplicated it can be to please their husbands: feed him, satisfy him, and respect him. That should take care of 99% of the problems in your marriage. 

The universality of faith, expressed in Catholicism, is the glue that binds us as baptized believers. It isn't based on where you come from, your caste or color, your job or your personality.  St. Paul exemplifies this image of Christ by becoming "all things to all men" so that some might be saved (1 Cor 9:22). We have dignity as men because our dignity comes from Christ, the perfect man who died for all men. 

Fishers of Men

 We’ve all heard it.

“I was raised Catholic”

“I went to Catholic school K-12.”

“My college was founded by Jesuits”

“The nuns used to hit us with rulers.”

“My father was Irish Catholic”

Etc., etc. Ad nauseam.

Traditional, orthodox (small ‘o’), and “conservative” Catholics  often employ these qualifiers. It’s curious, isn’t it? Why the superfluous distinctions? Aren’t all Catholics traditional, orthodox, and conservative? 

You would think so, if you’ve ever read the catechism. But in fact the largest bloc of those who claim Catholicism’s religious affiliation are in fact often none of these things. Two thirds of them do not believe in the True Presence. A majority do not feel any need for Confession, let alone acts of penance. 90% do not attend Sunday Mass weekly. Even more don’t think twice about contracepting or cohabitating. They are more closely aligned with secular Jews than those who believe and profess what the Church teaches. It gives material to comedians like Jim Gaffigan who described his wife as a “Shiite Catholic.”

As baptized believers, cultural Catholics are indeed part of God’s family and the corporal body of the ekklesia. They may hold their traditions as sacred, making the sign of the cross reflexively or choosing a church wedding.  They might even go so far as to say they are, in their own way, “religious.”

In a way, cultural Catholics remind me of young adults with a cell phone: they know how to punch in an address on their phone, but they can’t read a map. They can use a calculator app but can’t tell you the square root of 144 without it. They parrot talking points, but don’t think critically.

But it’s curious, isn’t it? On the one hand they check the census box (which is accurate), while believing what they want to believe regardless of if it contradicts the teachings of the Magisterium. Whether or not they are acrimonious towards those teachings, or simply ignorant of them, can vary from individual to individual. Cultural Catholicism is, for all intents and purposes, its own denomination.

Is this a failure of catechesis, or the product of it? In reality, the question itself is flawed and operates from faulty assumptions. Faith comes from the Holy Spirit to those who ask. The question is: have they asked for it?

There is a saying: you must desire Truth the way a drowning man desires oxygen. Indifference is worse than hate, for God would rather us be hot or cold. The lukewarm God vomits from his mouth. Grace is not cheap, as the Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer who colluded against and died at the hands of the Nazis noted. 

But cultural Catholicism’s M.O. is cheap grace. A friend sent me this savage meme last year at the beginning of Lent:

It’s sad because it’s often true. 

Is the Holy Ghost asleep at the wheel? Why are we outnumbered ten to one among our religious kin, our own people? The problem is not with God, nor the truths of the Catholic faith, nor in the marketing department, nor with the DRE. The problem is not even with cultural Catholics themselves and their peculiar denomination. The problem is our own lack of faith. The problem is that we have rested on our laurels and failed to be more faithful disciples ourselves. I’m the problem, it’s me.

At Mass this morning a woman around our age or a little older sat with a companion (her boyfriend? Husband? I wasn’t sure) a few feet in front of us. She was dressed in jeans and a flannel, and her companion looked like a biker-type guy. She was kneeling and gently urged him to join her, but he remained seated. 

As the priest began reciting the Confiteor inaudibly,  it was clear they were lost in what was happening. And by lost I mean they had no idea what was going on. But I could tell she was there at Mass sincerely and him, to his credit, out of obligation to her. I felt led to pray for her (and him) the entire Mass, and my wife was as well. 

When Mass concluded, I the Holy Spirit compelled me to remove my Miraculous Medal and St Benedict medal from around my neck and give it her, which I did. I didn’t want to assume too much but I was convinced she needed the grace, and I don’t think my assumptions were incorrect. She seemed surprised, but when they were leaving I noticed she was wearing them both.

Even stranger was when we bumped into them on the way to breakfast a little later. She said they were visiting from Texas, and that she hasn’t been to a Mass in Latin since she was a little girl, but that she saw it advertised and wanted to go this morning for some reason. You don’t say.

My wife told me later she had prayed that morning for a divine appointment. I believe that prayer was heard and honored, and that woman and her companion will fly back to Texas this week and grace will begin to seep into her life the way, slowly at first but with a force that will be impossible to keep out for long. If the power of that grace is anything like that which touched my wife and I and changed the course of our lives when we found a Miraculous Medal in a pew one day by happenstance and started wearing it, it should be…interesting. The first step on the path to towards conversion is often curiosity.

We don’t do the heavy lifting—we do what we are called to do by faith, and God wins the heart. It is an awesome privilege to be a child of God, whether traditional, orthodox, conservative or cultural Catholic, and a great responsibility to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. As disciples, we can’t rest on our laurels because the harvest is great. Wars are won one battle at a time. Games are won point by point. Grapes are harvested fruit by fruit. And men are fished out from the pit of Sheol by the awesome power of God’s grace when they are ready to seek truth the way a drowning man seeks air.

Pack Light, Pilgrim. You’re Not Staying

A couple weeks ago my wife and I decided to take a trip to get away for a few days. We wanted someplace warm(er), cultural but down to earth, historically Catholic, and walkable. We settled on New Orleans, and part of that was due to finding ridiculously cheap direct flights there. Because it was a budget airline, they nickel and dime you to death to turn a profit. But you can beat them at their own game if you let them choose your seats, decline the peanuts, and don’t check luggage. They even charge for carry-ones, so we opted to simply try to fit everything in the allowed “personal item”(a children’s backpack, laptop bag, purse, etc). 

My wife being agreeably awesome, and me being having minimalist tendencies, we approached the constraint as a challenge. When we boarded with our one children’s backpack and one messenger bag, we were able to simply place them under the seat in front of us.

Upon arrival in New Orleans we grabbed some glossy paper tourist maps of the city before exiting the terminal. I don’t like being one hundred percent dependent on my phone or gps, and so we studied the maps while waiting for local $1.25 express bus to the central business district instead of opting for a $50 Uber. But we wouldn’t have been able to do that with a lot of luggage.

We ended up getting off near a homeless underpass encampment, and because some faulty directions from a local guy on a bike got us a little turned around, we missed our bus transfer by a couple minutes. The surroundings were a little sketchy so rather than wait for the next bus we ended up walking the mile to our apartment, which got nicer and more iconic the farther out from the CBD we got. We traversed cobbled streets, passing by the local soup kitchen, and met a woman from France also looking for the 91, whom we directed to th next stop. Walking was easy because our packs were very light and manageable. And because we have been fasting every day during Lent, we didn’t feel like we were slaves to an eating schedule, which helped with versatility.

It’s not hard to accumulate “stuff”—it’s like the law of entropy: the longer you live, the more intentional you have to be about paring down. There are some downsides (typing this blog post on my phone, for instance) but they are offset by the versatility and freedom that comes with simplicity.

It forces you to be somewhat resourceful and less novel. To fit everything, I melted my deodorant into an empty (washed) glue stick tube, reused a slim hotel shampoo bottle (again, washed out) with toothpaste, and brought a small square of peppermint Castile soap that doubles as shampoo, body wash, and hand washing laundry if needed. 

I had planned to just wear variations of the merino wool t-shirt, polo, and long sleeve depending on the temperature (you can literally wear merino wool for weeks without it smelling or needing to be washed). I wore them all on the plane anyway, and my bag was only half full.

There are a few biblical examples of not being too bogged down. David eschews Saul’s armor and weaponry because they were cumbersome and he wasn’t used to them (1 Sam 17:29), opting instead for a simple sling and stones to go against Goliath. Our Lord tells the disciples when they go out not to take a bag, sandals, staff or extra tunic (Mt 10:10).

I’ve traveled a lot solo, but I like traveling now with my wife, as she’s a great companion. Two are better than one, “because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help. Again, if two lie together, they keep warm; but how can one keep warm alone?” (Ecc 4:9-12)

The apartment we are staying in is nice: clean and simple, spacious, and a refreshing change from home. But we’re not staying long, of course. There is something to be said for laying roots, and establishing yourself in a community.. It’s hard being a traveler, a foreigner, sometimes, with nowhere to permanently lay your head, as our Lord said. You’ll never be a “local” here on earth, because our true home is in Heaven.

But it reminds me of the story I heard of an American tourist who visited the 19th century Polish rabbi, Hofetz Chaim. Astonished to see that the rabbi's home was only a simple room filled with books, plus a table and a bench, the tourist asked, "Rabbi, where is your furniture?"

"Where is yours?" Replied the rabbi.

"Mine?" Asked the puzzled American. "But I'm a visitor here. I'm only passing through."

"So am I," said Hofetz Chaim.

 

The Novus Ordo Made Me A Stronger Catholic. Here's Why

 

I periodically attend a weekly virtual meet-up with converts through The Coming Home network. Many come from Protestant backgrounds, and while some may have had negative experiences in their respective denominations, many speak warmly and charitably of the tradition they were raised up in, recounting a love of the Bible and being embraced by the community.

But as the saying goes, "Weak Catholics become Protestants and strong Protestants become Catholic." 

When I came into the Church in the 1990's, the Novus Ordo was the standard menu fare. Although I was confirmed in the Byzantine rite, most of my experience and formation on campus during those formative years was in the context of the New Mass. I simply didn't know there was an "Old" (Tridentine) Mass.

And for all practical purposes, there wasn't, at least not in my sphere of influence. The 1984 indult granted by Pope John Paul II was before my time, and Summa Pontificum wasn't promulgated until 2007 (nine years after I came into the Church). This squishy middle period in history was where God decreed I land. I was beyond grateful, and with the Psalmist I gave thanks: "You lifted me up from the miry pit, and set my feet upon a rock" (Ps 40:2).

I never fell in love with the Mass--growing up going to the Divine Liturgy with my father, it was not the incense-imbued novelty for me it is with many Latin Catholics. Nor did the New Mass exactly inspire. I felt like there was a lot I had to overlook in it, though like a child, I didn't have the language to articulate the shortcomings (which today, are clear as day). 

Instead, the Mass was where I went to meet the Lord who had ransomed me and whom I encountered personally. It was there I placed on the plain, unadorned altar my own inadequate worship through the corporeal body. 

The idea then was "it's enough that they (the students) just come." Come as you are. Like the fasting requirements of the universal (Latin) Church during Lent, it was a pretty low bar. And, presumably, whatever it takes to keep people out of mortal sin. 

But that was enough for me. Times after Communion were sweet, intimate. The Lord, I felt, had endowed me with the gift of tears during those years, because I often wept over my sins as they contrasted to His divine goodness, Him whom I had just received under guise of bread. 

I also found a subset of more serious and well-formed Catholics through various clubs and the Newman Center with whom I could live out my faith in prayer and worship, retreats, and service to the poor.  But I think I sensed early on there was more to the Church than the standard fare, a deeper aquifer beneath the surface. When our chaplain invited myself and a handful of other guys out for a vocation weekend at the nearby Benedictine monastery, I thought I had found my calling. This was a true and authentic expression of how the Catholic faith could be lived out. Not that it should be lived out this way, for God does not call all men to the consecrated life. Maybe, though, he would make an exception with me. 

Monasticism emerged as a counter-movement to the perceived laxity of post-Constantinian Catholicism in the West. When it was becoming harder to die for the faith as a martyr, those wanting to live out their faith in a more intentional and sincere manner would instead die to self in the desert. I spent part of the summer after my freshman year, six months a Catholic now, in a discernment program at a contemplative (also Benedictine) community in New York state trying to emulate those early Cennobites. Pray, work, study---this was my rented life for five weeks, and I loved it. Or at least, I wanted to love it. But no matter how many monasteries I visited and discerned with over the next ten years, it always fit like a shirt one size too small--chaffing under the arms, and a little too tight in the chest. 

If the monastic life didn't fit (even if the idea of being a monk did in my mind), the prospect of marriage didn't seem to be fitting either. I chalked that up to not wanting or having a vocation to the married life. But part of it could have been not having met the right person to be married to. I was content to be alone, but I was simultaneously lonely. The solitary life, attractive as it was, was also a shirt one size too small. My petition to be accepted as a postulant at a monastery in New Mexico was charitably declined, and I was starting to despair that I simply had no vocation at all. 

My conversion was not intellectual, but personal. Christ had ransomed me, as in the woods years ago the scripture for me was fulfilled:  "For I, the LORD your God, will hold your right hand, saying to you, 'Fear not, I will help you.' (Is 41:13). I fell in love, and the love was not in the adornments, but with the person of Christ himself. In making known that love to me by a kind of personal Transfiguration, Christ revealed his true nature as Redeemer and Sanctifier--his true self. 

Because of these revelatory experiences and where they took place for me, I thought Christ made his home in the wilderness, since that was where I encountered him. I wanted to pitch my tent with him on Mount Tabor. But instead, I had to descend to the campus auditorium on Sundays to share him with a crowd of students who didn't seem to care if He showed up. What do I have to do with these people? I thought it was you and me? I would pray. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands (Acts 17:24-25). I had fallen in love and had never wanted the honeymoon to end. But the day after the wedding feast, you have to move in and get about to the task of being married day after day.

When I was in discernment, I was (in between visits to different communities as an Observer) dating a sweet, wonderful Catholic girl who would have made a great spouse. But the timing just never worked out. And timing is never an accident. When you meet someone is as important as anything else and it doesn't happen apart from God's will. 

But what if I had met her at a different time--when I was more settled, ready to get married? I did reach that point in my life eventually, but it ended up being with a different person. Again, this did not happen apart from God's will and for His intended purpose. His way is perfect, and all things work for the good for those who love him (Ps 18:30; Rom 8:28))

I think about that in the context of the Latin Mass. Like many people who have discovered it, you think "Where have you been all my life?"  But were it God's will that I found it when I first came into the Church, would it have been an adornment that could, God forbid, be taken off like a robe? What if it were the Mass itself that attracted me, rather than the One who was on the altar there? I was fed and sustained with my daily manna in the New Rite without fail during this long liturgical sojourn. When I grumbled unknowingly in my heart about the manna He sustained me by, he sent meat by way of the Latin Mass (Ex 16:12).

But it was grace that saved me, not the Mass. It was God who found me, not the other way around. And He that was born in a unadorned and uninspiring stable willed that I have my upbringing be under this roof. I cannot change that any more that I can change when or how I met my wife, or the parents I was born to. For if the course of that history had changed by my will rather than His, I might never have met her, and might never had been born at all.

God has given me the grace of sustained faith over the past twenty five years not because of the (New) Mass but, oftentimes, in spite of it. Because for the majority of that time, I did not have the benefit of beautiful churches or always-reverent liturgies. I was not in the company of Navy Seal Catholics, but often the opposite. I could not rest on the laurels of orthodox teaching, so I had to learn discernment. In this marriage, I really had to work at it to stay married. And it forced me to dig deep and keep at the forefront of my mind just Who it was I was married to. To do otherwise was to risk sinking into the sea of unbelief (Mt 14:22-23). 

I realize that this experience is my own, but I don't think I am alone in it. Even Moses had an affinity for his kin though he was raised up as an Egyptian (Ex 2). Most of us (some more than others) have a degree of trauma from our childhoods, whether we realize it or not. Even though many of us who attend the TLM act like enlightened college freshmen coming back home after their first semester of college, telling our parents how wrong and stupid they are about basically everything, they are still the ones who raised us, fed us, educated us, and did the best they could for us. They made you who you are today, even though you are not the same person now that you were then.  You be grateful for that, and give thanks that you, too, have been born from and ransomed by this hand. 

The Wheel Which Is True

 I've been building bikes for over thirty years now; not professionally, just as a hobby. Though I've built countless bikes from the frames up, I'm pretty adept sourcing parts, dialing in shifting and brakes, adjusting headsets, etc. Though it can sometimes come with its frustrations, I have always felt empowered that I know how my ride works and how to fix it if something goes wrong.

As a teenager, I was in no rush to get my license, because I had an early taste of the freedom that a bike can afford an adolescent before they turn sixteen. When I was in six grade my dad and I rode up the length of Cape Code from Eastham to the tip of Provincetown--my dad on his Panasonic ten speed and me on my department store mountain bike. 

In middle school, a buddy and I set off to do an eighty mile ride up the Delaware River canal to Milford, New Jersey on the towpath, fueling ourselves on twenty five cent pretzels with mustard from the Carversville General Store.

I started training with a local bicycle club in ninth grade on an 18-speed mountain bike. The infamous "Wednesday Night Rides" were a way for the lawyers in the area to blow off steam mid-week. They rode titanium Merlins and Litespeeds which cost thousands of dollars, and the testosterone was high. But I held my own with them. One guy said he always knew I was behind him because he could hear the rollings of my wide knobby tires as if I were in a car.

We would meet at the Cross Keys shopping center in the early evening and blast off across the river into Jersey to ride as hard and fast and far as possible before the sun went down. This was before cell phones and Google maps, so if you fell out of the peleton slipstream at 30 miles per hour, or blue a gasket on a hill, or flatted, no one is stopping for you. Most times, I also had no idea where I was so it was imperative to keep up. 

Wanting to graduate from a heavy mountain bike to a bonafide racing bike, I offered to mow the lawn of one of the lawyers for the entire summer in exchange for a lease on an Italian-built racing bike that was sitting in his garage--a 1980's era white Colnago with 7 speed friction friction shifting and Columbus steel tubing. The lease eventually ended when I accidentally lobotomized one of his wife's prized flowers with the mower.

I saved up my paper route money and bought an aluminum Cannondale touring bike second hand that was two sizes too big for me, and started racing around that time for a Juniors team in the Lehigh Valley on the velodrome, in stage races, and in fast-paced criteriums. I raced from high school through college, but eventually grew weary of the elitist and snobby attitude of the sport that looked down on people for not having the best equipment. But I never lost my love of cycling itself. 

Working on bikes is meditative for me. I'm not a perfectionist in terms of personality, but when it comes to bikes I'm pretty in tune with those things that would mostly go unnoticed to the common observer--a rubbing brake pad or a sticky shifter, that kind of thing. Though there are a lot of moving parts, bicycles are relatively simple machines, inexpensive to operate, and last indefinitely when well maintained. 

One of the things I enjoyed most, and still do, is building wheels. There is an art to building wheelsets--kind of like pruning bonsai or doing Japanese calligraphy--and they are an important part of the machine because they are what propel you. It requires a sensitivity and attention to detail that is generally not my thing.

There is also an established and predictable order and sequence to building wheels. You start with the lacing pattern--radial, 2-cross, 3-cross, or 4-cross. You also have to determine the length of the spokes to use in relation to the effective rim diameter and the hub flanges, which is calculated mathematically. This must be precise, because if a spoke is too short it will not have enough grab in the nipples, and if they are too long you risk extending the tip of the spoke into the tube, which can contribute to flats.

Professional wheelbuilders will fan the spokes and drop them in the hub eyelets like a master archer, quickly and efficiently. You always start with the key spokes, the first spoke in the wheel, and it has to be positioned properly so that all the other spokes follow in line. Once the key spoke is in place and the wheel is subsequently laced, it's time to move on to what is appropriately called truing. This is where you tighten or loosen the spoke nipples to not only provide the correct tension, but to correct wobbles--akin to tuning a musical instrument. 

There are three things to account for here: 1) dish, which refers to the offset of the hub so that the wheel is centered in the frame; this is usually accomplished by using different spoke lengths for the drive and non-drive sides depending on the cassette offset; 2) lateral truing, which corrects side to side rim deviations and is accomplished by tightening nipples to bring them closer to one side, one at a time; and 3) radial truing, in which you strive for roundness by measuring the up-and-down wobble and correct by tightening or loosening spokes in sets of two or three groupings so that you don't have flat spots. The goal is a 'perfect circle.' All this is accomplished on what's called a 'truing stand.' As you are spinning the wheel slowly, if it scrapes the flat bar, it needs radial correction. There are two adjustable knobs on either side of the rim that you can use for lateral truing.

After these corrections are made--a quarter to half-turn of the nipples at a time--and the wheel is true, the final task is to ensure correct spoke tension. Mechanics usually have access to a tenseometer in the shop, but I rely on feel, flexing the cross-spokes in my hands...again, like tuning a piano by sound. You don't want too much flex, because that results in a weaker wheel; but you don't want spokes too taunt either, as they are more prone to break at the head. You want it like Goldilocks--just right.

As I was rebuilding a rear wheel this afternoon on my commuter bike, it seems there are some similarities in the life of faith. Theology (the study of God, which is not just for academics or clergy) is both an art and a science. There is the lexicon, the methodology, the tradition; but there is also the conscience, the attunement to the Spirit, and intuition involved. 

When you determine what kind of wheel you set out to build, you first determine its use--will it be for loaded touring (strength), for commuting (reliability), for racing (lightness and aerodynamics)? Similarly, we must build according to our vocation and state in life--are we called to the single life? Married life? Religious life? How we build our life of prayer and responsibility will be determined by this. 

We do not improvise, and it is not necessary to (excuse the pun) "reinvent the wheel." We follow the established custom and order--setting the key spoke, lacing with trailing or leading spokes, crossing the spokes at the appropriate junction in the process. The wheel must first be laced before it can be trued. We do this by setting in place God and time for prayer first, and then lacing our work, our family responsibilities, our community, etc. around that. The Church gives us the Mass, the Sacraments, devotionals and ways to pray. She teaches us how to learn (with the Catechism), how to love (with the grace of the Holy Spirit), how to live (with the Commandments), how to serve (with the Beatitudes). As Catholics, we don't have to reinvent the wheel by way of novelty. 

But there is also room for individual 'tuning,' creative expression, and diversity of personalities and spirits. Some religious are more methodological some more intellectual, some more expressive. We have the teachings of St. Thomas as well as the teachings of St. Therese of Lisieux. We have Carmelites, Jesuits, Franciscans, Benedictines, Carthusians. We also have contemplatives and those in active ministry, scholars and charismatics, and this includes those in the married state as well as vowed religious. We all will tune our spokes in different ways--some through calculation and precise measurement, some by feel. But as one body of Catholic believers, we all seek what is true. 

Once a wheel is round and true on the stand, however, that doesn't mean it will stay that way on the road. We will stress the spokes with baggage on our rear racks, hit potholes, and may even lay the bike down in a crash at some point. Nipples will loosen, and we will need to do periodic maintenance to bring things back in to alignment. The examen is like our spiritual truing stand, where we listen in prayer daily for the scrapes on the adjustment knobs, assess the wobbles in our rim, and make adjustments as needed with heartfelt contrition and firm resolution. The more we do this, the finer tuning our adjustments will be, and the more attuned we get to achieve spiritual roundness; i.e., perfection.

A loose spoke can always be tightened; but when we break a spoke, or pretzel a rim in a serious crash, one must seek out a shop to repair what has been damaged. This is akin to the difference between venial and mortal sin. Whereas venial sin can be forgiven by God with perfect contrition, and in the Mass, mortal sin completely severs sanctifying grace and must be accounted for in the Sacrament of Confession to repair what is irreparable. Sometimes if we are in the wild and break a spoke, we can utilize a piece of Kevlar wire or something similar to get us home until we can get to a bike shop (Perfect Contrition, with a commitment to get to Confession as soon as is possible).

When a wheel is built solid and true from the start, you can have faith that you can cover hundred if not thousands of miles reliably of rolling terrain, just as the Church is a solid foundation established on the infallibility of the Pope (it is not accident that Peter's name was Cephas, translated as 'Rock'), apostolic succession, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit who will not allow the gates of Hell to destroy her. Wheels well built do not wear out or fade away like many modern novelties, and can last in perpetuity provided you don't crash and destroy them. They propel both wealthy lawyers and poor factory workers alike. They may need a tuning, and maybe some fresh grease in the bearings after a decade or so, but that is like anything. Likewise, the Church gives us everything we need to maintain a strong and true relationship with the Lord Jesus and to avoid mortal sin, which severs the spokes that connect us to the hub of grace. 

When you are given this gift of faith, and baptized into the Church, there is nothing stopping you from setting off confidently and in perfect freedom, one pedal stroke at a time, til suddenly you find yourself having traversed cities, states, and even countries on nothing more than two wheels and the power of your legs. When you do encounter a mishap, a shop (parish) is often no farther than the town closest to you for repair. You will meet fellow travelers along the way, and will accomplish things you never sought possible by that faith and by your suffering. You will be able to do so, because the wheels which carried you there were round and true from the beginning.

The Virtue of Faith (Talk)

 We will be starting up a men's holy hour/rosary one a month at our parish, followed by beer and wings and a talk on the virtues. Sharing my notes here, so I have them somewhere, since I am giving the talk this month. 

I'd ask you to pray for this initiative, since I'm the one who proposed it and offered to head it up, so feeling a little pressure. Build up the men, build up the family, build up the Church is the idea. 

Thanks so much.

The format for these talks will be to take one virtue each month and discuss, as well as its antecedent vice which is contrary to that virtue, so we can live out the former and resist the latter in our lives as Catholic men. 

For the first three months, the plan is to discuss the theological virtues (faith, hope, and charity), and subsequent months the cardinal virtues. These talks are not meant to be academic or strictly theological, but practical.: how do we live it out? How do we combat vice in each area? Additionally, each virtue will hopefully be paired with one of the twelve fruits of the Holy Ghost. 

For this month, that fruit is "Faith" as well.

So what is Virtue?

St. Augustine, referring to the infused virtues : 

-virtue is a good quality of the soul enabling man to live well, which no one can use for evil, produced in man by God without man’s assistance. The nature of virtue is understood more clearly by comparing it with the gifts and fruits of the Holy Ghost and with the beatitudes.

-In other words, the virtuous man is a good man--not good as meriting any thing of our own right, but because of the cooperation and assent of the will with grace. One thing that separates us from the Protestants is that we understand that the will and right reason operate in *co-operation with divine grace.

-Why is it important to live the virtues as a Catholic man? Because we are a light on a hill, as St. Matthew says, which no one hides under a bushel. Correspondingly, when we are beholden to vice, we give rise to scandal among the pagans, for we set a bad example in imitation of our Master, who is Christ.

-The fruits of the Holy Ghost (Prumer, with St. Paul, lists 12: charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continence, chastity) are habits accompanying sanctifying grace whereby a man is well disposed to receive the inspirations and movements of the Holy Ghost. In the gifts, therefore, it is the Holy Ghost Himself who inspires man towards goodness ; in the virtues man is moved by right reason aided by grace. The gifts of the Holy Ghost are seven in number : wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, piety, fortitude, fear.

1. In relation to their origin, virtues are either *acquired or *infused, according as man acquires them by his own acts or God infuses them together with sanctifying grace.

2. In relation to their object, virtues are either intellectual, moral, or theological. The intellectual virtues perfect man in his understanding of truth (whether speculative or practical), and of these there are five: understanding, wisdom, knowledge, prudence, art. The moral virtues perfect the powers of man to enable him to use correctly and well the means to his supernatural end ; these can be reduced to four as being more fundamental than the rest and are known as the cardinal virtues : prudence, fortitude, justice, temperance. — The theological virtues have God as their immediate object and are given and revealed by God alone ; these are three in number : faith, hope, and charity.

The virtue of FAITH

In our culture today, we have a crisis of faith. Not only among the secular, the non-Catholics and non-Christians, but among our own people. A Pew Research study found that only 1/3 of Catholics today actually believe in the True Presence. That is scandalous. But because belief in the True Presence is a reflection of the virtue of faith, we should not be surprised our Church is in the state it is in, among both laity, clergy, and the episcopy alike.

Faith is, as St. Paul says, "that which gives substance to our hopes, which convinces us of things that we cannot see” It gives us fortitude to endure suffering when we are presented with it, because we have a WHY. St. Peter in his letter says we should “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope.” This is why it is important to KNOW our faith, so that we can LIVE our faith. 

The properties of faith: Faith is supernatural, free, infallible and certain.

It is not enough to have faith and not live it out. "For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was," as St. James says. The Code of Canon Law (c. 1325, § 1) expresses the precept in the following manner : “ Christ’s faithful are obliged to profess their faith publicly whenever their silence, subterfuge, or manner of acting imply an implicit denial of faith, a contempt of religion, or an insult to God, or scandal to the neighbour.”

VICES CONTRARY TO FAITH

Sins against faith are those of commission and those of omission.

1. Sins of omission contrary to faith are : a) the non-fulfilment of those precepts which enjoin internal and external acts of faith (cf. n. 194 sqq.) ; b) deliberate ignorance of the truths of faith which ought to be known.

2. By commission a person sins against faith either by excess or by defect.

Sins of excess contrary to faith are rash credulity and superstition. A man commits the sin of rash credulity when he believes as part of faith truths which in fact are not, such as a man who gives credence to private revelations too easily. Superstition, which is a form of profession of disbelief through an external act, is contrary both to faith and to the virtue of religion (cf. below, n. 430).

Sins of defect contrary to faith are committed by infidelity whether negative or positive. Negative (material, involuntary) infidelity is the lack of faith in a person to whom the faith has never been sufficiently declared. Positive infidelity (formal) is the culpable lack of faith in a person who does not want to believe. Paganism, Judaism, and heresy are three types of positive infidelity. Apostasy which is a complete lack of faith in a person who previously possessed the faith is a form of heresy. Schism is distinct from heresy, inasmuch as there exists a stubborn refusal to be obedient to the Pope. Therefore schism, although not directly contrary to faith, is nearly always conjoined to heresy, because schismatics not only refuse obedience to the Pope but also deny his primacy.

I think it's also important to note that faith is a gift of God. It is given to those who sincerely ask, but it does not come from us initially. Our Lord says to all, 'seek and you will find,' and that applies to the virtue of faith. As it says in scripture, "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast."

We receive the gift of faith by asking for it; but faith is not a guarantee. We can lose faith (apostosy), and we can doubt, which is human. But we cultivate this virtue through prayer, the sacraments, and the Mass. 

I think it's important that faith gives us a reason to keep living. "Keep the faith" is a secular as well as a religious term. As Victor Frankl, who survived the Holocaust, famously said, “He, who has a why to live for, can bear with almost any how.”

Faith is also a path to freedom. It allows us to immitate St. Paul, who discovered the "secret" to life by being content in all circumstances. This is because all things--good and bad--come from the hand of God, as Job notes. We cannot be saved without faith. We especially need this virtue at the hour of our death.

But our faith is not just in anything, but in Jesus Christ the God who became man. We live out our faith in the context of our religion, which is the Church that Christ founded, the Catholic faith. The formal object of faith is the primary and essential Truth. We are given the blueprints for the faith in the Catechism, the Beatitudes, the Ten Commandments, and the example of Christ himself. 

The Feeding That Was To Come

A friend sent me this excerpt of a letter written by J.R.R. Tolkien (who needs no introduction) to his son. I have been chewing on it for the past couple days. But before I get to the letter, let me lay out the context in which I received it. 

I had just given a talk at a local parish on Eucharistic Adoration to encourage people to sign up for a Holy Hour at the Perpetual Adoration chapel there. Because it was a First Saturday, I figured I would go to Confession there, pray my rosary and do my fifteen minute meditation, and then receive Communion at the vigil Mass.

As soon as I entered the sanctuary, I began experiencing the triggers of a kind of liturgical PTSD, like a war veteran at a Fourth of July firework display. Having left multiple parishes when the abuses became too much to bear, everything came back just as I remembered it, since many of these suburban parishes are all cut from the same mold.   

First was the incessant chatter. I put down a kneeler, near the tabernacle (which, of course, was off to the side since the nondescript stained glass window took primacy of place behind the altar) and tried to pray. It wasn't children making noise, but the middle aged and elderly parishioners chatting casually as if they were in a Lion's Club hall.  

Of course the pews were all stocked with your standard OCP missals, and it wasn't long before the music ministry began doing what they do best: keeping the past half century alive in song. The music was flowery, pleasing to the ears of those from that era, and one hundred percent effeminate. Like an awkward middle school boy who is adopting a new-found atheism, I held the missal and opened not my mouth. 

The priest processed in with two acolytes: one boy and one girl. Of course. The muscle memory from my twenty plus years in the Novus Ordo responded in queue to the responsorial psalms and prayers: the participation of the laity is paramount in the new rite, after all.

My heart rate shot up, as it does when I attend an unfamiliar parish (I have only been to a handful of Sunday Masses in the new rite over the past four years) when it came time for communion. A white-haired woman in a mid-length skirt (a Sister?) directed herself to the tabernacle, the Holy of Holies, and scooped up the Lord to deliver to the priest who was ten feet away. The gaggle of EMs were on point--they ascended to the altar and after sanitizing their hands and rubbing them together vigorously to make it clear to the congregation they were not unclean, proceeded to take their stations like faithful point guards.

I wasn't sure what the field play was, so I awkwardly shuffled over through the pews to the center aisle to receive from the consecrated hands of the priest. I did not kneel, but extended my tongue as inoffensively as I could. But I still managed to give offense by this gesture, I suppose, since I seemed to be one of the only ones not receiving on the hand. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I could feel the scorn imminating from the elderly priest. I said "Amen" (or at least I thought I did, though it is not second nature now that we do not do so at the altar rail in my parish) and cloaked in the blanket of shame I felt cloaked in by the minister, proceeded to make my way back to my pew in a circumspect matter. But not before having to pass by two middle aged men slapping each other on the back and talking about their plans for the weekend. 

After Communion I gave my brief exhortation to encourage worship of the Lord whom I and everyone there had just received, and it seemed well received, a novelty almost. Upon leaving the church to shake the pastor's hand and attempt to thank him for the opportunity to speak, his countenance dropped and his eyes narrowed. "I don't know what you do at St. P's, but here we say 'Amen' before communion." I was firmly and fittingly chastised, and sent on my way. 

My heart continued to throb with a dull ache that evening, a nasty but familiar hangover from all the Masses I had attended in which I knew nothing different. When I was in a dysfunctional relationship in my twenties, I kept telling myself "Relationships are hard...they are supposed to be hard." Then you meet someone who is not hard to be around, with whom it is completely natural to be yourself and give yourself to them fully, and you realize that those years spent chaffing against the grain were not, in fact, normal. The norm, maybe. But not normal or healthy.

If it seems like I'm being critical, I am. Which, for me, was the worst part of attending Mass in the new rite. There are no shortages of opportunities to find fault. Which brings me to Mr. Tolkien's letter to his son, which I received that night unprovoked from a wise spiritual friend (emphasis mine):

"The only cure for sagging or fainting faith is Communion. Though always Itself, perfect and complete and inviolate, the Blessed Sacrament does not operate completely and once for all in any of us. Like the act of Faith it must be continuous and grow by exercise. Frequency is of the highest effect. Seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals.

Also I can recommend this as an exercise (alas! only too easy to find opportunity for): make your communion in circumstances that affront your taste. Choose a snuffling or gabbling priest or a proud and vulgar friar; and a church full of the usual bourgeois crowd, ill-behaved children – from those who yell to those products of Catholic schools who the moment the tabernacle is opened sit back and yawn – open necked and dirty youths, women in trousers and often with hair both unkempt and uncovered. Go to communion with them (and pray for them). It will be just the same (or better than that) as a mass said beautifully by a visibly holy man, and shared by a few devout and decorous people. It could not be worse than the mess of the feeding of the Five Thousand – after which our Lord propounded the feeding that was to come.”

My time for the past four years in my 'safe space' of healthy, traditional Catholicism had the effect of inoculating me from the mainstream Catholic culture, that 95% of Catholic churches operating today. It has become something foreign--not just the Mass itself, but the masses--the people themselves. The people Christ came to feed with both bread and body. Those who may not know or have the sensation that they are hungry for true bread, but who still need to be fed.

My acidic reflex in these situations has become hard to choke back down. But what, then, am I to make of Mr. Tolkien's incisive words of recommendation? My taste was indeed affronted, and violently so. An author of such repute as Tolkien would not use words carelessly, and so he chooses this as an "exercise." Exercise hurts, especially when you have not been pushed to work those muscles, like a body builder who is all arms and torso instructed to hit the leg press machine. 

Have traditionalists become like the 1%--those billionaires and celebrities who are insulated in their gated communities from the 99%, perplexed that not everyone owns their own yacht and who takes for granted that they will never know or care about balancing a checkbook? Are we meant to exist as a exclusionary people, a chosen race, a royal priesthood?  

I don't know. What I do know is I couldn't wait to get back to my own parish after this painful experience to be fed with the nourishment I have come to expect. Like a child at the dinner table, "I want this...not that." But the words of Tolkien uncomfortably remain, like an extra spoonful of lactic acid being poured into my veins and massaged into my already burning and wearied muscles. 

"Take Heed, Lest You Fall": A Response To Boniface

 

Re: How's Lent?

Hey bud, how's your Lent going?

--------------

Hey man,

Thanks for reaching out, always good to hear from you, and I pray you are well. I'm sorry the timing isn't going to work out to get together this summer on my way out to Ohio for that 5-day silent retreat; bummed about that, but I'm sure if the Spirit is willing we will cross pass in the future. Your site continues to bear good fruit, as I can see.

I hope you don't mind me double dipping here and using your check-in as an opportunity to reflect on the question of how my Lent is going in the form of a blog post. It's something we should all do during this season to take a spiritual inventory. 

However, I'll say from the outset that Lent has always been for me both a synthesis of a pragmatic opportunity for growth on the outside with a dense custard of mysterious grace inside--a kind of spiritual fasnacht of the Boston creme variety. This year is no exception.

Septuagesima was a good break-in period to prepare, along with the corporal ekklesia, my mind, body and spirit. I was feeling good and ready...confident, almost. I set out with a modest but regimented 6 day a week fasting plan, readied our checkbook, and added some extra time to tack on to my twenty minutes of mental prayer a day, along with my adopted penance of a modified digital eschewing.

But the Devil, the master strategist, sits crouching in the bush with the trip line, waiting for the moment when we momentarily take our eyes off Christ. He knows our weaknesses even better than we do. He knows us very well indeed.

As I had alluded to in previous posts and as I had shared with you previously, I had finally gotten out from under my addiction to nicotine this summer. I had eight months of complete sobriety (feels weird to use that word in this context, but it still stands as it relates to the behavior of addiction). It was rough going at first (cold turkey), but eventually good habits of abstinence began to replace daily use and outpace the latter. I was taking cold showers every morning, which gave me a healthy zap of norepinephrine and bite each morning. I was exercising, fasting, devoted to prayer and the sacraments, etc. After eight months, I felt I was on pretty firm footing. 

Biking to Adoration last week, I saw a vape pen lying on the side of the road. A strong man would ride right by...but I am not a strong man. Something in that moment led me to stop, pocket it, and take it home to recharge it. As St. Paul says in his letter to the Romans, "I do not understand what I do, but I do that which I hate" (Rom 7:15). A reader once shared with me that it takes a week or so for the nicotine receptors inthe brain to dry out, but only a few puffs of a cigarette or something similar to re-activate them. Sobering (no pun intended).

And so just like that, before I knew what happened, eight months of sobriety was erased in an instant. 

I was filled with shame and bewilderment, but trying hard to give myself grace. I resolved to go to Confession to seek the aid of grace--I know there are worse things in the life of faith, worse offenses, but to me I knew this was my chain, and one I had unwittingly walked right back into like an vole, a dog returning to its vomit. Whether or not this was a trap laid out for me in the desert by Old Scratch, I don't know, and it is besides the point. I had made my bed, and now I had to lie in it. But I resolved to get up, which I had always told other guys, is the true mark of a man.

In trying to reason back to where my chink-in-the-armor lay, I realized I had slowly been neglecting to pray my daily rosary without even realizing it. I hit most days, but a least a few days a week I just got wrapped up in life and didn't set time aside for it outside of my half hour of mental prayer. Even that was being neglected here and there. We had a friend over for dinner in the middle of the week, and I gave him a Miraculous Medal but because he didn't have a chain, I took mine off and gave it to him to wear. As we speak, both my MM and St. Benedict medal, worn away almost after years of rubbing against my body, sit by my bedside until a new chain that I ordered comes in the mail. 

The Devil will waste no opportunity to exploit these chinks and holes, and because he is so unoriginal, he did just that which he always does--swooped in and started sowing tares. Though I was hiding it from my wife at first, I did confess to her, and then in the Sacrament of Penance the next day, resolved to put it down as a temporary fall that was behind me. But then coming back home from Mass to pick up a pizza for the kids, I stopped in at a Wawa and bought a tin of dip and popped a pouch in my lower lip. Just like that. I swear as I was at a red light a few miles from home, I heard a cock crow.

The reason this addiction is so pernicious and--if it's not the wrong language to us--close to my heart, is because it operates like a proto-sin: we minimize it. We treat it not like the idol it has the potential to become, but as an imperfection or an excusable indulgence. That other people are way worse.

And the reason why I have always held such an affinity to St. Peter, is because I know personally his zeal, his love...and his shame. One moment I am vowing in sincere bravado to be made a martyr, and the next moment I am disavowing the One who drew me up from the pit because I have found new company. I know his shame, because it is my own. For I am a worm, and no man. (Ps 22:6)

If Lent were a movie directed by me, it would hit the box office under the title, "Chronicles of Weakness." I do not understand what I do. I do what I hate. 

But why now? Why during Lent, when I had been so fortified and stable until now? Well, maybe it is just that. Am I greater, stronger, more resolute than Cephas (the Rock) himself? Why did the Lord sear his heart with his denial not once, not twice, but three times? It is a great mystery for me. 

But nothing is wasted in the Gospel accounts, nothing is there if it is not for our edification as disciples. That passage is recounted not to reflect Peter's shame, but his humbling redemption, for we know from scripture he would truly be redeemed before he drew his last breath. Just as the Devil thought he had nailed down the victory on Good Friday, only to be upended on Easter Sunday--three days later. 

I know this is not where I want to stay, and I do intend to wipe away these tears of shame and get back on the horse without delay. But I imagine I am not alone in finding myself asking, "How could I have fallen after so much time on solid ground? How could I have stooped so low?" When in fact it is not that we should be surprised that we fall, but that we have spent any amount of time as good men given the strength of the riptide of concupiscence. 

I know that all things work for the good for those who love the Lord (Rom 8:28). And I love the Lord. My sin, failings, and imperfections do not negate that, though the Devil will double down with his boot on the neck to convince us otherwise: Look at you. You do not love God. You are weak. If we listen, if we do not plug our ears, we will fulfill the Devil's destiny for us.

I am rent in two, but I continue to struggle for it is in the struggle that we are refined. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me (2 Cor 12). Wretched man that I am! For who will save me from this body of death? It is Christ my Lord (Rom 7:24).

So, to answer your question in a less circumspect manner, my Lent is going okay. Just a few bumps in the road so far, as is to be expected. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but powers and principalities (Ephesians 6:12). The worst we can do is underestimate the Father of Lies, who never stops prowling around seeking to devour us. He may be wily, but he is, at least, completely unoriginal.

I hope your Lent is producing spiritual buds on the tree as well as we struggle together to be the men God made us to be, not the counterfeits that Satan conscripts us to. 

Pray for me, and I for you. 

Yours in Christ,

Paul

Keep Watch With Me

I will be giving a talk at two masses this weekend at a local parish that hosts perpetual Adoration to encourage more people to sign up for a Holy Hour. Here is the draft of my short talk. 

I have been coming to the Perpetual Adoration Chapel here at IHM for the past few years, sporadically at first, though I have always held Eucharistic adoration as one of the pillars of my own spiritual life. It is one of the most intimate, simple, and powerful opportunities our Lord and the Church gives us to fulfill what our lord in scripture says, “come to me all you who are weary and I will give you rest.”

For those who may be unfamiliar with it, Eucharistic Adoration models the posture of Mary (who is the sister of Lazarus and Martha) who “sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to what he said,” as it says in scripture. Let’s not overly complicate it—the Lord is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament: body, blood, soul, and divinity (even though according to a pew research poll of Catholics, only 1/3 actually believe this tenant of the faith). When he is exposed in the monstrance, he is as present before the adorer as if he was in the flesh 2,000 years ago. That is because he did not leave us orphans after he ascended into Heaven, but gave us his literal body as food for our journey. But it is also the gift of himself.

And Eucharistic adoration here at IHM truly is an unmerited gift. Think of how fortunate you are for a minute…to essentially have one of your most loving, intimate friends essentially available and on retainer for you to see him, any hour of the day or night, 24/7, free of charge? He listens to your sighs and cries, your petitions, and accepts the humble gift of praise that you offer him without judgement or condemnation.

My father told me shortly after I had met the woman who would become my wife: “you know you’ve found the One when you can be yourself around her.” That is absolutely true with the Lord. We don’t come to him because we are good or perfect, but because we aren’t. And He permits us to sit at his feet and simply worship him, speak to him, and yes, listen to him. This listening is an acquired act in the spiritual life, where we learn to be more fully devoted disciples of the Lord Christ, and it can be perfected in the act of Eucharistic Adoration.

Since we are now in the season of Lent, perhaps it’s a good opportunity to focus on one of those three pillars, prayer, with a weekly Holy Hour.

I noticed one day when I was at the chapel that there were a few slots that were not filled, one being Tuesdays from 11pm to midnight. This too was a gift and opportunity from the Lord to “stay awake with him for an hour” as it says in scripture in a more regular, committed way that made me accountable. It has been incredibly fruitful, since these hours there is no one else there most of the time, and I get a “one on one” hour with the Lord. These late night slots can also be sometimes hard to fill, but for me as a busy husband and father it’s perfect because literally nothing else is scheduled during this time. I’m just so grateful to have the opportunity. You are very fortunate as parishioners to have this gift—it’s a safe area, spacious, climate controlled, and locked entrance with key pad. When we think of our brothers and sisters in the faith in Africa, the Middle East, and China who don’t have such freedoms and luxuries, but who are on fire with zeal and dying as martyrs, we should be inspired to take advantage of what we have been afforded here to become more like them in fervor.

Consider paying the Lord a visit and just sitting at his feet, once a week to start, giving him the gift of your time—one of your most precious resources, I imagine. I promise you, you will rewarded one hundred fold in exchange for this investment of time. Where else can you get a hundred fold return in this market?

Jesus never has too many Adorers to keep him company. In fact, it’s often the opposite. You have a great gift here right under your nose here at IHM, a pearl of great price, in Eucharistic Adoration. I hope you will consider paying the Lord a visit. He is waiting for you there.