My Worst NYE Ever

New Year's Eve is my least favorite holiday. Everything about it feels forced, like going to Disney World and feeling compelled to have a good time because you've spent so much money to get there and everyone tells you you have to. I don't go out anymore at my age, but when I did in my twenties and thirties I always found myself feeling out of place, drunk, and alone. 

By far, the worst (but most memorable) New Year's Eve was spent in New Zealand. The year before while going to school abroad at VUW for a semester, I had fallen in love with a Samoan nurse who also happened to be an alcoholic. We began a relationship, and I had vowed to return after I graduated college--which I did, booking a flight a few months before graduation and planning to stay with her for a month. The only problem was I had, er, "fallen" (in a Romans 7:15 kind of way) with someone else while back at school stateside after booking my trip. I should have known better than to go, but I had no plan and no other accommodations other than her flat. She assured me we could remain "friends" and I should still come; but she was getting me back in the meantime by taking up with other guys before I arrived. So I was stuck between a rock and a hard place...I stayed for a day or two, but eventually it was too much and I spent the rest of that month (it was summer there) hitchhiking around the country until my flight home. Reminds me of that Noah Kahan/Post Malone song, here. 

The following journal entry was my second night in the country on that tumultuous return to New Zealand to see a girl I was no longer "together" with, and trying to salvage a New Years Eve abroad. I was 21, no longer a virgin, and essentially a vagrant 9,000 miles from home. Sin makes you stupid, but we all know that...now. But God is patient, and is waiting there for us to come home.

Anyway, enjoy. And here's to better things in 2024.

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New Years Eve, 2001

Wellington, New Zealand

Walking up the hill after going into town for cigarettes with F., I see a girl about my age with jet black hair and beautiful dark eyes swinging on a tree swing by herself. I'm struck for a minute it is so storybook-sad and touching that the whole scene seems to have a glow about it. Walking by with F., I feel like I'm wearing a cashmere coat arm in arm with a wife, walking by a homeless person...subtly ashamed. But I wave to her once, twice...wanting her to know that I've been there before and I'm here now swinging by myself TOO and that she's beautiful, but she doesn't see me. We round the bend and it's over. It was the most private special thing I've seen all day.

F. and I clear the air in the afternoon, if you can call it that. It felt like it went nowhere. she asked me to read the letters I wrote her and if I would help her burn them. "What the %#@*!? Who are you?" 

"No, it's not spiteful or anything, it's just moving on." 

Yeah. Look, I tell her, if you want to burn those letters that's something for you to do personally that I don't want any part of. Man, this is weird. She's been drinking for a couple hours now. It's four o'clock.

 

Michelle's friend Dwayne is over. 

"Whatcha drinkin mate?" he asks as I'm eating dinner on the back stoop. 

"Aw, just some milk bro," I say. 

"Yeha, good one," he laughs. 

"Nah mate, for real, it's right here. See?" 

Dwayne: "what the?..."

More people start rolling in at nine o'clock. As if i'm not having enough trouble trying to belong as it is, I've gotten it in my head that I'm not going to drink tonight. On new years eve. In a country where babies nurse on beer instead of milk. I haven't been looking forward to this party and have decided to go to midnight mass at St. Mary's.  "That's a good one mate," Dwayne says, and I smile. 

"You're serious? Come on then, have a drink." 

Nah, i'm good thanks. "Got my milk," I laugh.

 

"Yea, I'd be in church too, but the way I figure, God wants me to be having a good time. So if I'm happy, that's just like going to church, doing what God wants me to do."  I nod, trying to reason out his logic on this particular self-made form of religion. I am really looking forward to Mass--I'm getting real tired of all this.

  

I'm sitting out front talking with some of F.'s friends Ace, Benna, and Charlotte. I'm more comfortable in the company of islanders and Maori than Pakeha (Euro NZ'ers). F. is with us and she's pretty drunk. The (white) guys next door are having a party as well, I don't think she gets on with them too well. We're laughing and having a good time when we hear someone there say "damn, that girl is BLACK!" All conversation among us stops while it continues up there. I wonder if I hear right. I immediately shoot a glance to F. This has happened before and I know how she is when she's drunk. One time a guy unknowingly said something about how she looked and I had to pin her arms together and take her around back; she was going to break his nose. Now, she's out of her chair and storming upstairs. Ace and Benna laugh about it but I hear her giving her neighbors hell and I'm worried. 

When she comes down all the joy has gone out of her and she looks stepped-on and shook up. She doesn't want to let on to anyone, so I take her inside. She is cursing and crying and FUMING, like a searing wound had been opened up, and it has. I am seeing before my eyes the devastating effect one thoughtless racist remark can have on someone. She is so upset it scares me, and I'm powerless to do anything for her. It hurts to watch. I don't even have any words, I'm just...there. She's shaking with rage and hatred, and while i will never experience that kind of pain because of racism, I can see how painful it is. That hatred is so ugly I almost can't look at her it scares me too much. She knows I was planning to go to mass and looks at me with contempt. 

"Go to church," she spits. 

"No, I'm going to stay with you." 

"No, you do what you want; if you want to go, then go." I don't know what to say.

"Tell me," she asks with that fire in her eyes, "How can you go to church when the world is so %&^*?"

I pause for a minute and then look up at her. 

"I think it's BECAUSE the world is so %&^*ed that I go to church."

"Just go then..."  

I feel like a pious a-hole but know there is nothing I can do for her. God, all I want is to be with Jesus--I don't even care about the hymns or the service. It's 11:30 and the city is absolutely mad. I feel like I've been thrown in the lion's den; this is what the cities that the Desert Fathers fled from must have been like. Couple after couple weaves by arm in arm. A bottle breaks against a wall. People are yelling conversations on their cell phones in the midst of this cacophony. A girl is passed out on the sidewalk as her two friends just stand there. People dancing in the streets. A fight breaks out. I feel like I'm on a moving walkway and people are just moving on by. I'm totally sober. 

I finally get to Mass and am so tired from the walk and everything going on that I fall asleep during the Gregorian chant and when I wake up I don't know if Mass has ended or if it's just starting. People are leaving. But it ends up being the start and the service is, of course, awful and uninspiring, but I wait for Communion feeling like I've gone through so much to be here, it's all I want. 

After Communion I feel nothing, but as usual, am content knowing that I don't have to feel anything. After the service I am the only one left in the church--it is the most depressing lonely scene. I want to cry but feel no sadness to justify it. It is 1am.

New Year's has come and gone, literally. Like sex. A year's worth of anticipation and then 5-4-3-2-1...a ball-dropping 12 o'clock climax and its over. The whole world has felt the satisfaction and sadness of an arm-in-arm drunk-prom-night New Year's orgasm. Kneeling on a wooden pew, I realize I faked it.

I make my way back home down Courtney Pl. stepping over broken bottles and puddles of vomit. I wish a homeless guy on the corner a Happy New Years and he nods a bushy smile. Oriental Pd. is dark and the benches empty. I sit on the beach as the waves lap the gray sand to watch a couple make love under the full creme moon. I have never had so much reason to feel alone, and yet there is comfort in being here now. A deep heavy contentment drowns any emotional response I might have to the situation. The night has become a real-life Gospel story. A chance to see how serious I am about living my faith and simply living. I can see why some Protestants refer to themselves as 'Jesus Freaks' (though I don't like that term). God, trying to live out the Gospel DOES make you a freak--but only when compared to everything around you.

I think about my friend Z. and a conversation we had about missing out on things because of trying to live our faith to its fullest. You do. But you gain so much more. I think about Z. and life.

I sit on some steps before climbing the hill to write some. Then I hear this, "Rob!" and it's F. and Mitch running down the stairs. She's fully drunk now and wants to go dancing, though she can't even stand up straight. She wants to have a good time, all the time, and doesn't let anything stand in her way. She asks if I want to take a walk and all I want to do is go to bed, but I say yeah. We talk the long way back and I have to steady her the whole time. Then she wants to pass out on a bench in the middle of the woods. I hate her when she's like this--probably why I didn't drink tonight. I think about all those wives with alcoholic husbands and the things they go through.

We get home and she wants to lay in the backyard, so I decide she's fine and say a quick hello to everyone still going strong, and retire to the refuge of my room. It's 4am. What a freaking night. I rang in the New Year sober, alone, and in church--It is the most blessed one I can remember.

St. Mary of the Angels, Wellington, New Zealand

Christmas in America (1988)--Day 7 of the Octave of Christmas

 "This is supposed to be Paradise," Curtis Battle thinks to himself as he stares out the windshield of his car. Palm trees sway next to luxury high rises just a hundred yards from where he has parked his car here in Venice Beach. Clothes and various non-descript wrappers and other things you would usually put out to trash are piled high behind the driver's seat, confining the passengers to the front seats; they are not presents or wrapping paper, for there were no presents this year. He has been out of work for four months and nothing on the horizon seems promising. Next to him, dressed in a matching grey-and-maroon flannel shirt, is Cynthia holding one-year old Brandon, her son. Like the edges of Curtis's fingernails, Brandon's split-pea green onesie is soiled and pilled. His mother balances a styrofoam plate of fried chicken on her knee--Christmas dinner--as some small candy canes dangle from the rear view mirror. The inside of the car, like their skin, is dark while the California sun shines outside as it does every day here in L.A. He's doing his best to keep this family together but he isn't sure where the next meal will come from, though he's grateful for the one they received at the Mission downtown today--a temporary respite from uncertainty. "Battle," he thinks to himself about his namesake, "Every day is a battle." Maybe he'll find work next week after the holidays, maybe an apartment. Maybe next year, the New Year, things will be different.

       

Christmas in America (1988)--Day 5 of the Octave of Christmas

 Karen Horger had never been to the Holy Land. But while sitting on a rock at 5,000 feet above sea level resting her feet on a carpet of scrag and wispy amber tufts of grass, she imagined Christ's ascent up Mount Sinai or perched overlooking Jerusalem. The five mile pilgrimage to the top of Tortuga Mountain to pay homage to Our Lady of Guadalupe on her feast day was not met at the end with a festival or a church tour for her and the other 1,500 pilgrims, but simply the chance to be a few miles closer to Heaven, wrapped in silence. The quiotes fashioned from yucca stalks that she holds now always reminded her of something John the Baptist would be found with--an archetype of the simplicity and barrenness of the desert. Her head is wrapped loosely with a bed scarf, partly as a pious act and more practically to offer some warmth from the December wind. The snaking Rio Grande and the small town of Las Cruces are far below her like a distant memory; but soon the pilgrims will descend to return to the world. Just as Moses built memorial altar of memorial on his ascent up Mount Sinai and Joshua on Mount Ebal, the pilgrims descend before sunset but not before lighting up the mountain with bonfires on the way down. For those who have been in darkness have seen a great light. 

 

Christmas In America (1988)--Day 4 of the Octave of Christmas

 Snow laps up against the white clapboard side of St. Rose's church like a wave, it's powdery crest settling waist-high like a foothill. The Gothic arch of the twelve foot window safely above betrays itself simplicity--the glass is clear and frosted, but not stained, a limp strand of tinsel and ornaments floating from the top; the flaking weathered paint matches the snow beneath it. Here on the plain nature is adorned, not the churches. But the light comes from within, as they say, and as the harsh winter sun sets in Soldier Creek over the South Dakota horizon the pale golden light of the sanctuary is all that illumines the face of Myrtis Walking Eagle. He is seated by the window, his elbow resting on the sill, listening to the sermon but with the familiar air of teenage detachment. His parents cannot be seen--he could just as well be a runaway alone on Christmas Eve as he could be a sibling of seven. Or perhaps he is glad to be here as a one hour respite from his home on the reservation. His face is polite but stoic, his gaze far away. His ancestors were here before the Christians ever came to this land. He thinks about them, how they would receive this message of God made man in a child from foreign missionaries, this foreign religion which is all he has ever known.

Christmas In America (1988)

Every year at Christmas from the time I was eight years old, my parents would pull out a book of photography titled Christmas in America and place it on the living room coffee table. I remember laying on the floral print love seat and leafing through the large 10"x20" book (which was about 200 pages) which was a snapshot of our country from Thanksgiving to Epiphany by one hundred of the nation's foremost photojournalists. I grew to love photojournalism, even though I had no knack for photography. Year after year, I would look through one page at a time, and those photographs of places I had never been to and cultures and religions I had never experienced began to develop in the darkroom of my mind.  

Since my wife was working overnights Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we visited my parents this evening and we were all lamenting about how our digital iPhone photos just kind of live on our phone or on the Cloud and we never really look at them the way we used to look at photo albums. There's something about a book or a physical photograph that seems like something from a bygone era, but is nonetheless real, tangible, physical. Not only that, but the currency of photographs has been devalued in the digital era, because there's just so many of them.

After dinner, I wandered into the family room and I noticed the Christmas in America book on their coffee table, and like a kid in the 1980's again, I dangled my legs over the love seat (now leather) and flipped through page by page. Before we left for the evening I asked my mom if I could take the book home with me.

I had wanted to do a "Year in Pictures" post on this blog as I had done last year; my intention was to share the intimate photographs from Christmas in America, but as an artist myself who has become increasingly sensitive to attribution and copyrights, I couldn't bring myself to do so as much as I was tempted to. 

Instead, I thought I would use it as a writing exercise, to describe the various scenes from my childhood memories in words of a day in the life of Americans on Christmas Day--one per day for the eight days of the Octave. Since I am taking a graduate non-fiction seminar course this Spring at the university where I work (I've never taken an English course besides COM101 and a Creative Writing course as an undergrad), I figured it would be a good warm up for the semester. And we used to do these kinds of exercises at The Writer's Room where I used to frequent in my hometown, painting a picture with words: "Here's an orange on a table. Now write!"

So without further adieu, here's to Christmas in America in the late 1980's.

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(1)

The rectory at St. Vladimir's is still, a harbor and outpost from the frantic outside world. A wooden icon of Christ Pantocrator perches upon a corner shelf above the head of Father Boris Kizenko who is silently reading the holy scriptures before him at a simple table covered with a blue and white checked tablecloth. His long, smooth gray hair is tucked neatly behind his large earlobes; his beard, meanwhile, is a thousand frazzled strands bound into a gray tuft blanket that covers his chin and obscures the large gold chain around his neck. His thick hands--which would be just as suited to swinging a sledgehammer or operating a forklift on the docks--rest holding the large book before him. One might think he was asleep, but he is not; he has entered into the Mystery, immersed in the Psalms and the work of prayer while those in the town of Cassville, New Jersey outside the rectory door are running and grasping and swiping and panting. The pages of his Bible are large, thick, aged with a yellow hue, the immortal words of the Patriarch jet black like Father Boris' cassock.The corner of the book is worn and exposed like a flesh burn, for this is no decorative book for display. Year after year, on Christmas Day, January 6th, he sits down to recall the story of salvation that has sprung from the root of Jesse. 

Faith Seeking Understanding

One thing I think a lot of people in the normie Catholic world fail to recognize is that the Holy Father Pope Francis did not emerge from a vacuum. One can point to him being a Latin American from Argentina, or a post-conciliar modernist, a classic "progressive," or a religious sympathetic to socialism or Liberation Theology as to why we have the pontificate we do. While all these things are true, you are in for a world of hurt and massive frustration if you fail to recognize that understanding the political ideology of Peronism is essential to understanding the machinations coming forth from the chair of Peter from 2014 to present. 

I think what's also helpful to mention is that in doing so, you may find a sense of relief akin to someone suffering from ADHD or autism or borderline personality disorder receiving a diagnosis from a psychiatrist--"finally," you may say to yourself, "my life up to now finally makes sense." Indeed, to be quite honest, I think understanding the current pontificate in general and Pope Francis in particular in the light of Peronism is the only thing that makes sense over the past ten years of leadership in the Catholic Church. 

Juan Domingo Perón served as President of Argentina from 1946 until his overthrow in 1955. When he took office running on a Labour party ticket (though he eventually formed his own "Peronist Party" which replaced it in 1947), Perón's two stated goals were social justice and economic independence. Theologian Herold Weiss recalled, that 

"Perón opposed the universities, which questioned his methods and his goals. A well-remembered slogan was, Alpargatas sí, libros no ("Shoes? Yes! Books? No!")"

Political commentators have noted that the rule of Perón was a kind of Italian fascism baptized in the waters of Latin America. Perón ruled by violence and various forms of dictatorship. He faced opposition from the Socialist Party; Perón called employers and unions to a Productivity Congress to regulate social conflict through dialogue (sound familiar?)

There is a degree of hubris as well, since on 20 August 1948--less than two years after taking office--he sought to articulate his self-named political ideology in a speech.  He starts right out of the gate:

"Perónism is not learned, nor just talked about: one feels it or else disagrees. Perónism is a question of the heart rather than of the head. Fortunately I am not one of those Presidents who live a life apart, but on the contrary I live among my people, just as I have always lived; so that I share all the ups and downs, all their successes and all their disappointments with my working class people."

In Argentina there should not be more than one single class of men: men who work together for the welfare of the nation, without any discrimination whatever." 

Likewise, on 17 October 1950 in a speech at the Plaza de Mayo, he outlined his “Twenty Truths of the Perónist Justicialism” (particular emphasis mine, in bold)

1. True democracy is the system where the Government carries out the will of the people defending a single objective: the interests of the people.

2. Perónism is an eminently popular movement. Every political clique is opposed to the popular interests and, therefore, it cannot be a Perónist organization.

3. A Perónist must be at the service of the cause. He who invoking the name of this cause is really at the service of a political clique or a “caudillo” (local political leader) is only a Perónist by name.

4. There is only one class of men for the Perónist cause: the workers.

5. In the New Argentina, work is a right which dignifies man and a duty, because it is only fair that each one should produce at least what he consumes.

6. There can be nothing better for a Perónist than another Perónist.

7. No Perónist should presume to be more than he really is, nor should he adopt a position inferior to what his social status should be. When a Perónist starts to think that he is more important than he really is, he is about to become one of the oligarchy.

8. With reference to political action the scale of values for all Perónists is as follows: First, the Homeland; afterwards the cause, and then, the men themselves.

9. Politics do not constitute for us a definite objective but only a means of achieving the Homeland’s welfare represented by the happiness of the people and the greatness of the nation.

10. The two main branches of Perónism are the Social Justice and the Social Welfare. With these we envelop the people in an embrace of justice and love.

11. Perónism desires the establishment of national unity and the abolition of civil strife. It welcomes heroes but does not want martyrs.

12. In the New Argentina the only privileged ones are the children.

13. A Government without a doctrine is a body without a soul. That is why Perónism has established its own political, economic and social doctrines: Justicialism.

14. Justicialism is a new philosophical school of life. It is simple, practical, popular and endowed with deeply Christian and humanitarian sentiments.

15. As a political doctrine, Justicialism establishes a fair balance between the rights of the individual and those of the community.

16. As an economic doctrine, Justicialism achieves a true form of social economy by placing capital at the service of the national economy and this at the service of social welfare.

17. As a social doctrine, Justicialism presides over an adequate distribution of Social Justice giving to each person the social rights he is entitled to.

18. We want a socially just, an economically free and a politically independent Argentina.

19. We are an organized State and a free people ruled by a centralized government.

20. The best of this land of ours is its people.

We are all products of our time and environment. John Paul II grew up under Communist rule in Poland, Benedict XVI in Nazi Germany. Pope Francis was ten years old when Perón became President in his home of Argentina. I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that he was steeped in and influenced by Peronist thought. 

A few parallels I teased out between Perón's "Twenty Truths" and some examples of Peronist-influenced examples under the current pontificate:

--Some of Pope Francis' messages (for example, to the World Economic Forum as an agenda contributor in 2014 and 2018): The (one-world) government carries out the will of the people (point 1), there is one only one class of men (point 4) rooted in fairness. (point 5)

--He rewards his friends and punishes his enemies.(point 6)

--He is popular in the media, welcoming atheists (while maintaining that "atheists can still be redeemed", praising pro-abortion economists (while simultaneously condemning abortion as killing), and ushering globalists into his audience. At the same time, he is merciless with Traditionalists (what he sees as "cliques") and mute to the persecuted Church in China. (point 2)

--Politics (ie; doctrine) is not objective, but a means to the happiness of the people (the spiritual status quo) (point 9, point 14)

--The anti-doctrine is the new doctrine, which is why it is necessary to create "it's own doctrines"  (point 13)

These are just a few, and I'm sure there are more. 

My point here is to at least give a modicum of solace to those who may not be steeped in Church news but have felt themselves going crazy over the "messy" past decade, thinking, "this seems...off" or "Why is he doing and saying these things?" or "It sure is hard to pin him down!" 

If you see Pope Francis as being influenced by the political ideology of Juan Domingo Perón and Peronist political ideology, then what is coming out of the Vatican starts to make a lot more sense. Wait, I take that back. It still doesn't make sense, but it does help to explain it, like a diagnosis for a mental disorder at least gives a sense of explaining various neuroses and crazy behavior. 

I simply outline it here for those who may be otherwise confused or ignorant, through no fault of their own, to let you know that everything comes from somewhere. If you try to make sense of the current pontificate apart from Peronism, you risk going mad in the process; and I don't want to see anyone go mad on account of being Catholic. 

 

Wishing you a Merry Christmas, from our imperfect family to yours.

And stay tuned for some exciting news in the next couple weeks!

A Golden Age

I was talking with a buddy yesterday who was discontent in his work in finance, and considering looking for another job.  When I asked him why, he said it was mostly due to not seeing eye to eye with his manager. "We just don't get a long," he said. I think there was a small part of him, as a believer coming back to the faith, that was also overly-spiritualizing his work. "People don't quit jobs, they quit bosses," I told him. 

During a conversation by text earlier in the day with another friend, she had reached the point where she was questioning whether Pope Francis was really the true Pope, and made reference to the present "ape" of the Church in its current state.

I've had my share of living through an almost trauma-inducing dysfunction within my own place of work. I've had six different directors during that time, lived through union-lawyer questioning, and had to report to someone who was essentially an incompetent fraud, not to mention the day in, day out anxiety of an unstable workplace and leadership. But I really enjoyed what I do, and I had great co-workers. I joked with my co-worker (we started on the same day ten years ago) that we are like brother-and-sister orphans holding each other at the top of the stairs while our foster parents were throwing dishes at each other across the kitchen. 

Eventually we got a new Dean, a new director, and some of the toxic staff peeled off. During those tumultuous years, I mostly just put my head down and stuck it out. Now, I am finally able to do my work without the unnecessary drama, and I still enjoy what I am doing. Things are good for now.

For Catholics today, (and I imagine many priests and prelates, especially) there can be that feeling that we are working for a dysfunctional company with toxic management. Orthodox, Inc. or Sedevacantist Corp. may look like tempting start-ups, a greener grass that may allay our dissatisfaction with how things currently are in the Church. 

A few years ago I wrote an article about the phenomenon of "gray divorce," which has more than doubled for those over the age of 50 since the 1990's. The great tragedy of people who are abandoning their vows after twenty, thirty, or even forty years is that they will never experience the possibility of those "golden years" of marriage by cutting ship and drifting out to sea on a lifeboat alone. Rather than sitting on the porch together or walking in the park holding hands as a wrinkled old couple, they will have no one to do so with. 

Sometimes we need to leave a job because it's not healthy to stay. There is no sin in that, and sometimes it is even a good move for the sake of opportunity or salary. But we should also recognize that bad bosses come and go, and if everything else about a job gives us satisfaction, there's also no sin in putting your head down and grinding it out for a period, recognizing that nothing is always going to be smooth sailing whether that's a job, a marriage, or a religious faith. 

Personally, I have great hope in what's to come for Catholics, for those who remain faithful, don't cut ship, and put on their gloves ready to get to work. God is stripping us of graces to prepare our cups to be filled to overflowing. He is stripping us of identity and comforts and even purpose to get us down to the foundations of our faith. What do we really believe in? What are we willing to live, stay, and die for? What are our idols that need smashing? What are the essentials of faith? 

I truly believe God is trimming the fat and peeling away the dross of believers today with all the dysfunction to make it abundantly clear that you have only two choices as a Catholic in the present age: you can be hot, or you can be cold (Rev 3:16). How do you expect to earn the crown when you forfeit the race? If your first love--Christ and by extension, his Bride--has lost her luster, will you be like one of those fifty year old mid-managers trying to reinvigorate that love by what...starting up a relationship with your secretary? Cutting your spouse of twenty, thirty, forty years out to drift so you can what..."live your own life?" "have some peace?" Give me a break. 

Bad bosses come and go. Ride it out--plenty of work to do here on the home front. The race is only getting started, and we're just getting warmed up. Are you going to peel off at mile 25 because you're doubting why you are running a marathon at all? Don't be crazy. That last mile is where races are won or lost. But even if you're not running to win, run at least to finish. Endure the bad boss, hold on in the dark night of doubt, have hope. We are entering a golden age of faith. The saints God is raising up in this wicked and confused era for those who persevere are going to be ones that will be unrivaled because they are believing and enduring not because of the leadership in the hierarchy, but in spite of it. But you have to be a grinder. That you are given everything you need and invited to be counted among them....no year-end bonus will be able to compare to what God has prepared for those who love Him (1 Cor 2:9). 

The Most Epic Catholic COVID Party in the History of the United States

 

In January of 2021, a year into the lockdowns, a friend out West and I hatched a plan: escape the insanity of the COVID oppression that had metastasized across the U.S. by throwing a party and inviting every single Catholic we knew across the country. Her 40th birthday was coming up, and as a mother of ten, she had a big house. But that was just the cover: the reality is that every one we knew was fed up with masks, government overreach, Zoom everything, and the tension of uncertainty as to whether the world was ending of not. The time was ripe to do exactly what we weren't "allowed" to do during this unprecedented period in history: identify our people and be together as a bunch of loosely-connected strangers, talk shop as Catholics for when SHTF, and most importantly--have some freaking fun. 

We started to mobilize over Facebook and email, and I took on the bulk of getting the word out since I am a recruiter by trade. The premise was simple: a Nationwide Catholic party on February 20th, 2021 in Phoenix for anyone who was fed up with this abnormal state of life and could make it out. 

We weren't sure to expect, but like a album that drops at just the right time in the right conditions and goes Platinum or a high school party in the 90's, word spread fast. People from all over the country--from New Hampshire to New Jersey to Pennsylvania to Illinois to Florida to Oregon to California said "YES!" and started changing the oils in their car and booking flights. We were all Catholics on the same page and, at least for me, felt like we needed to find our people in this world and that being in person doing normal things was important. 

One woman (a good friend) drove cross country from the Northeast to Arizona because she refused to wear a mask on a plane. Others--one of my favorite Catholic couples of all time--drove from San Diego. The vast majority of these folks have large families and are authentically Catholic through and through. I stayed with K. for part of my time there in a spare room helping her prep for what seemed like a crazy social experiment, and with other friends D & P north of Phoenix for the rest. P. lent me his truck so I could meet up with C at a diner. I met up with an author friend for brunch. I connected with other people in person I had only known virtually up until then.

When the evening of the 20th came around, things started to pop. People really had committed to coming (not just talk about it, or say "cool idea!", and were showing up. By normal standards in normal circumstances, this would have just been a big Catholic house party where we drink and laugh and tell stories and do karaoke late into the night. But these weren't normal times, and to do "normal" things like this was essentially outlawed. These were normal (albeit, awesome and exceptional) Catholic folks who held their faith dear to their hearts, and the energy was one that would probably never be repeated given the circumstances. 

There was something about being together in person during this time that would never, and could never be replicated. It was also cathartic--so many of us were made to feel like extremists, radicals and subversives for not "trusting the science" and being firm in convictions. We needed to know we weren't crazy, that there were others like us out there, and that need demanded proof I think--something tangible, something real. Something that started with a crazy, random idea materialized and gave me hope in this small bloc of "my people" and that the Faith could survive in a hostile world if we stuck together and leaned on each other. 

A few of these people I have fallen out of touch with, but many I consider dear friends and stay in touch with, even if we don't talk regularly. When you're on the same page with the faith, you've found your people, even if they are spread out across the country. When you're not sure if this month will be your last before the world ends and everything goes to pot, it's comforting to know you have a tribe to call on for prayer, support, and yes--to party til dawn with.

"Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine, There's always laughter and good red wine." 

--Hilaire Belloc

Innocence and Sophistry

 

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me." (Jn 14:1)

While I was made aware of it dropping like a nuke in Rockefeller center yesterday, I'm not going to join the chorus and write about Fiducia Supplicans here. All I will say is that the DDF and the Holy Father's timing is impeccable. One has to give credit where credit is due.

I should also say that yesterday was one of the worst days I had had in a while for various but unrelated reasons. When I texted my friend Kevin Wells: "Got time for a pep talk?" I was unaware that he thought I was referring to the aforementioned document that was released just in time for Christmas. So getting the run down on what was going on in the world was kind of the shiny bow on an especially dour twenty four hours.

Truth be told, this time of year I always long to be in a cave somewhere rather than working, scuttling between stores, or being immersed in the overall frantic spirit around me. But the news of the document--which gives explicit approval for priest's to impart a blessing on same-sex couples and those in "irregular situations"--was, ironically, just what I needed to snap me out of the depressed and frazzled state I found myself in.  

As a father, I feel that one of my primary jobs is guarding and preserving the innocence of my children for as long as I am able, to give them an innocent childhood and a solid foundation for when they do go out into a world full of wolves. When my five year old lays down next to my wife and I in bed and falls asleep, I find myself just looking at him, kissing his head while he sleeps and running the back of my hand along his cheeks as he breathes quietly between us. These are the moments that day by day slip away, until they inevitably one day become a memory; and so I try to spend those late-night hours just listening, watching, and gazing over him as he sleeps.

And so I was especially repulsed when my inadvertent naivety of yesterday's current events popped my bubble. Not only because of the distraction from what should be an anticipatory spiritual season of waiting and gazing with this nefarious pastoral pronouncement, but because of the nature--the subject matter--inherent in the pronouncement itself. While "the Heavens declare the glory of God" (Ps 19:2), and the Virgin Mother's Magnificat magnifies the Lord who looks down on His lowly servant (Lk 1:46-55), the sins that cry to Heaven (Gen 18:20-21) instead mute with such crude force what should be a quiet, guarded innocence of gazing on the Christ child in his manger among the Holy Family and the shepherds that had come to worship him. They were amazed (Lk 2:18), while Mary treasured all these things and and pondered them in her heart (Lk 2:19).

In the stable, awe and innocence--of Mary, Joseph, the Christ child, and the shepherds--is replete in that Holy Night. There is no news, no communication from outside that setting, that defiles that scene. And yet, here we are in late December of 2023 and the defecation of impurity has resounded not from the pagan nation of Herod's Rome, but from the throne of the Christ Child's future Bride, the Church. Simply defined, sophistry is the "use of fallacious arguments, especially with the intention of deceiving." Can any description of what came out of Rome yesterday be more fitting? And just days before Christians worldwide seek to sit at the foot of the manger and simply gaze, worship, and be filled with awe that a child--God himself made incarnate in innocence--would redeem us from this fallen world. For "He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly" and has scattered the proud in their conceit (Lk 1:52, 51). 

If I am urging you to keep your gaze focused on the innocent Christ lying helpless in a manger this season, it is only because it is taking everything in myself to do the same. Just when you think your back can't bear anymore weight, that your spirit will collapse under the weight of sin from our shepherds, the hand of the Church adds another kilo to the stack. It's enough to make one buckle.

Which is why the timing of the Ember days this week are opportune as well--to bring us back in a focused spirit of poverty, hunger, and penance. While we should not let them go to waste, and recognize as those in the Christian East do that "Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first," also let yourself grieve for the death of innocence that the Vatican has subjected us to during this season at the most inopportune time. Feel it, be disgusted by its disgrace, and realize at this point it is almost impossible to bear this weight of sorrow under your own strength. 

It is a weight too strong for even the most stoic of men most days--but for the babe in the manger before you who will bear the weight of sin and the world on his shoulders--"he will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone" (Ps 91:12).  And remember the true nature of blessing in the Canticle of the Three Youths in the book of Daniel:

Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord;

Praise and exalt him above all forever.

Angels of the Lord, bless the Lord;

You heavens, bless the Lord;

All you waters above the heavens, bless the Lord.

All you hosts of the Lord; bless the Lord.

Sun and moon, bless the Lord;

Stars of heaven, bless the Lord.

Every shower and dew, bless the Lord;

All you winds, bless the Lord.

Fire and heat, bless the Lord;

Cold and chill, bless the Lord.

Dew and rain, bless the Lord;

Frost and cold, bless the Lord.

Ice and snow, bless the Lord;

Nights and days, bless the Lord.

Light and darkness bless the Lord;

Lightning and clouds, bless the Lord.

Let the earth bless the Lord;

Praise and exalt him above all forever.

Mountains and hills, bless the Lord

Everything growing from the earth, bless the Lord.

You springs, bless the Lord;

Seas and rivers, bless the Lord.

You dolphins and all water creatures, bless the Lord;

All you birds of the air, bless the Lord.

All you beasts, wild and tame, bless the Lord;

Praise and exalt him above all forever.

You sons of men, bless the Lord;

O Israel, bless the Lord.

Priests of the Lord, bless the Lord;

Servants of the Lord, bless the Lord.

Spirits and souls of the just, bless the Lord;

Holy men of humble heart, bless the Lord.

Ananias, Azarias, Misael, bless the Lord;

Praise and exalt him above all forever.

Let us bless the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost;

Let us praise and exalt God above all forever.

Blessed are you in the firmament of heaven;

Praiseworthy and glorious forever.