Some people bring children into the world for their own benefit, to serve their own purposes, out of selfishness... They forget children are a wonderful gift from God for which they will have to render a very special account.
In teaching Theology one constant theme that flows through every lesson, is the idea of perfection. Whether it is the universal call to holiness, in that we strive to become saints, or in moral theology, when we examine our conscience and strive to develop ourselves so that we do the good more often. It is Perfection that guides us. We see that Light of Perfection from afar and we seek to find it. St. Thomas Aquinas believed that reason would take one to the Good, that it was not opposed to knowing the Good. In a rousing speech the first few days of classes I reminded each student to seek excellence and never accept mediocrity. "It is easy to be mediocre, I told them, all you have to do is show up." That excellence must permeate every facet of their young lives, from in the classroom, to on the playing fields, to the most important of place, in their faith lives. I love God because of precisely that: He wants me to be perfect - He doesn't seek mediocrity in me. I don't want any wish-washy second rate faith, one that says just show up. I love Christ because He asks us to be perfect as His father is perfect. He has the marks in His hands and in His side to give testimony that He too strives for excellence, no matter what the price. I love God because He loves me so much that he would ask me to suffer so I could be like Him - perfect.
I haven't shared much with those of you in the world of blogging, but that is because of two things. In the beginning of August I began teaching Theology at a Catholic High School. This experience has truly been a blessing to me. I pray each day that the Holy Spirit will work through me to guide me in bringing the love of Christ to each of my 120+ students. It is challenging and time consuming (I commute about 130 miles a day), but in each day I find moments of true beauty, in the minds and hearts of the children I teach. I see God's reflection and it is stunning to me how beautiful it is. My prayer is to always be a servant, letting the message of the love of Christ be in the forefront of all I do. The second thing is that for the past several weekends I have either moving people, attending weddings, or busy with planning for my own classes which start next month. I miss sharing my daily reflections but hope to resume to more regular basis.
The son of my very good neighbors, Howard & Ginger - Anthony (also called Charlie) was married today at St. Joseph's Cathedral. We used to drive and pick up Anthony when he attended Catholic High School in Baton Rouge. He later would drive with our older daughter when she got her license. She attended St. Joseph's Academy which is located near Catholic High. Anthony was fine outstanding young man, a good student, cross country runner, and faithfully devout. We were exited when he was accepted at the United States Naval Academy. Not much longer he met his now beautiful wife Shaoli, (known as Judy). She too was also a midshipman at the Academy. The rest is history...today was a beautiful ceremony, followed by a wonderful reception at the Camelot Club (23rd floor overlooking the Mississippi River). God Bless Anthony & Judy. May He bring joy, peace, and happiness to them and may their love be fruitful.
The most glorious Mother of Christ our Savior and our God, the giver of life and immortality, she is given life by him and shares bodily incorruptibility for all eternity with him who raised her from the grave and drew her up to him in a way that only he can understand.
All that the holy fathers say refers ultimately to Scripture as a foundation, which gives us the vivid image of the great Mother of God as being closely attached to her divine Son and always sharing his lot.
It is important to remember that from the second century onwards the holy fathers have been talking of the Virgin Mary as the new Eve for the new Adam: not equal to him, of course, but closely joined with him in the battle against the enemy, which ended in the triumph over sin and death that had been promised even in Paradise. The glorious resurrection of Christ is essential to this victory and its final prize, but the blessed Virgin’s share in that fight must also have ended in the glorification of her body. For as the Apostle says: When this mortal nature has put on immortality, then the scripture will be fulfilled that says “Death is swallowed up in victory”.
So then, the great Mother of God, so mysteriously united to Jesus Christ from all eternity by the same decree of predestination, immaculately conceived, an intact virgin throughout her divine motherhood, a noble associate of our Redeemer as he defeated sin and its consequences, received, as it were, the final crowning privilege of being preserved from the corruption of the grave and, following her Son in his victory over death, was brought, body and soul, to the highest glory of heaven, to shine as Queen at the right hand of that same Son, the immortal King of Age
Excerpt from the Crossroad Initiative
There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends. John 15:13
For the Grace of Love
Edith Stein was born in Breslau on 12 October 1891, the youngest of 11, as her family were celebrating Yom Kippur, that most important Jewish festival, the Feast of Atonement. "More than anything else, this helped make the youngest child very precious to her mother." Being born on this day was like a foreshadowing to Edith, a future Carmelite nun. Before she reached her second birthday her father died suddenly, leaving Edith’s mother to raise the seven remaining children (four had died in childhood) and to manage the family business. Brought up on the Psalms and Proverbs, Stein considered her mother a living example of the strong woman of Proverbs 31, who rises early to care for her family and trade in the marketplace. By her teenage years, Stein no longer practiced her Jewish faith and considered herself an atheist, but she continued to admire her mother’s attitude of total openness toward God. Edith went on to teach philosophy for some years amid difficulties during she converted to Catholicism and received new life in Christ through baptism, and was pursued under the veil of a nun until, as an exile thrust into captivity under a nefarious regime hostile to the dignity both of men and of faith, she was killed by lethal gas at the death camp Oswiecim or Auschwitz near Cracow in Poland.
Anne Rice's recent de-conversion in an announcement that she had opted out of Christianity. I don't really know Anne Rice, nor I must confess have I ever read any of her books. Never been much of a vampire fan.
Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen. Because of it the ancients were well attested.
Since on the seventh day God was finished with the work he had been doing, he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had undertaken. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work he had done in creation." Genesis 2:2-3
Today we reminded of God's glory as we celebrate the feast of the Transfiguration. In Luke's Gospel, we find that Jesus has taken his closest disciples to go "up the mountain to pray." That is an important insight into understanding what is taking place. In prayer one prepares oneself to encounter God. We can encounter God in all things in creation, but in prayer we encounter Him on a personal level.
A Catholic, without prayer? It is the same as a soldier without arms.
"All the good works in the world are not equal to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass because they are the works of men; but the Mass is the work of God. Martyrdom is nothing in comparison for it is but the sacrifice of man to God; but the Mass is the sacrifice of God for man."
"When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified.“It is a ghost,” they said, and they cried out in fear.At once Jesus spoke to them, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”Peter said to him in reply,“Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”He said, “Come.” Matthew 14:25-28
Born in Sardinia at the beginning of the 4th Century, he was born into the rapidly changing world of the late Roman Empire. As he grew up he saw Christianity go from being an illegal religion to one tolerated, and then the official religion of the empire. He became a priest of the Church of Rome and was chosen to be the first bishop of his home town of Vercelli. He evangelized Sardinia and was the first in the West to promote the common life for clergy: he combined the observation of a monastic way of life with the distinctively clerical tasks of care for souls and celebration of the sacred liturgy. Eusebius gave his priests the common life, which would later be called canons regular and spread throughout the Church. The Emperor Constantius persecuted him for his loyalty to the Catholic faith and drove him into exile where he greatly suffered. Returning to Sardinia, he worked tirelessly against the Arians for the restoration of the Catholic faith. He died in 371.
Today's first reading for the Sunday Liturgy of the Word is from Ecclesiastes, one the great "wisdom" books of the Bible. Ecclesiastes is the name given to the book of Holy Scripture which usually follows the Proverbs; the Hebrew Qoheleth probably has the same meaning. The word preacher, however, is not meant to suggest a congregation nor a public speech, but only the solemn announcement of sublime truths.Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth,
vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!
Here is one who has labored with wisdom and knowledge and skill, and yet to another who has not labored over it, he must leave property.
This also is vanity and a great misfortune.
For what profit comes to man from all the toil and anxiety of heart with which he has labored under the sun?
All his days sorrow and grief are his occupation;
even at night his mind is not at rest.
This also is vanity.
In the frantic pace of the modern society we labor for things that are of no value, to whom it really matters. You get older and you don't have the energy or time to play with all toys you've accumulated, or perhaps your health robs you of those things too. What about those people who have had their life savings lost by unscrupulous people like Bernard Madoff who stole billions of dollars, or Enron and the Stanford Group?
Jesus the Wise Teacher warns us today " Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God.”
The saints, whose lives are the examples by which we may learn, never put much emphasis on the material stuff of this world. Once you have tasted the sweetness of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the riches of this world pale by comparison. Work for the true treasure - God's Kingdom.
I have written previously of how the modern thought has diminished God in every sense. One characteristic of God, missing from modern thought is His immutability. What does this mean? Every being, that is every thing we understand to exist, has a potentiality. It has within, the ability to change if acted on by some agent. An apple seed becomes an apple tree, an apple tree produces apples. God is pure act, He is perfect and does not posses any potentiality. YAWEH means I AM WHO AM, not I will be or I could be. The immutability of God means that He will never change, that all things dependent on Him need not fear, He is trustworthy, dependable, faithful. He is the long term investment. Everything that exists, exists in a temporal condition, except for one other thing - our souls. Our souls which are the very breath of God are eternal, made to be united with Eternity Himself. Our God is immutable, He will be there if we choose Him. He does care about each and everyone of us. Jesus said:You are not living fully when you live in the temporary, and exclude the eternal.
"Can one choose belief?"
"Yes. But it’s a particular kind of choosing. Not shutting your eyes and willing to yourself to believe what your intellect knows to be self-contradictory nonsense (that’s insane). But choosing to believe the possibility that the God who transcends (not contradicts) reason has spoken in Christ Jesus. It is, at the very least, worth checking out the possibility."
and also:
"A Christian is, in fact, free to suppose that even the oddest religion is partly right, and that there is a rather complex hierarchy of truth which can grant to other religious and philosophical traditions all sorts of real perceptions of truth (rather like the insightful Hindu tale of the blind men and the elephant). Christianity, for instance, made extensive use of Plato in trying to articulate the Faith to the Greco-Roman world, just as it honored the oracles of Judaism in making its appeal to Jews. You can see this happening already in the book of Acts. It also, of course, draws sharp distinctions between itself and other religious traditions. But the point is that the Church never has to pretend “We alone are solely right and everybody else is completely wrong.” Atheism paints itself into this corner with alarming frequency, which is why it tends to emit the constant rhetoric about how its adherents are, to use Sagan’s charming self-flattery, a “candle in the dark”. Only the One True Church of Rationalistic Science can save us all. "
Shea also compares Christianity to Islam and makes several good points. I advise you to read the post from the link above.
We must always be free to discuss why faith in Jesus Christ is a very reasonable thing to do. We must be prepared to make the case why it is a good choice to live as Christ taught us and to seek to be holy. "The Catholic Church" is, as G K Chesterton wrote: "It is the only thing that frees a man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age."
It's 1:30 in the morning. I haven't felt too great the past 4-5 days and after sleeping for a couple hours earlier yesterday afternoon, I find myself wide awake. I decided I would get up and read but first thought I should check out Stranger in Strange Land to see if there were any comments. Note to the public - bloggers love comments. Some comments can be very important like this one: 
Abide in Me and I in You.
One of the things that I think has changed in our culture among many things (most of them not for the good) is the significance of playing and imagination. It seems now that children at a very young age have tools such as toys and games that are suppose to facilitate one's imagination but in reality do the imagining for them. Another factor is that due to urbanization, crime, and two parent working families, and single parenting, children do not play outdoors. I grew up outside (my mother would have gone nuts otherwise), we played every imaginable "game" from soldiers to spacemen and anything available could be a weapon, a magic wand, or used to build a fantasy world from our imagination. I'm not saying that this does not go on today - children have imaginations, but what I am saying the structures are contrived. Books were also for me a way of "seeing" the world, and learning about different people, cultures, attitudes. The library was one of my favorite places, there just aren't many kids today who would make that claim.
My wife and I were married on April 16th, the same date 30 years prior to the incredibly horrific tragedy that occurred at Virginia Tech in 2007. Each subsequent year on our anniversary, we can't help but think about it. In addition we have also visited Blacksburg, Virginia and spent a night in that beautiful town. I came across this story on Spirit Daily and I want to share it with you. Read it for yourself.
He was known before the foundation of the world but revealed in the final time for you, who through him believe in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
O God, you are my God;
If you know me at all you will know the order of priorities in my life:
One of the most significant "light bulb" moments came when I was watching Father Robert Barron's DVD, " Untold Blessings : The Three Paths to Holiness"
The study of Sacred Scripture can illuminate your mind and instill in oneself the certainty of our faith. The Holy Spirit working within us can, with our cooperation, reveal God's workings. The Church has always been careful in cautioning the believer not to take interpretation as individual revelation. While Jesus, the Good Teacher, never wrote anything down, He once did a Bible study of sorts - you know the story, the road to Emmaus:
Act of Faith
I posted yesterday a piece called How Do You Perceive Reality? In it I mentioned that buying into the secular dogma that science and only science yields rational knowledge is dangerous and foolish because it gives us a severely limited realm of knowledge. When you remove morals and ethics (which can only truly come from God) science becomes a religion and scientists become gods. Thus we will be left with research that will have no concern with human dignity, such as embryonic stem cells, where human being are harvested and discarded, or what will be a horror show, human cloning. Left unchecked it will certainly get into human engineering, and any venture where money can be had regardless of the consequences. Science can become whatever you want it to be for the right price. It is already been politicized and it will silence anyone who will not walk lock step in agreement with those in academia & scientific research. Here's another dirty little secret that you will have to dig deep to find since its been covered up. There is widespread bad science - fraudulent, biased research, paid to get the results that those who fund it want. It is extremely easy to fake scientific research results. Once it is published and hits the main stream media, it becomes the folklore of popular psychology, and with a massive population now who garners all their information from the internet and believe as gospel, it is quite easy to manipulate the public. Bad science exists and with no ethical and moral laws or precepts to follow, will become the propaganda machine of the government who has the money to fund as much as they would like to.
Today we remember the parents of Our Blessed Virgin Mary. Most of what we know comes from apocryphal writings particularly from the Gospel of St. James. And though these apocryphal writings were not accepted in the canon as inspired writings, they nevertheless give us information along with the traditions and other documents that go a long way back in the belief that Mary's parents were Joachim (which means Yaweh prepares) and Anne. We find that devotion to St. Anne dates back to the sixth century in the Church of Constantinople and the eighth century in Rome. St. Joachim was honored very early by the Greeks, who celebrate his feast on the day following the Blessed Virgin's birthday. Here are some good sites to learn more: Catholic Encyclopedia, Catholic Culture
Richard Dawkins the darling of the neo-atheists, who wrote "The God Delusion" and described the Catholic Church as "the greatest force for evil in the world." When Dawkins was asked by Ben Stein in the movie " No Intelligence Allowed" "Who created the universe?" he immediately retorted " Why do you say who?" That question is one of the reasons why people like Dawkins cannot comprehend God. The modern philosophers of the "Enlightenment Age" recognized being as a thing. This has left us in today's world, especially the wold of academia with the same dichotomy that the ancient Greeks had regarding God - Faith is left to the realm of personal knowledge and Reason is the left to the realm of objective fact. People like Dawkins babble when it comes to things like Creation (in the movie he mutters something about" molecules that can replicate themselves" - something that he's quite not sure of) and then admits he does not know. One thing I know about science is this: science assumes the existence of the world as a brute fact, but science cannot tell us why the world exists- only through metaphysics can we begin to answer that question. In the Catholic faith from the brilliance of St. Thomas Aquinas we understand being - not as a thing - but as an act. You can tell what something is by what it does. This is far a more intelligent insight into understanding reality. In positivism (the belief that the scientific method is the only way of knowing) we have a severely limited realm of knowledge. We know that in reality, things exist that we cannot comprehend from our senses - abstract thought for instance, or how about love for example. Can you measure it? Can you weigh it? Can you test it? Do not tell me that it does not exist. People like Dawkins see the Catholic Church with a very narrow vision. Do they see the incredible amount of good done by Catholic throughout the world? Catholic charities do more to feed, clothe and shelter people in the world than any other organization. That same small perception of reality makes the Dawkins of the world blind to Jesus Christ. How do you perceive reality?
Allow me, if you will, a few words here to discuss myself and my faith. What I am about to write is not extraordinary yet perhaps it can shed some insight into why one should place Jesus Christ into the center of their being(love God with you whole heart, whole soul, whole mind and whole strength Mark 12:30). I don't want to bore you with an autobiography, but rather look at points along the road. Here is a quick background: was raised Catholic, went to Catholic schools, in early years was very fond of the Church, my faith, and the priests and nuns whose exemplary life and teaching had a profound effect on me. Fast forward - did all the things that were the discretion of youth predominately found in the culture of our times, including lapsing my faith - fast forward joined the Air Force where I met my wife, who was a good Catholic and a wonderful human being. Raising four children meant going to church on a regular basis and seeing to it that they were be catechized into the faith. Fast forward met up with a devout Christian, not a Catholic, who help rekindle my spiritual life. In the past dozen years I have been on the "fast track" of spiritual growth. God has been very good to me along the way even though I am truly not worthy of his kindness and grace. I'll fill in some of the blanks at another time but here is where I am getting at: God is good to those who are faithful to Him and live a righteous life. If you read Proverbs you will get a myriad of practical advice as to how to live and by golly its all true. Living a virtuous life, praying and developing a relationship with your Creator, seeking the graces available from the Sacraments, making Jesus a priority, sharing in relationships the love of God, and spreading the "Good News" has done nothing but bring joy into my life. I had all the material successes and all the things that are considered the "markers - milestones" for a what the secular world deems a successful life. Yet and this is reality, not some mystical experience, but practical reality: I have never known joy like I know now. If you are living a life and not experiencing joy, true joy, then you can change it. How? By connecting it to God, by co-mingling with the Divine. We were created by God, for God, so that we can be a part of God, returning to His bosom of love. Start the journey right now. God is waiting.
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As soon as you willfully allow a dialogue with temptation to begin, the soul is robbed of its peace, just as consent to impurity destroys grace.
In Maureen Conroy's Book titled: The Discerning Heart: Discovering a Personal God, she writes "Growth in relationship with God occurs through mutual self-revelation." The Greek philosophers were only half right in their quest to know truth. Know thyself is indeed an important component to the spiritual life. Modern man spends little time in that pursuit, in the quest of self-examination. The rare exception occurs when one slips off the the road of life or crashes into something. When failure, a personal disaster, accidentally or intentionally, or life threatening illness befalls a person, then they begin to ask themselves who am I. How did I get here? Our life here, our existence in truth, is relational, and it is best understood in terms of our relationship with our Creator and His relationship to us. 
Act of Faith
Christian writers and saints have viewed Mary Magdalene throughout Church history. St. Anselm says in a prayer to St. Mary Magdalene that she "came with springing tears to the spring of mercy, Christ; from him [her] burning thirst was abundantly refreshed; through him [her] sins were forgiven; by him [her] bitter sorrow was consoled." Anselm also calls her a "dear friend of God, to whom were many sins forgiven, because she loved much." Anselm highlights the connection between Mary Magdalene, present at the tomb, with the sinner who anoints Christ's feet. Likewise, St. Bonaventure wrote a homily beautifully describing the great love Mary Magdalene, the repentant sinner, had for Jesus. Another tradition holds that Mary was also the woman caught in adultery (cf. Jn. 8:2-11), but this is not as well supported in the writings of the Church Fathers. They did however present her as a model disciple and important witness to Our Risen Lord. You can find her also in the writings of Tertullian, Hippolitus, Origen, Dionysius, Ambros, Augustine and Gregory the Great, who wrote " The soul is inflamed as if it were gold, because gold loses its beauty through use but fire restores its brightness. So Mary loved, who turned a second time to the sepulcher (tomb)she had already looked into...Her search had been redoubled by the power of love."
Act of Love
