Adopt a Catholic Seminarian

Ten years ago, I would never have guessed I would be on Facebook- and not only every now and then, but daily. The internet age has provided us a way to communicate with others all over the world. When I first joined Facebook I assumed it would be a way to see family pictures of grandkids and that's about all. But I have found many fellow Catholics who share my love of our Church on that site. There are also countless pages dedicated to our faith. It was in February of this year that I saw a post from one of those pages with several comments from others. One comment caught my attention and I "liked" the comment. It was posted by a young seminarian in Uganda, and that day we became friends. We started communicating frequently and I learned a lot within a few weeks. Uganda is an extremely poor country where the average income is a dollar a day. Very few families have electricity or plumbing in their homes. The country is mostly Catholic, and families raise their children in the faith starting at a very young age. Many vocations to the priesthood are the result of frequent, usually daily, family mass attendance. However, seminary education is about 10 years of formation. It is not free, although very reasonable in cost compared to America. Families struggle to assist their sons, and some cannot pay. My new friend had been in seminary for several years and "cost sharing" had more than doubled recently. It was doubtful his family would be able to pay the higher cost. I decided to become his sponsor/benefactor. Since that time, I have gotten to know my young friend very well. We have used Skype several times and I was able to see him, other seminarians and the seminary where he studies. I have seen his family and talked to them. I have learned some of his language called Luo- just a few phrases but enough that his mother (who speaks no English) could understand me. I am so happy to assist him to reach the priesthood! He will be a fine priest in a few years. I hope to travel to Uganda for his ordination. I knew there were many more seminarians needing assistance, so I decided to start a page on Facebook called "Adopt a Catholic Seminarian." I posted pictures and a short description of others needing help. I currently have 7 young men listed, and 3 have received offers of partial assistance. There will be more listed as I know of them. The page just serves as a way to introduce the young men to those who may be able to assist. I suggest getting to know each other first. The cost sharing amount is $250 per semester which averages less than $50 a month. A sponsor can pay all or part of that- any help is greatly appreciated! Any funds are sent directly to the seminarian or to the rector at his seminary. Do you wonder what you can do to promote the Catholic faith? This is one way to do just that, and it is very rewarding. Please send a message to the "Adopt a Catholic Seminarian" page and I am glad to answer any questions. https://www.facebook.com/AdoptACatholicSeminarian

Setting Priorities

I don't have a huge amount of friends of Facebook- less than 300- but it occurred to me that many of my posts may irritate some people. I can imagine some of the thoughts- "is that all she ever posts about?"- "another post about religion"- "she has a holier-than-thou attitude." I admit, most of my posts focus on one thing. But we all post about what is important to us, and a relationship with God is at the top of my list. I do not claim to have the life of a saint! Far from it! But every day I cannot help but focus on that truth. It just is part of me, and comes to my mind constantly. It hasn't always been that way- something changed in me about 10 years ago. Before then, my life didn't include God much. I didn't particularly care about going to weekly mass. Outside of mass I never gave a thought to God. He was there, but in the background. I figured I could put Him off and concentrate on the "important" things. So what is important? Our family, friends, homes, jobs, health, wealth? Yes, to a degree! But our priorities need to look beyond and see the ONLY thing that truly matters! I recently saw a post about Joel Osteen, a wealthy television evangelist who preaches that God wants us to be wealthy. That may be true, but He expects us to use that wealth in ways other than buying multiple homes, private jets, and living like a king. If you are blessed with excess money, share it with those in need. If you don't have a lot of excess money, share as much as you can. I certainly am not rich, but I can look around and see excess in my life. What do I really need in this life? I need a relationship with the God who created me, because in the end, as Mother Teresa once said, it isn't about you and them, it's about you and God. Yes, I am Catholic and firmly believe in our faith. I depend on the sacramental gifts received there, especially the Eucharist. I wish all protestants knew of the joy and strength it provides! If you cannot accept those beliefs and choose to ignore the greatest gift given to us, so be it. I am quite well aware that there are many with a true love of the Lord in other denominations. But all need to have a relationship with God! Get out of the rut that keeps you from knowing Him. Everything you have is a temporary gift which will not last. Our lives are so short and can end at any time. I may have 30 years left, and I may have 30 days. God, help me to see past the clutter I have piled around myself, which blocks my view of You!

How much do we give to God? Something to think about

THE EXAMPLE SET US BY THE HOLY FATHERS CONSIDER the lively examples set us by the saints, who possessed the light of true perfection and religion, and you will see how little, how nearly nothing, we do. What, alas, is our life, compared with theirs? The saints and friends of Christ served the Lord in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, in work and fatigue, in vigils and fasts, in prayers and holy meditations, in persecutions and many afflictions. How many and severe were the trials they suffered -- the Apostles, martyrs, confessors, virgins, and all the rest who willed to follow in the footsteps of Christ! They hated their lives on earth that they might have life in eternity. How strict and detached were the lives the holy hermits led in the desert! What long and grave temptations they suffered! How often were they beset by the enemy! What frequent and ardent prayers they offered to God! What rigorous fasts they observed! How great their zeal and their love for spiritual perfection! How brave the fight they waged to master their evil habits! What pure and straightforward purpose they showed toward God! By day they labored and by night they spent themselves in long prayers. Even at work they did not cease from mental prayer. They used all their time profitably; every hour seemed too short for serving God, and in the great sweetness of contemplation, they forgot even their bodily needs. They renounced all riches, dignities, honors, friends, and associates. They desired nothing of the world. They scarcely allowed themselves the necessities of life, and the service of the body, even when necessary, was irksome to them. They were poor in earthly things but rich in grace and virtue. Outwardly destitute, inwardly they were full of grace and divine consolation. Strangers to the world, they were close and intimate friends of God. To themselves they seemed as nothing, and they were despised by the world, but in the eyes of God they were precious and beloved. They lived in true humility and simple obedience; they walked in charity and patience, making progress daily on the pathway of spiritual life and obtaining great favor with God. They were given as an example for all religious, and their power to stimulate us to perfection ought to be greater than that of the lukewarm to tempt us to laxity. How great was the fervor of all religious in the beginning of their holy institution! How great their devotion in prayer and their rivalry for virtue! What splendid discipline flourished among them! What great reverence and obedience in all things under the rule of a superior! The footsteps they left behind still bear witness that they indeed were holy and perfect men who fought bravely and conquered the world. Today, he who is not a transgressor and who can bear patiently the duties which he has taken upon himself is considered great. How lukewarm and negligent we are! We lose our original fervor very quickly and we even become weary of life from laziness! Do not you, who have seen so many examples of the devout, fall asleep in the pursuit of virtue! The Imitation of Christ Thomas à Kempis The Eighteenth Chapter

The Divinity of Christ

The doctrine of Christ's divinity is the central Christian doctrine, for it is like a skeleton key that opens all the others. Christians have not independently reasoned out and tested each of the teachings of Christ received via Bible and Church, but believe them all on his authority. For if Christ is divine, He can be trusted to be infallible in everything He said, even hard things like exalting suffering and poverty, forbidding divorce, giving his Church the authority to teach and forgive sins in his name, warning about hell (very often and very seriously), instituting the scandalous sacrament of eating his flesh—we often forget how many "hard sayings" he taught! When the first Christian apologists began to give a reason for the faith that was in them to unbelievers, this doctrine of Christ's divinity naturally came under attack, for it was almost as incredible to Gentiles as it was scandalous to Jews. That a man who was born out of a woman's womb and died on a cross, a man who got tired and hungry and angry and agitated and wept at his friend's tomb, that this man who got dirt under his fingernails should be God was, quite simply, the most astonishing, incredible, crazy-sounding idea that had ever entered the mind of man in all human history. Christ was either God or a bad man. The argument the early apologists used to defend this apparently indefensible doctrine has become a classic one. C.S. Lewis used it often, e.g. in Mere Christianity, the book that convinced Chuck Colson (and thousands of others). I once spent half a book (Between Heaven and Hell) on this one argument alone. It is the most important argument in Christian apologetics, for once an unbeliever accepts the conclusion of this argument (that Christ is divine), everything else in the Faith follows, not only intellectually (Christ's teachings must all then be true) but also personally (if Christ is God, He is also your total Lord and Savior). The argument, like all effective arguments, is extremely simple: Christ was either God or a bad man. Unbelievers almost always say he was a good man, not a bad man; that he was a great moral teacher, a sage, a philosopher, a moralist, and a prophet, not a criminal, not a man who deserved to be crucified. But a good man is the one thing he could not possibly have been according to simple common sense and logic. For he claimed to be God. He said, "Before Abraham was, I Am", thus speaking the word no Jew dares to speak because it is God's own private name, spoken by God himself to Moses at the burning bush. Jesus wanted everyone to believe that he was God. He wanted people to worship him. He claimed to forgive everyone's sins against everyone. (Who can do that but God, the One offended in every sin?) Now what would we think of a person who went around making these claims today? Certainly not that he was a good man or a sage. There are only two possibilities: he either speaks the truth or not. If he speaks the truth, he is God and the case is closed. We must believe him and worship him. If he does not speak the truth, then he is not God but a mere man. But a mere man who wants you to worship him as God is not a good man. He is a very bad man indeed, either morally or intellectually. If he knows that he is not God, then he is morally bad, a liar trying deliberately to deceive you into blasphemy. If he does not know that he is not God, if he sincerely thinks he is God, then he is intellectually bad—in fact, insane. The strength of this argument is that it is not merely a logical argument about concepts; it is about Jesus. It invites people to read the Gospels and get to know this man. A measure of your insanity is the size of the gap between what you think you are and what you really are. If I think I am the greatest philosopher in America, I am only an arrogant fool; if I think I am Napoleon, I am probably over the edge; if I think I am a butterfly, I am fully embarked from the sunny shores of sanity. But if I think I am God, I am even more insane because the gap between anything finite and the infinite God is even greater than the gap between any two finite things, even a man and a butterfly. Josh McDowell summarized the argument simply and memorably in the trilemma "Lord, liar, or lunatic?" Those are the only options. Well, then, why not liar or lunatic? But almost no one who has read the Gospels can honestly and seriously consider that option. The savviness, the canniness, the human wisdom, the attractiveness of Jesus emerge from the Gospels with unavoidable force to any but the most hardened and prejudiced reader. Compare Jesus with liars like the Reverend Sun Myung Moon or lunatics like the dying Nietzsche. Jesus has in abundance precisely those three qualities that liars and lunatics most conspicuously lack: His practical wisdom, his ability to read human hearts, to understand people and the real, unspoken question behind their words, his ability to heal people's spirits as well as their bodies; His deep and winning love, his passionate compassion, his ability to attract people and make them feel at home and forgiven, his authority, "not as the scribes"; and above all His ability to astonish, his unpredictability, his creativity. Liars and lunatics are all so dull and predictable! No one who knows both the Gospels and human beings can seriously entertain the possibility that Jesus was a liar or a lunatic, a bad man. No, the unbeliever almost always believes that Jesus was a good man, a prophet, a sage. Well then, if he was a sage, you can trust him and believe the essential things he says. And the essential thing he says is that he is the divine Savior of the world and that you must come to him for salvation. If he is a sage, you must accept his essential teaching as true. If his teaching is false, then he is not a sage. The strength of this argument is that it is not merely a logical argument about concepts; it is about Jesus. It invites people to read the Gospels and get to know this man. The premise of the argument is the character of Jesus, the human nature of Jesus. The argument has its feet on the earth. But it takes you to heaven, like Jacob's ladder (which Jesus said meant him: Gen 28:12; Jn 1:51). Each rung follows and holds together. The argument is logically airtight; there is simply no way out. What, then, do people say when confronted with this argument? Often, they simply confess their prejudices: "Oh, I just can't believe that!" (But if it has been proved to be true, you must believe it if you really seek the truth!) Sometimes, they go away, like many of Jesus' contemporaries, wondering and shaking their heads and thinking. That is perhaps the very best result you can hope for. The ground has been softened up and plowed. The seed has been sown. God will give the increase. But if they know some modern theology, they have one of two escapes. Theology has an escape; common sense does not. Common sense is easily convertible. It is the theologians, now as then, who are the hardest to convert. The first escape is the attack of the Scripture "scholars" on the historical reliability of the Gospels. Perhaps Jesus never claimed to be divine. Perhaps all the embarrassing passages were inventions of the early Church (say "Christian community"—it sounds nicer). In that case, who invented traditional Christianity if not Christ? A lie, like a truth, must originate somewhere. Peter? The twelve? The next generation? What was the motive of whoever first invented the myth (euphemism for lie)? What did they get out of this elaborate, blasphemous hoax? For it must have been a deliberate lie, not a sincere confusion. No Jew confuses Creator with creature, God with man. And no man confuses a dead body with a resurrected, living one. Here is what they got out of their hoax. Their friends and families scorned them. Their social standing, possessions, and political privileges were stolen from them by both Jews and Romans. They were persecuted, imprisoned, whipped, tortured, exiled, crucified, eaten by lions, and cut to pieces by gladiators. So some silly Jews invented the whole elaborate, incredible lie of Christianity for absolutely no reason, and millions of Gentiles believed it, devoted their lives to it, and died for it—for no reason. It was only a fantastic practical joke, a hoax. Yes, there is a hoax indeed, but the perpetrators of it are the twentieth-century theologians, not the Gospel writers. The second escape (notice how eager we are to squirm out of the arms of God like a greased pig) is to Orientalize Jesus, to interpret him not as the unique God-man but as one of many mystics or "adepts" who realized his own inner divinity just as a typical Hindu mystic does. This theory takes the teeth out of his claim to divinity, for he only realized that everyone is divine. The problem with that theory is simply that Jesus was not a Hindu but a Jew! When he said "God", neither he nor his hearers meant Brahman, the impersonal, pantheistic, immanent all; he meant Yahweh, the personal, theistic, transcendent Creator. It is utterly unhistorical to see Jesus as a mystic, a Jewish guru. He taught prayer, not meditation. His God is a person, not a pudding. He said he was God but not that everyone was. He taught sin and forgiveness, as no guru does. He said nothing about the "illusion" of individuality, as the mystics do. Attack each of these evasions—Jesus as the good man. Jesus as the lunatic, Jesus as the liar, Jesus as the man who never claimed divinity, Jesus as the mystic—take away these flight squares, and there is only one square left for the unbeliever's king to move to. And on that square waits checkmate. And a joyous mating it is. The whole argument is really a wedding invitation. ~Peter Kreeft

And then there was one

At mass last week, during the homily our priest talked about life as a journey. We have many people that are with us during the journey- friends and relatives, spouse, children- as well as countless people we will encounter but never know their name. We get very used to our lives being filled with other people. Most of us don't want to be alone. We like noise- TV, radio, crowded restaurants, movie theaters- it makes us feel somehow alive and connected to life. If we don't have plans to go somewhere on the weekend, we complain that we're bored. It is hard for us to deal with time alone, and we feel lonely and left out when not surrounded by people. It occurred to me that no matter how much noise or how many people we surround ourselves with, at some point we WILL be alone. Totally, achingly alone. It won't matter how important we have been, how much money we make, or how many friends we have. We all will experience dying alone, by ourselves. Sure, there may be others around us at that time. But the instant we take our last breath, we are on our own to face our creator. There will be no supportive friends or relatives- just us alone, face to face with God. What an odd concept for such a noisy, busy world! It's coming to us all, at an unknown time. Just you and me, God. What will I say to you? What will you say to me?