A Confession

I have a confession. I got a Google Android phone and I'm addicted to it. I can do the Liturgy of the Hours on it, read daily prayers, about the Saint of the Day...and it's caused me to neglect blogging. I have so much to blog, and I plan to get back into it later, but I'm still around!

Man who murders Nun confesses and converts to Chrisitanity

I ran across this story and couldn't stop from posting it. A man in India murdered a nun about 15 years ago and upon being visited by her biological sister (who is also a nun), he asked for forgiveness and began his conversion to Christianity. Remember to pray for all those in India, that the religious violence will stop.

In other news, I'm about to board a plane to Chicago and hope to be visiting that Cathedral in a couple hours.

My Statue of St. Joseph

I've blogged before about sacramentals, the Communion of Saints, and how I feel about them as a Catholic. I was just standing in my bedroom and looking at my statue of St. Joseph. He, being my patron saint, raises my mind up to Heaven. When I see the statue standing there, sometimes I fondly refer to it as Joseph, such as when I shut my drawers and he starts to wobble on the dresser. I say "Joseph, you stay up there!". Now, of course, I know that little statue isn't St. Joseph, but it raises my mind up to Heaven, to God, and all the Saints surrounding his throne. I see it in the mornings and I remember to pray the prayer I always say to my patron saint (that I made up):

"St. Joseph, I chose you as my patron saint. Please pray for me to live up to your example of a husband and a father."

As a matter of fact, I've been praying that since before I even had a son! Then, I walk into my dining room, and I see the icon of Christ the Teacher and I pray, "Lord, please teach me to lead my life in a way pleasing to you." Again, Christ isn't the icon, but it lifts my mind up to him. I know that all seems strange to many outside of Catholic/Orthodox Faith, but that's just the way it is, and I'm always glad to be walking around my house, seeing the icons and statues, and remember that I am not alone. I am surrounded by a glorious throng of Saints from all the ages.

Jesus, I trust in you!

Our Bishop Makes a Great Move

I saw over on A Catholic View that our Bishop, Bishop Brandt of the Diocese of Greensburg has made a great move. He denied an order of religious sisters access to recruit through diocesan support and publications because of their blatant denial of Church teaching, specifically about abortion. He's been a great Bishop during the times I have personally met him, and seems to be doing a great job shepherding the flock. Say a little prayer for him, all Bishops, priests, and religious if you have a second.

Praying the Hours among Religions

Recently I was in a discussion about how many religions pray at certain hours, similar to the way Catholics structure the Liturgy of the Hours (breviary, Divine Office, etc.) to pray at Morning, Mid Morning, Midday, Mid Afternoon, Evening, and Night prayer, not to mention the Office of Readings. Of course, those prayers are based around praying the Psalms, so that every 4 weeks we have basically prayed the entire book of Psalms. I had a Muslim, a Jew, and an Orthodox Christian tell me a little about their liturgical prayers based on the time of day, and I wanted to share them. It's something that I feel a lot (but not all, including some Lutherans and Anglicans I know) of Protestants really miss out on, and a major part of the majority of the world's religious practices.

Jewish: I found a lot of similarities with what she told me about Jewish prayer and how the Catholics practice (after all, ours developed in the first century from theirs, that is why we see Peter going up on the rooftop in Acts to pray at a given hour). Her mention of the blessings and prayers for daily life are reminiscent of Catholicism too, including our Book of Blessings that covers almost everything I can think of in life. Here is also a non-exhaustive list of a lot of Catholic blessings.

Anyway, let's here is what she had to tell me:

Yeah, Jews still pray at 'set times' - not exactly SET by the clock, but by the general time of day - evening, morning, and early afternoon. Alone or with a group - there are some prayers only for reciting with a group, otherwise they are skipped.

There are also prayers/blessings recited upon waking up, before and after eating, and before bed - and other occasions - but you are talking about the regular 'daily' prayers I think.

BTW, we have a prayer/blessing for going to the bathroom. It's longish, but boils down to 'thank God, everything is working!'

our set/liturgical prayers are three times daily: after sundown but before midnight (ma'ariv), from dawn to midmorning (shacharit), and after noon but before sundown (mincha). There is a 'set liturgy' for each of those (although personal prayers can be added). These prayers are typically recited/davened while standing and facing Jerusalem.

Typically, a person will say 'it is time to daven mincha' for instance. 'Daven' is an odd word, and not really translatable - it isn't 'recite' or 'pray' but means something like both, plus something like 'concentrate'. Usually a dictionary just says 'to recite Jewish prayers', though.

Occasions for reciting blessings are - myriad. There's a blessing for waking up. A blessing for successfully going to the bathroom. A blessing for new clothes. A blessing for food. A blessing for wine. A blessing for seeing a beautiful view. A blessing for hearing of someone's death.

And of course, one can pray - address God personally - at any time for any reason.

A sage once said: our lives are our prayer. If you are living your life the way you 'should', then you are 'praying' - all the time.

Next, the Muslim answer, in her's, we again we see a lot of similarities (I couldn't help but thinking when reading about both of these about how the English word "Easter" which as far as I know only English speaking countries used, came from a word meaning "from the East" referencing Christ's resurrection and the direction of Jerusalem, and that most of our Churches have altars that face East.):

Salah is the five daily prayers, which are required. When you see Muslims praying -- standing, bowing, prostrating in rows -- that's salah. Salah is liturgical -- there are set words, set movements, conditions which must be met, and set times. The times are determined by the position of the sun -- so depending on where you live and the time of year, the times for the five prayers change. The times are generally: sunrise, midday, afternoon, sunset, and night. Many Muslims still just look at the sun to determine when it's prayer time, but many use perpetual prayer calendars that show the exact times the prayers begin each day. There are websites where you can enter your zip code and it will give you the precise times. You're supposed to pray as close to the times as you can, but never before. So today, in my area, the prayer times are:

5:42am
1:35pm
5:21pm
8:07pm
9:28pm

Du'a are just personal communications with God, said at any time, under any conditions. We have tons of examples of du'a that the prophet said -- you can say those, or your own words, or a combination. We have du'a for nearly every thing you might do, such as waking up, getting dressed, eating, before salah, after salah, meeting people, leaving people, traveling, feeling scared or sick or angry, etc etc. The prophet's du'a show that he was in an almost constant stream of communication with his Creator.

Finally, the Eastern Orthodox individual weighed in, here is what he had to say (obviously we have the most in common with their prayer.):

Yes, Orthodox Christians--especially those in monasteries--pray the hours. Pious Orthodox Christians probably pray at least twice a day---upon rising and retiring. Further, many wear prayer ropes around their wrists, which contain a certain number of knots which are used to pray the Jesus Prayer in repetition. ("Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.") Hence, the focus is on prayer without ceasing.

Anyway, it's very interesting and I wanted to share. Keep praying for me to keep up with my prayers, haha!

Thanksgiving

You might note that recently my blog posts have been more conversational and less informational. I think that's because I am trying to go through a stage of spiritual growth, and I need input and thoughts about how to better grow as a faithful Catholic Christian. It also allows me to blog when I might otherwise pass on blogging for the day, and I believe this blog benefits me immensely and hopefully others. Anyhow, here are some of my daily thoughts:

One thing I have never been very good at is giving thanks at the right time. I always try to give God thanksgiving at the appropriate times, and of course by making the sign of the cross and asking for God's blessing at meal times. However, I've noticed that sometimes when things go really well for me, it takes me an hour or two to let it sink it before I say a prayer of thanksgiving. I'm on top of asking for help, guidance, etc. But the thanksgiving part is always delayed. We all need to remember that all good things come from God the Father through Christ and the Holy Spirit. Giving thanks for these things is important, and I'd love if anyone has anything to share about how they remind themselves to constantly give thanks for everything. At the very least, we should always remember to say a quick Act of Thanksgiving after mass for His Body and Blood.

From the depths of my heart
I thank You, Dear Lord,
For Your infinite kindness in coming to me.
How good You are to me!
With Your most holy Mother and all the angels,
I praise Your mercy and generosity toward me,
A poor sinner.
I thank You for noourishing my soul
With Your Sacred Body and Precious Blood.
I will try to show my gratitude to You
In the Sacrament of Your love,
By obedience to Your holy commandemnts,
By fidelity to my duties,
By kindness to my neighbour
And by an earnest endeavour
To become more like You in my daily conduct.

Access to the Blessed Sacrament

One thing that bothers me recently is that I have noticed many churches locking their doors during non-mass hours (even the Cathedral in the diocese we live in, but not the diocese we worship in, only unlocks the doors during mass times). That bothers me because people don't have access to the Blessed Sacrament - to be able to sit and pray in the Church. Why they do this, I am not sure. Perhaps they think people are going to steal things or it isn't safe if they can't lock it up. Whatever it is, I would really like parishes to find ways to leave things open for prayer more often. Luckily, one parish in the city we live in right next to my work allows constant access to the Church for private devotion and prayer. I wonder if anyone else has thoughts or experiences with this, or could explain the issue to me a little more?

Prayer Answered

For the last several years, I have been praying for an individual who I love with my whole heart. Every mass, Eucharistic adoration, and many of my personal prayers and liturgy of the hours have been dedicated to them. Because I knew of their love for God, I wanted nothing more than for them to embrace the Catholic Church. I lost touch with this individual several months ago (perhaps even a year ago by now). Just yesterday I found out that last week they were confirmed into the Church after attending a year of RCIA. That might be what I have prayed for more than anything else since I have been Catholic. The only summary I can think of is:

Give thanks to the Lord. For His Mercy Endures Forever.

Drowning in Devotions

One of the great things about being Catholic is all the devotions that we have. We have the rosary, chaplet of Divine Mercy, devotion to saints, novenas, devotion to the Blessed Mother, etc. etc. etc. We have so many prayers and opportunities, not to mention daily mass, holy days of obligation, confession, penance services, Bible studies, faith formation classes, hundreds of thousands of books by Catholic authors, etc. etc. etc.

Thinking about this, I think I sometimes overwhelm myself. There have been very spiritually high times in my life where I have been able to do the Liturgy of the Hours, the Rosary, and the Chaplet of Divine Mercy each and every day. Unfortunately, many times when I forget to do one, I wouldn't do any of them for a certain day, or when you start to let things go like that you can even get off schedule and fall into spiritual lethargy.

During this lent (By the way, how are your Lenten resolutions going?), I have made it a point to say the Morning and Evening prayers (and many times Night prayer) from the Liturgy of the Hours/Divine Office/Breviary. It's been wonderful. I've decided that instead of trying to tackle too much or get myself quickly into a commitment I can't keep, that I am going to commit myself even after Lent to continue praying these main offices DAILY. That will be my devotion - devotion to the prayer of the Church Universal and praying the Psalms daily. That isn't to say that I am never going to pray the rosary (we actually do that every day after daily mass when I am able to attend) or the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, or prayers to my patron saints, or novenas, or anything else. Just that I am going to focus and work hard on this devotion, and maybe add more after I have mastered the ability to pray all 7 offices each day.

As I am discerning a possible future calling to the Diaconate, I really need to get used to the potential future obligation to pray them anyway.

Hope your lent is going well. My wife and I are headed to Hawaii for a work trip for me and a vacation for her soon. Maybe I'll have some time to blog there.

Update on Mass. Senate Race

Well, as most of you know by now, Brown won! Let's pray for him that he make wise decisions when in office, especially regarding the most innocent of human beings, the unborn. Let's also pray that we get real health care reform that helps the most defenseless people (the unborn, children, the elderly and the poor) and doesn't tear down life.

Finally, pray for him on issues where he might not agree with the Church, whatever those might be.

A Victory for Catholics!

Well, I don't want to exaggerate the extent of how we were involved, but all three major TV news sources (CNN, FOX, and MSNBC) reported that the Catholic Church was a heavy hand in negotiating with the House of Representatives including speaker Nancy Pelosi on the Health Care bill. It ended up that thanks to their efforts (again according to the news, we had a major impact) and to Democrats who were moral enough to stand up against abortion funding in the health care bill, we passed an amendment to limit funding to very specific cases (rape, incest, life of mother). Although I still can't support a bill that allows any abortions at all, at least the Church was active enough to bring this issue to the forefront and win a minor victory. Continue to pray for a total end to abortion and give thanks to the Lord for his mercy endures forever.

Hebrews Chapter 2

Continuing my thoughts on the Book of Hebrews from a Catholic perspective:

Chapter 2:

vs 1-4: Here we see a lot of focus on "what we have heard" - the oral tradition of the Early Church. Note the progression, Christ taught the Apostles (those who witnessed him) and they founded the "Apostolic Tradition", the oral tradition that by the time Hebrews is written the entire Church understands as the teaching of God.

vs 8: I can't help but notice this verse in light of the coming "Solemnity of Christ the King" towards the end of November, the last Sunday of Ordinary time. At the end of the Church calendar, we have celebrated the entire spiritual history of God's people, and how could we end in a more fitting manner than recognizing Christ as King, he whom the Father has "subjected all things and put them under his feet". This is especially important as we recognize Advent season coming up where we look not only for the coming of Christ's birth in the Church calendar, but also of his real second coming at the end of time.

vs 10,18: These two verses are some of those in the New Testament that reveal the Catholic idea of suffering and how we are perfected through that suffering. Not just Christ suffers for us, but as we suffer (except of course in punishment for wrongdoing), we share in the suffering of Christ in some deep and mysterious way.

vs. 14-15: I like to use these verses to reflect on the "mystery of faith" that we proclaim as a parish during each mass. Specifically, one of these four responses is "Dying you destroyed our death, rising you restored our life, Lord Jesus come in Glory". Very similar to the message in the latter part of vs. 14 and vs 15

vs 17: Christ is "Our High Priest". This makes me think quite a bit about our priesthood as individuals, but also those called to separate themselves from the world and become our pastors, bishops, and other clergy. Thinking about how we all serve and offer sacrifice in some way as priests (again with that distinction between what clergy do and what the laity do, but remembering that we are all priests and that is because we all offer sacrifice at mass of the Body and Blood of Christ to God the Father) but that Christ is our High Priest, at our head and obviously strongly involved in offering his own body and blood to the Father.

Wow!

I've been extremely busy lately. Let's see - work has taken me out of town for 3 of the last 4 weekends, the baby is growing at a tremendous rate, we just celebrated the 100th anniversary of our parish with the Bishop presiding over the mass! Shew....I need to get back on track in studying the book of Hebrews here. I really didn't forget about it.

Hebrews Chapter 1

Hebrews Chapter 1 seems to be a great defense of the deity of Christ. Obviously, the writer here contrasts Christ with the Angles and shows his superiority over them. - Vs 13 "But to what angel has he ever said, Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies a stool for your feet". The writer also defends Christ's position as God by talking about how Christ was around since the beginning and through whom all things are created (vs. 2) and that he will be there till the end of time reigning in power with God the Father. And, finally, the writer acknowledges Christ as the Word of God (vs 1).

This is a great Chapter to show people who say "Christ is never called God in the Bible" - although you might want to start with his own statements where he calls himself God. They are usually the agnostic crowd who want to make the "Jesus was a good man" argument.

This reminds me of a few Catholic practices and prayers that I want to share with you, because I believe they fit so well with the theme of Hebrews 1:

1) The Glory Be - one of the most common prayers we as Catholics say, during the Liturgy of the Hours and the Rosary as well as in our day to day life. Glory Be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as it was in the Beginning, Is Now, and will be forever, Amen. This prayer also reflects the eternal nature of God - and the Trinity of which Christ is a part, making him true God.

2) Words from the Creed -

"through him all things were made"

"eternally begotten of the Father"

"the only Son of God"

"God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God"

"He is seated at the right hand of the Fahter"

3) Our reverance for the Gospel. Anyone who is not Catholic ever notice that we process the book of the Gospels in with the Priest? We do that out of reverance for Christ being the Word of God, especially through the Gospels. We also many times use incense around the Gospel book, bow to it before it is read, the Priest will kiss it after proclaiming the Gospel, and kiss the spot the Gospel book will sit before it is sat on the altar. All these are loving signs of our respect for Christ as the Word of God.

So that chapter was pretty brief, but it did point to a lot of Catholic practices I wanted to mention. I hope to keep going strong on this.

Inspired

I've been inspired to re-read the Book of Hebrews and blog some about my thoughts on it within the framework of the Church's teaching. I plan to begin reading tonight, but I'm not sure if I am going to do section by section, chapter by chapter, or just a single post on the entire book. We'll see, but I am looking forward to hearing some comments.

Pray for me

Say a little prayer for me. Nothing major going on, but I do need to refocus on some spiritual things after last week - which was one of the most spiritual of my life leading into last weekend. Pray that I can retain that focus. Also, I'm almost finished with a book called "Maria of Guadalupe" which I hope to share a review of soon.

St. Cecilia

Lately I have been talking about relics and the incorruptables quite a bit. The other day I was listening to the SaintCast which had a great treatment of the incorruptables. He mentioned a book called "The Incorruptables" (is there an echo in here?) by Joan Carroll Cruz. I remembered that at the local used bookstore that I had seen that book and rushed up there to buy it! On a side note, I think I keep their religion section profitable.

I wanted to share a bit about St. Cecilia (a beautiful name that we might name a daughter some day), who was the first incorruptable, and I am borrowing heavily and citing her book.

St. Cecilia was one of the early martyrs of the Church. She died in 177 A.D (maybe even early enough to get in Foxe's Book of Martyr's - before the "evil Roman Catholic Church" took over and there were no saints until 1500 A.D.) Anyhow, she was a wealthy Roman who converted to Christianity. The emperor ordered her death because she would not sacrifice to the Roman Gods and they had to do it in private since a public death of a noble person would cause quite a stir. So, they sealed her up in her sauna room in her house and tried to gas her to death in a way. This didn't work, and she lived through it, so they sent in an Axe-man to chop off her head. He saw how beautiful and young she was and lost his gusto, so he tried to chop three times, and ended up not killing her...she slowly bled to death over the next few days in prayer and he ran as quickly as possible out of the house.

Of course, all this seems like such a legendary story, one that many would say was rediculous. Then, about 822 A.D., Pope Pascal I had a vision where the saint led him to her body. He moved it and had it placed in a Church. In 1599, her coffin was discovered during the remodeling of the Church. They opened it up, and there was St. Cecilia, preserved without any evidence of decomposition and EXACTLY how this 'legend' describes her death - with the axe marks and all. It was VERY heavily documented and several medical experts examined the body and wrote about it. You can read all about it in the book. So, (and despite the fact that many relics were taken of her blood soaked clothe and fragments of bone that were shattered onto her clothing by the axeman), they put her back in the tomb where it still is today, but beforehand they got a famous sculptor Stfano Maderno to come and sculpt her body. How beautiful she was!

The most amazing thing: St. Cecilia died in a position with one finger outstretched on her left hand and three on the right hand. Any clue? She was praying about the unity of God in the Trinity! (click on the picture for the full view)

Protestant Misunderstanding

As usual, someone (Internet Monk - whose name I find a little odd considering his sola scriptura leanings) with absolutely no clue about why Catholics or Orthodox have a communion of Saints (and obviously no real desire to find out as he would rather bash them with his own misconceptions and misunderstanding of the role of Sacred Scripture) writes a blog article about why we shouldn't pray to Mary and belittling a little girl (or at least the theology she comes from) for not having a complete understanding of her religion. His answer, that praying to Mary wasn't in scripture, which was pretty awful, considering that Orthodox do not believe in "Sola Scriptura" for good reason and that Mary was alive during the writing of almost the entire New Testament with perhaps a couple exceptions, shouldn't be so surprising to him that it didn't work. I also guess he's never read Revelation how the saints bring the prayers up to God...but what can you do? At the very least you would think he might know why we have all the books of the Bible rather than leaving out the ones Luther cut from the Bible....

Sigh...

Review: Divine Office for Dodos

So, I don't feel like too much of a Dodo, per se, but I did feel that although I am now very comfortable with the Liturgy of the Hours (Divine Office) that there were a few rough edges that I needed to iron out. This book is absolutely fantastic! The author does a wonderful job of explaining exactly how the office is prayed and irons out even the most minute of the confusing details. If you pray the office or are thinking about it, pick up her book and give it a read. It is almost like an easy to read instruction manual for the Liturgy of the Hours.

Two Thoughts

First, the Lutheran (Evangelical) Church has decided to follow in the footsteps of the Anglican mother Church in allowing openly gay priests within their midsts (although I'm not even sure if the Anglican's have ever definitively allowed that or not). I'm praying for the more "orthodox" Lutherans (oxymoron?) that they might think about coming home to Rome. The Catholic Church is once again looking more and more like one of the only people holding out in a new cultural war (see birth control).

Secondly, in today's gospel, we see those following Christ reject him because they could not understand his teaching on the Eucharist (John 6). They reject him and leave because these teachings are hard. I was thinking about this in terms of Protestants who can't accept that they must eat of his body and blood.....Father Andrew as usual stole thoughts out of my mind for his homily. Remember Peter's great words:

6:68

Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life;

6:69

and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God."