“Aragorn: Hold your ground, hold your ground. Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers. I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day. This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!”
I just realized that since I came into the Church on the Easter Vigil in 1999 that today actually marks my tenth year anniversary as a Catholic. The anniversary date I had on my sidebar was for the date of Easter that year. So at the age of 50 I have now spent 1/5th of my life as a Catholic and the Church has survived even my entrance into it. It is hard to imagine for me that it has actually been ten years since it hardly seems that long ago since I came into the Church and was confirmed and received the Eucharist for the first time licitly.
It is an interesting point of time to reflect on my time as a Catholic as compared to most of my life spent as an atheist. It is quite a contrast to go from a total denial of God and feeling of superiority over religious believers to faith and love of God and gratitude for my Catholic faith.
One thing I have reflected on is progress in the spiritual life. I guess by now I had hoped I would be levitating and receiving locutions, though seriously I am not exactlly a prayer warrior – more like a prayer cub scout. During my initial conversion God really did wonders in my life in helping me to turn away from sins and patterns of behavior that I pretty much had given up on ever overcoming in my wannabe Spock/stoic days. God has continuously taught me that I can do nothing without him, and unfortunately this is a lesson that I am constantly in need of relearning. For me it was miraculous that some sins were totally taken from me and that I have not been tempted to fall back into them. This was quite a mercy God gave me since I am so weak and I know that this was none of my doing. Just because I got rid of some sins though it certainly did not mean that I am then ready to be declared a saint. Sometimes when you pick up a big rock you find underneath it lots of crawling and slimy things that you did not realize were there. That is what I discovered about myself that when some major habitually sins were gone that there was still quite a lot underneath that had to be addressed with the grace of God. Be holy as your heavenly father is holy does not give you any room to stop and kick back on your laurels.
When I was in my discovery phrase before entering the Church and I would read some of the saints I though it was a false humility when they would berate themselves for their sinfulness. From my point of view at the time I thought it was a bit of hyperbole considering the lives of holiness they were living. It was only later that I realized the simple and obvious observation that the saints don’t compare themselves to others, they compare themselves to Jesus. No wonder Jesus had to tell the parable about the publican and the pharisee and how the path of feeling good about comparing yourself to others leads to everything but holiness.
Conversion is a real heady experience and it is quite easy to go to extremes. Going from reading Ayn Rand to St. Teresa of Avila, from unbelief to belief, it it is a temptation to follow every devotion or spiritual practice that comes your way. Converts can be quite exuberant and I can certainly put myself in that category. Instead of sticking with a devotion that might appeal to you and to be steady with it you can try to do a bit of everything without really achieving anything. As an atheist coming into the Church I was like a starving man who finds himself in an all-you-can-eat buffet and tries to eat everything.
One of the difficulties as an atheist coming into the Church is that you have to really learn everything for the first time. The spiritual life just does not come naturally to me since I had never had the habit of prayer before in my life. Any habit of prayer I have now is rather forced and not a reflex. My faith is rather more along the theoretical level than deeply lived. I intellectually accept all that the Church has to teach, this does not automatically lead to living the faith in a wholly consistent way and reacting based on what I totally accept and believe. Again I just have to keep relearning what I already intellectually knew. I understand what joining my suffering with the suffering of Christ means, but actually offering something up and not complaining about it is not usually my first reaction. I believe in the Communion of the Saints, but remembering to ask for their intercession is another matter. Though the assault on my pride is quite needed thing and while I can humbly admit the progress I have made (not on my own) in the last ten years I know it is like the marathoner who has just begun the race. Or in my case like a couch potato attempting a marathon.
The other day I had joked on Twitter that “Sometimes I am overwhelmed with gratitude to God, and I don’t know what is wrong with me the rest of the time.” As a jest though it rather accurately states what I feel. I am overwhelmed with gratitude to God and my eyes still tear up at times during the Mass. Though I think the gift of those tears is a reminder to me of the spiritual reality that I am witnessing even when my mind is often elsewhere muddled in a thousand distractions.
So on this milestone for me, please pray for me that I might persevere to the end and that I help those around me to do the same.
Science Fiction author John C. Wright points to an article by fellow SF author Michael Flynn that was in the the July/August edition of Analog. The article “De revolutione scientiarum in ‘media tempstas'” and addresses the history of science and its roots in the medieval period and questions related to this
He asks how long was this pregnancy and also mentions Fr. Stanley Jaki’s statement that “the Scientific Revolution was stillborn in every other civilization.” Having read some of Fr. Jaki’s books in regard to the history of science it is certainly true that it was the Catholic Church that was the midwife for the Scientific Revolution.
Michael Flynn writes this in the dialectric format which readers of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologicae. This is really quite an excellent article, though since it is a scanned PDF not the easiest thing to read.
John C. Wright also mentioned some of the most ignorant comments he has received citing the myths of the Church’s opposition to science or saying the Church taught the Earth was flat or that it banned autopsies.
This kind of reminds me how some Protestants are very similar to some atheists/secularists. That they believe all sorts of things about the Church that just doing the most basic research would show as false. Atheists seem to think that science popped up out of nothing and if anything despite Christians and Protestants seem to think that church history started right after the Reformation. Both groups are quite ignorant of the actual history of the Church just as I was once equally or even more ignorant.
I previously reviewed Mr. Flynn’s book Eifelheim which I loved and Mr. Flynn even commented on my review. I am also a fan of his other books and look forward to reading his latest book “The January Dancer.”
Fr. Philip Powell, OP writes a post to seminarian–diocesan or religious–who is being forced to complete a course in Clinical Pastoral Education and says This post is intended to incite a rebellion.
There was one aspect of the Pope’s beautiful letter to the bishops that really caught my attention.
I have been told that consulting the information available on the internet would have made it possible to perceive the problem early on. I have learned the lesson that in the future in the Holy See we will have to pay greater attention to that source of news.
Now I know what my dream job would be. I want to be the Papal Googler working in the Vatican. I can craft search terms with the best of them and would really love this position. This would be especially handy for episcopal nominations. Though of course there would be a heck of a lot of chaff to sort through – but when your the Papal Googler that is part of your job.
Emily who is associated with the Missioners of Christ is working in Comayagua, Honduras with the after graduating college last year. The Franciscan Friars of the Renewal have provided her with space to start a community library. This library is geared toward the school children in the community that do not have access to the nearest public library.
I was sent the following information:
She and the Franciscans are to the point where they need to start filling the library with books. Sadly, purchasing mass quantities of books can be very expensive. Emily, has set up an Amazon wish list, which can be found here, for a number of books and other odd items needed in the library (like globes and such). Since the library is in Honduras, it is necessary for the books to be in a Spanish or in a Spanish/English edition. If you know of anyone who happens to have such books lying around the house and feels the urge to donate them via mail to the Missioners of Christ for the community library, which they are calling The Library of the Little Flower, Emily has put a mailing address on the project page.
In the wake of tragedy Amy Welborn has turned in some beautiful writing as she mourns and thanks those who have lent prayer and support.
At the news of Michael’s death there was certainly a great outpouring of prayer with news of his sudden death. This sad news was spread throughout St. Blogs, social networks, and the Catholic world. I never met Michael and only saw him across the room at the Catholic New Media conference this year. Though I have been reading his blog Annunciation since around 2001. The one thing about new media such as blogs, podcasts, and social networks is that you often have a better idea of the sense of a person than you might have had otherwise. These mediums are much more personal than a column on a website or in a magazine. You feel much more connected to someone in a more interactive medium such as blogging. Judging by the reaction in St. Blogs I am not the only one to feel this way.
In many ways St. Blogs is a real parish and in the Catholic Podcasting. I mourned at the loss of Gerard Serafin, Karen Knapp, and now Michael along with others. I also mourned at the two miscarriages of the Willits’ family from Rosary Army and then rejoiced at the recent birth of their first daughter after four boys. Over the years there have been plenty of births to rejoice at and it is almost like there is someone joining your own family. By the way congratulations to Steve Skojec and family on their latest child. There have also been plenty of people requiring prayers over the years that so many of us have joined in with intercession. One of the reasons I love being Catholic is the Catholic community. Yeah sometimes we grip a lot, but when it comes down to what is truly important then the Church militant really comes alive.
When Amy Welborn first announced the sad news I was also surprised to find that Michael was just one month younger than myself. Every death is a reminder to us of our own mortality. But we usually see it as a distant mortality. The question of being prepared for judgment once again comes to front, even though we should always live our lives in preparation. Not our of fear, but love. Earlier this week was also the 6th anniversary of my mother’s death from cancer so this topic has certainly been on my mind for the last week. Once again I thank God for being Catholic knowing that life is not a dead end and that we can pray for our relatives and others. The mystical Body of Christ is such an awesome reality.
I would like to give thanks to two ladies in St. Blogs. Maureen of Aliens in This World and Julie of Happy Catholic. Both of them run great blogs that are certainly among my favorites and part of my daily blogs of obligation. They also both have side projects and this is what this post is about.
For awhile Maureen has been running another site called Maria Lectrix. She seems to spend considerable time narrating public domain audio books which she then places on archive.org for download. Her motto is “public domain audiobooks six days a week – for people with Catholic tastes ” So as you might expect she does a considerable amount of work with the Fathers of the Church. Maureen also does Science FIction, Mystery, History, Poems and other works. She also has quite an excellent singing voice which I learned when she sang some of the songs in E.R. Eddison’s novel “The Worm Ouroboros.” Her voice acting is also quite good.
Last year Julie D. started the Forgotten Classics podcast where as you would expect she narrates classics that you might not know about. Over the last year we have gotten everything from cavemen to a Agatha Christie novel, Though her podcast provides much more than that. We get commentary on the novels along with reviews of other podcasts, especially reviews of other podcasts narrating books. She also has a great interest in Science Fiction and is also now helping to narrate on other SF podcasts. I have found her suggestions for other books to listen to are always worthwhile.
I listen to a good number of books via audio downloaded from the internet. I listen to them on the commuting to work, household chores or even while brushing my teeth or taking a shower (yes I am a book addict). Librivox and Podiobooks.com have been a good source. Plus there are a number of authors such as Scott Sigler who are podcasting their books before they are published. The first thing I do for planning a long car trip is to make sure I have enough hours of audio along to accompany me.
What I like about Maureen and Julie is that their taste in books is quite close to my own. I am introduced to authors I might never had otherwise read and I am never disappointing by their choices. So I just wanted to thank them for their side projects and that here is one fan quite appreciative of their efforts.
Today I had a technician from a company that takes care of insect pests come over to my house. While he was putting bait in the attic I guess he noticed one of my bookcases and the works of Scott Hahn. He told me that his brother had been a student of his at the University of Steubenville. Later as we got to talking I told him I was a convert to the Church. He mentioned that he had a blog and I told him so do I. Now there is the vanity in me to hope that if I mention the name of my blog to a Catholic who reads blogs that there will be instant recognition. It turned out that not only did he read my blog, but I was on his blogroll. Oh well I can let my head shrink a bit another day. He said his brother has a penchant for theology while he liked apologetics with Protestants. We hear so often of the big name Catholic apologists, but it is really cool that there are also a good segment of Catholics who are lay apologists and who take the Gospel seriously to go out into the whole world. So besides the Joe Sixpacks out there I tip my hat to the Joe Apologists. I have looked over his blog called “Lamb of God” which is a play on his own name Richard Lamb. Really quite a solid Catholic blog and one going on my blogroll and RSS aggregator.
Coincidentally after I had decided on the title for this post I received an email from a reader with the title “It’s a small world.” She said that she had been watching EWTN and the program from London, England called Catholic Lives. Fr. Timothy Finigan was on the show and mentioned my blog by name. Thank you Father. Fr. Finigan of course blogs at The Hermeneutic of Continuity.
My wife and I returned from a mini-vacation in the Norfolk-Virginia Beach area. Going back to my old Navy stomping grounds is almost like a pilgrimage for me. This was where I was hit by a car while riding my bicycle to work and I realized that was no longer an atheist. Though believing that there is some sort of God and knowing what to do about that took quite a while longer.
It was also the place where I resorted to listening to Protestant radio stations before Christmas just to hear more traditional Christmas Carols. My love of singing Christmas Carols was one of the pathways to respond to grace that God used in my case. What I heard on the Protestant radio stations between this carols put me into the active phase of my conversion when I seriously began to look into Christianity and ripping through everything I could get at the local library.
It was also the place where I first attempted to first go to confession. I say attempted since it turned out that the first two times I went to confession it was not valid. I have written before that growing up that religion was something never talked about at all in our household. In later years my Mother, Aunt, and my Grandmother attended a Catholic Church and I knew I was baptized. What I didn’t know at that time was that they were all converts from Methodism and that I had been baptized in a Methodist church as an infant. So I had assumed I had been baptized as a Catholic and that they had always been Catholic.
At the time though thinking I was baptized Catholic I knew that as a Catholic to get right with God you had to go to confession. This I had of course learned from Hollywood. So I picked a Catholic Church in my area and went to confession not knowing anything about the formula for confession or how to say the act of contrition. Needless to say I had a lot to confess, but of course later I had to redo it when I found out I wasn’t Catholic. That happened at my second confession some months later after moving to Jacksonville when I was told that I had to reconcile the relationships with my parents who I had drifted apart from. That night I talked to my mother for the first time in several years and found out that I indeed was not a Catholic. That was quite a grace because within two years of that she had died of cancer. Though finding out I was not Catholic was a bit shocking to me since at the time I had just started to go to Mass and was receiving the Eucharist. I enrolled into RCIA and then later finally was able to make my first real sacramental confession.
While we were in Norfolk I wanted to go to Mass at the church where I first attempted confession. Even if not valid it was an important step on my path to conversion. We went to the Vigil Mass and to be frank I was expecting the Mass to be standard fare for what is found in the U.S. Boy was I wrong. The parish is Saint Pius X and the Filipino priest said Mass quite beautifully and the hymns were all carols and quite well done with organ accompaniment. They had a choir loft and they actually used it. The architecture of the church I would not rank as beautiful. Concrete churches rarely all, but the grooved cement pattern made it as nice as it could be. But a church with a large central crucifix and a tabernacle in the sanctuary deserves some leeway in criticism. Regardless the Mass was a beautiful experience.
I must admit though a moment during the Mass when the name of the church made me wonder if I might have gone into an SSPX chapel. This was only a momentary doubt as I remember the church was listed as part of the diocese and I don’t think an SSPX chapel would be having the newer rite of Mass in the first place.