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Julie D at Happy Catholic tagged me with the following meme.

The Rules:
Those tagged will share 5 things they "love" about Jesus. Those tagged will tag 5 other bloggers. Those tagged will provide a link in the comments section here with their name so that others can read them.

Wow a chance to show my piety! Oh wait once again something more about me than Jesus. The scriptures are really tricky sometimes. They sneak up on you with passages that you read over and over then suddenly knock you over. To paraphrase Chesterton you can look at something 99 times, but are really in danger the 100th time that you look at them.

"Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.” Luke 7:47

An annoying passage like this makes me wonder just how much I really love Jesus. I certainly know that I have had a lot forgiven, but I also doubt that my love in return is commensurate with it. Since I have been forgiven a lot, I should love a lot. So with that in mind I will still try to make my way through the meme, though I couldn’t just stop at five.

• I love the view from his shoulders as he carried me back to the flock.
• I love Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in that he gave himself to us in such a personal and surprising way.
• I love that truth is a person and that we can talk to the person of Jesus and hopefully one day live with him.
• That he loves me more than I can possibly love him, but that through his grace I can still try to love him more.
• I love that he got through a hard-headed atheist skeptic like myself and that I can now say with St. Augustine "Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would not have been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace."
• I love his reflection in the saints.
• That he loved me where I was at, but didn’t leave me there.

I would like to love him only for himself without any consideration of my final end.

I tag: Creative Minority Report, Play The Dad, Flying Stars, Catholic mom of 10, Blog by the Sea, Christopher Hitchens

SF author John C. Wright has yet another interesting post on morality.

Back when I was a fun-loving, God-hating atheist, logic forced me to the conclusion that the passions of man, including sexual passions, were destructive of happiness and life unless conformed into the boundaries of reality.

My conclusions can be summed as follows. I do not give each step of the logic here, due to space limitations, but a disinterested reader can flesh out the enthymemes with common sense:

And then he lays out how "cold reason" brought him to this conclusion.

Later in posts he references a letter he wrote to a Christian friend of his that had said that the overwhelming majority opinion approved of fornication and adultery where with the help of CS Lewis gives an imaginary trial of history.

I just read through the Pope’s letter To the bishops, priests, consecrated persons and lay faithful of the Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China. I strongly encourage you to do the same even though it is not a short letter.

Considering the tensions that exist in Chinas between the so-called patriotic Catholic churches, the underground churches, and the government this is truly a pastoral letter addressing this complicated situation. The Holy See has no formal diplomatic ties with the People’ Republic of China and their diplomatic ties with Taiwan are not mentioned in this letter. The stated purpose and tone of the letter immediately acknowledges "sometimes at the price of grave sufferings” of the faithful in China. Though the letter is certainly pastoral and not adversarial, it also certainly does not minimize the real problems of the Church in China.

The Pope in this letter addresses also those tensions of those truly faithful to Church an its head the Pope in participating in the sacraments. The Pope acknowledges those bishops in the state approved Catholic Churches who were ordained without the pontifical mandate, but have subsequently asked to be received into communion with the Successor of Peter. He though says that in many cases that who have requested this and received it have not made known their legitimization publicly and that this has risen to a number of grave problems of conscience for those of the faithful. The Pope in Part Two addresses many of these problem i the Guidelines for Pastoral Life.

The lay faithful too, who are animated by a sincere love for Christ and for the Church, must not hesitate to participate in the Eucharist celebrated by Bishops and by priests who are in full communion with the Successor of Peter and are recognized by the civil authorities. The same applies for all the other sacraments.

Throughout the document the Pope mentions the sufferings of those in the Church, which is of course most prevalent in the underground churches. He leaves it up to the prudence of the individual bishops of how they are to lead the faithful as to whether to take the route of the underground or state-approved churches. The Pope has outlined the areas of disagreement with the government and those areas where true religious freedom must be brought into being, but also reminds them of how the Church sees her role as not being in the political sphere and constantly references the documents of Vatican II. ‘The Church, by reason of her role and competence, is not identified with any political community nor is she tied to any political system. She is at once the sign and the safeguard of the transcendental dimension of the human person”

The Holy Father has also set May 24 as a special day of prayer for the Church in China, but we should certainly pray daily for the fruits of this wonderful letter by the Holy Father to come into being.

Update: American Papist is maintaining roundup of reactions to this document.

Update:

BEIJING: China said Saturday that frank dialogue with the Vatican was needed to resolve differences between the two sides, and acknowledged an open letter from Pope Benedict XVI to the country’s faithful but did not comment on it directly.

… An official with China’s state-backed Catholic Church said his organization had yet to receive a copy of the letter.

"We haven’t received a copy of it so it’s hard for us to comment," said Liu Bainian, vice chairman of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.

Have you heard about this new invention called the internet? The last time I checked the Great Firewall of China was not blocking the Vatican’s site.

Update:
Vatican Radio has an mp3 that talks about the history between China and the Vatican. Quite interesting the number of encyclicals that have been released in the past since the Communist takeover.

"The next great Catholic Praise song… this will be bigger than "We Are One Body"- HAND MOTIONS IN HEAVEN!"

The is from Decaf a project by Bob Rice from Franciscan University of Steubenville and Chris Padgett the former lead singer from Scarecrow and Tinman who now has a solo career.

Their website is pretty funny, especially the page on "Why are we so into Mary?"

I have listened to Chris Padgett’s conversion story on Catholic radio and it was quite interesting since Scarecrow & Tinman and started out as Protestant group and over time after playing for Catholic youth groups started to look into the Catholic Church with the results of the members of the group joining the Church. I do own both of Scarecrow and Tinman’s CD’s and enjoy them.

Bob Rice maintains a site here and Chris Padgett’s is here.

Today my parish celebrated Fr. Antonio Leon’s golden jubilee as a priest. The church was fairly packed and was also attended by our bishop Victor Galeone and several other priests. One of our choirs along with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra use Mozart’s Coronation Mass as the setting. In addition we also had our Spanish choir at intervals. The Agnus Dei was quite beautiful especially as we had a visiting soloist from Tampa Bay as our guest.

I have written about Fr. Leon again and I always enjoy an opportunity to do so once again since this man is truly a faithful and holy priest. Fr. Leon has been serving as the post of Immaculate Conception since June 10th of 1974 and I truly hope that he will continue to do so so long into the foreseeable future. I became a parishioner of Immaculate Conception quite by chance. When my family had first moved to Jacksonville I got lost downtown and drove by this beautifully church and saw that it also had a bookstore. Later we returned to the bookstore as I was still in my searching – but leaning Catholic phase and then had a chance to walk into the church. I instantly fell in love with the architecture and the beautifully high altar and the magnificent panorama of stained glass windows.

As we started to go to Mass there and then my entering RCIA I slowly got to know Fr. Leon. Fr. Leon was born in Cordova, Spain and entered the minor seminary at the age of 12. He was trained by the Jesuits and firmly grounded in the church by both theology, spiritual reading and devotional practices. He said today "Any good I have done as a priest is because I have spent a holy hour each day in front of the Blessed Sacrament." The Jesuits taught him to do this and he has maintained the devotion for the last fifty years. Though I think he spends more than an hour a day in front of the Tabernacle. I have seen him after morning Mass sit before the Blessed Sacrament as he reads his Breviary. Despite his Jesuit training and his respect for them he felt his calling was as a parish priest and he had volunteered for missionary work in Latin America, but ended up with five other priests in his class in Florida.

Immaculate Conception is a downtown parish and I think if it had been put in less able hands it might have been shut down do to the demographic shifts of people away from downtown area. He had to shut down the parish school due to this, but instead converted the building to act as a soup kitchen and for quite a period of time has been able to fund it totally outside of parish donations. The bookstore I mentioned was a later addition and all profits are used for the care of the poor. During the week there are two daily Masses and on Sunday’s he provides a Indult Latin Mass, two normal Masses and then a Spanish Mass. Once a month the noon Mass is said in both Latin and English in the manner that EWTN does and on First Fridays the Alliance of the Two Hears holds a all night vigil that starts with a Mass and ends with Mass the following day. Again despite the fact that this is a downtown church the Masses are fairly well attended

While part of the population at Masses is made up of predominantly elderly people living in downtown apartment buildings there is a also a large influx of younger families. This is due primarily I believe to the work of Fr. Leon. For one Immaculate Conception is a sort of liturgical oasis where you can go to Mass without worrying about liturgical abuses. Another is that confession is held before every Mass and there is often a line. Though the main reason is that both Fr. Leon and Fr. Keene are good and holy priests and holiness always attracts.

I have grown to love Fr. Leon as a confessor, spiritual director, homilist, and speaker. I love the way that when he talks about Jesus during a homily that he frequently points to the Tabernacle where Jesus dwells sacramentally in the Eucharist. I also love his righteous anger in that sometimes when some sinful action has upset him that he raises his voice and slams his fist on the lectern. In the past I had the opportunity to listen to him teach the secular Carmelites on Carmelite spirituality. He was introduced to St. Therese in the seminary and calls her his "girlfriend", though he also loves to teach on St. Teresa of Aviala and St. John of the Cross. He teaches though not as one lecturing on the spiritual life of great saints, but as one who shares the mystical spiritual life and the many stories he tells confirms this. I also love the fact that he takes on part of the penance of those he hears confessions from. Once he told us after being in a serious car wreck that he walked away from without too much injury that he would use those pains a penances. When he tells these stories it is not as the braggart, but as one who wants to instruct by personal example and sees himself as just the Donkey that Christ rode into Jerusalem. He is a man of such great faith and spiritual depth that not only does he lead the Carmelites, but he leads the Franciscans along with being involved in the Cursio movement.

He is the very model of a parish priest. A man who has totally given of himself to others and sees his life as a priest totally as gift and displays the joy that goes with it. Like every parish there are factions and there are those that write nasty letters to the bishop about Fr. Leon. There are misunderstandings and other problems, but nothing that will sour Fr. Leon and his own response is to give more of himself.

Thank you Fr. Leon for your fifty years of service (so far).

The New Yorker discusses a painting by Carlo Crivelli of St. Dominic and its uncanny resemblance to Rudy Giuliani. Unfortunately I think they are right about the resemblance. Though I do think their little illustration of “St. Rudy” is not going to make it as art for Catholics Against Rudy. Hat tip Papa Familias.

Renovation done right.

Michael S. Rose who likes the NBC series Heroes, as I do, talks about it and then goes on to talk about the mystical phenomenon evidenced by various saints. Interesting comparison and I would like to see a series called Heroic Sanctity.

	Jester Hat Tip:	Roman Catholic Blog

Patrick O’Hannigan at The Paragraph Farmer has been doing coverage of the various Christopher Hitchen’s debates. He links to the conclusion of a debate between Hitchens and Douglas Wilson which makes a great point on the evolution of morality.

Tonight on the Hugh Hewitt show the entire show will be a debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dr. Mark Roberts. I heared Dr. Roberts on Hugh’s show before and it should be a pretty good debate. Usually when Hitchens appears on the Hugh Hewitt show and the topic veers to religion it is always a train wreck with Hitchens showing himself to be a fundamentalist atheist not willing to give religion any due. I can admire Hitchens for willing to do so many debates on the subject, but I would admire him more if I had any feeling he was an honest atheist open to the truth.

On Sunday I read his Peter Hitchens’ review his brother’s book that was quite interesting, especially Christopher’s "locution" at the age of nine that the world was not ordered.

I do think the appropriate thing to do would be to ask Blessed Mother Teresa and Bob Hope to intercede for Mr. Hitchens conversion.

Update: Listening to the debate I was not much impressed by either Hitchens or Mark D. Roberts.
Hitchens seems to be unable to make any distinctions and treats religion as a lump. Though the funniest thing in the debate was when Hitchens called Pope John Paul II "A great mammal."
Yes, Pope John Paul the Great Mammal would be a new title in Church history.

Catholic Fire tagged me:

Four Things That were new to me in the Past Four Years:

1. iPod – Got my first iPod about two years ago and still like the fact that it just plain works and has a great interface. I have owned multiple mp3 players over the years starting from an mp3 playing CD player when they first became available eight years ago. I really wish these devices were invented a long time ago. When I would go out to see I would take my CD/Cassette collection with me which was quite a pain considering that I had about a thousand Cassettes.
2. Being a published and paid author. This Rock magazine bought my conversion story and an Australian Diocesan magazine purchased three of my parodies.
3. Being interviewed on the radio. I have given interviews to a couple of local Catholic radio stations and have appeared several times on the Catholic Guy show on Sirius. This week I was interviewed on a podcast and will give details when it comes out.
4. P.G. Wodehouse, while I had of course been familiar with the Jeeves and Bertie Wooster characters I had never read any of Wodehouse’s books. I read a dozen of his books last year and just love his novels and not just the Jeeves’s ones.

Four Things That I Hope to Try in the Next Four Years:

1. Read the Summa.
2. Visit EWTN.
3. Pray without distractions (wishful thinking I know)
4. Doing less memes.