Things I Really Like

I know, I know, it's been a while.

But, to appease you (like a pagan god or something), here is a hodge-podge of things I've ran across lately that are legit. So, so legit! Readysetgo...

Watch this testimony from Edmund Mitchell, a great guy I went to school with! It's about an hour long, but really worth it:

He also had this great quote in an interview recently:

"It also reminds me how important it is to continue diving deeper into our faith because there are a lot of well intentioned Catholics who, not having a solid enough foundation in Catholic doctrine, philosophy, history, or catechetics, are answering modern man’s hunger for deep, living waters with sprinkles from a red Solo cup."

Snap. I 100% agree!

Along the lines of more catechetical thing-a-ma-jigs, a friend sent me this great address to catechists by Pope Francis! (Who, by the way, showed up in my dream last night! Win.) I love this, especially:

"It builds up the Church!  To 'be' catechists!  Not to 'work' as catechists: this will not do.  I work as a catechist because I like to teach… But unless you 'are' a catechist, it is no good!  You will not be successful … you will not bear fruit!  Catechesis is a vocation:  'being a catechist', this is the vocation, not working as a catechist.  So keep this in mind: I didn’t say to do the 'work' of catechists, but to 'be' catechists, because this is something that embraces our whole life."

Next, another friend shared this with me on Facebook today, and I am just in love. Don't focus on the picture or text quality... just look at it for a minute and picture it in real life:

Do you not love it?!

(By the way, her feast day is tomorrow. Just sayin'.)

Went to see Torri Harris with some friends at the Josephinum this past weekend, which was lovely! Here is one of her songs... soak in the beauty!

Listening to this song on Saturday morning, it dawned on me just how much God uses the beauty of music to open my heart to Him... I'll be pondering that for a while...

Prayer cards from the concert. Beauty, right?

I definitely recommend that you look up more of her music. And if you ever get a chance to see her live, do it! She's very real, authentic, holy and fun... and her testimony blew me out of the water. All about fear vs. trust and God's calling for your life... plus, JPII showed up in her dreams. I mean, come on. JPII!

I've been listening to this a lot lately, too. Lyrics here.

I'm still getting the "Read the Catechism in a Year" emails every day for the Year of Faith... some days I read it, and some days I throw it in a folder that I've entitled "Still need to read for CCC." (Lazy, I know... once an email gets filed away, I don't know if I'll ever look for it again...) They've been using the YouCat, which I find super helpful for my line of work. ;) Yesterday was paragraph 470, "The Prompting to Pray":

"What prompts a person to pray?
"We pray because we are full of an infinite longing and God has created us men for himself: "Our hearts are restless until they rest in you" (St. Augustine). But we pray also because we need to; Mother Teresa says, "Because I cannot rely on myself, I rely on him, twenty-four hours a day." [2566-2567, 2591]
"Often we forget God, run away from him and hide. Whether we avoid thinking about God or deny him he is always there for us. He seeks us before we seek him; he yearns for us, he calls us. You speak with your conscience and suddenly notice that you are speaking with God. You feel lonely, have no one to talk with, and then sense that God is always available to talk. You are in danger and experience that a cry for help is answered by God. Praying is as human as breathing, eating, and loving. Praying purifies. Praying makes it possible to resist temptations. Praying strengthens us in our weakness. Praying removes fear, increases energy, and gives a second wind. Praying makes one happy."

I thought that was a really good, simple, beautiful, understandable explanation!

Okey dokey... watch/listen/ponder all of that, and then get back to me. :)

(That should buy me some time until my next post, right??)

7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 2)

It's been a while since I've done this... but I've got lots to say today, so here we go!

1.

To use the words of my pastor: this week, I "experienced the demise" of my car. 

And that was the last I saw of it.

Yep... it died. In the middle of a state park in the hills of Indiana, on the way back from a wedding. To be honest, it didn't bother me all that much; it was a good little car, and a huge blessing to own it in the first place! Going down with 260,000+ miles on it... now that's going down fighting! It was rather dramatic, with smoke and dripping liquid; yes, it went out with a bang (not literally - although the teens in my youth group had previously nicknamed it the "bomb" car).

And so, I raise my glass to the little car that could. It took me to Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Michigan, Canada, all the states in-between... and of course, all around Ohio. It survived numerous starter replacements, a ghetto wiring/button arrangement, and even hitting a deer. It was a good four years, little buddy. Rest in smashed-up, junkyard peace.  

2

As a side note: the whole adventure from Indiana to Ohio is actually a pretty great story of God's providence in my life. Let me tell you, he really knows how to take care of me! I've seen his goodness time and time again, and I'm always amazed.  

Even in the midst of these material troubles (which also include my laptop not working, and to top it off, the air conditioner in my office breaking as well!), I have been able to experience some of what St. Francis of Assisi called "perfect joy." It's hard to explain... but basically, when "everything" goes wrong and you should be mopey, you still can rejoice in the goodness of God. It was definitely stronger earlier in the week, and I've had to struggle a bit to persevere in this detachment over the last couple of days - but at the same time, such a blessing! Pray that God keeps it going for me, yes? Also, I'd appreciate prayers for my car shopping this weekend!

3

Read this! Just do it: How to Become an Annoying Catholic (In 8 Easy Steps). I definitely have a friend crush on Emily Stimpson! Her writing is bomb (I loved her book, The Catholic Girl's Survival Guide for the Single Years.)

4

This:

Handing out roses to random women? Definitely, definitely a win!

5

So, I'm currently reading this:

And I just found out that our parish staff is going to be reading and discussing this:

I'm psyched! I've already read Rebuilt through once, and I was hoping to pass it around to others anyway. Has anyone else read it yet? Any insights you'd care to share?

6

Y'all need to read this: Why the world doesn't take Catholicism seriously. Again: JUST READ IT! It made me so psyched to go out and evangelize. And it's challenging. I also highly recommend his new project, The Radical Life.

7

And last but not least:

This has gone viral over the last few days, so you've probably seen it. I can't help sharing, though; it's reminded me that it is time to live. I think I'm going to use it to start out our youth ministry nights this summer! It strikes a chord with everyone, and it's the perfect lead-in to talking about what it means to be a saint. We don't have time to waste on petty arguments and distracting ourselves with mindless activities. It's go time! This is life, people... as Kid President would say, "You got air coming through your nose! A heartbeat! That means it's time to do something!"

Redefining "Normal"

If you and I are friends, chances are we've talked about evangelization and/or catechesis and/or ministry and/or parish life before! To be quite honest, I can't go more than a day or two without talking, reading or thinking about it - which can sometimes include some complaining, letting go of my frustrations, and overall just banging my head against a wall. This is sometimes accompanied by shouts of "Let's throw a wrecking ball into the current structures!!!! Subvert the dominant paradigm!!!!!" That part in particular is a lot of fun, and it gets my frustration out (yes, I am a dork. A dorky, Catholic, dorky, catechetical, dorky, theological, dorky dorky dorky dork). Such rants are also sometimes followed by Confession, so that I can throw a wrecking ball into my pride instead (Father, I started thinking that I know how EVERYTHING should be done in the Church again... crap. Mea culpa). 

My current food for thought is called Forming Intentional Disciples by Sherry Weddell. I've been highlighting up a storm! However, there is one overarching concept in the book that I am very much struck by:

WE ARE NOT NORMAL.

We aren't! In the sense of what a Catholic community should be, the majority of parishes in 'Murica are simply not what they should be. What are we talking about here? Sherry's statement really packed a punch for me:

"A Church that understands itself as possessing the 'fullness of the means of grace' must yearn for the fullness of the manifestation of that grace."

In other words, what do we expect? My pastor is really big on the idea of expectations: getting across to parishioners what we require of them, and not being soft about said requirements. While that initially rubbed me wrong, I eventually realized that this isn't being inflexible - this is calling on God's people to a higher standard! Herein lies the crux: do we expect Jesus to change lives? Do we realize that the treasures we have in the Church can actually bear fruit? If we did, I think that we would approach everything differently.

As Catholic parishes, what is our job? I would say that it is to evangelize our communities, and to form those who are being evangelized (probably written down in more awesome words by a Pope or two somewhere). Yet, according to Weddell's book, "Asked whether spreading the faith was a high priority of their parishes, 75 percent of conservative Protestant congregations and 57 percent of African-American congregations responded affirmatively, whereas only 6 percent of Catholic parishes did the same."

WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?! (About to start head-banging rant... pulling back to constructive thinking...)

Here's the thing, Sherry says. Catholics don't talk about their faith (shocker)! They don't talk about their conversion experiences, they don't talk about their personal relationship with Jesus - often, they don't even know that they can have this relationship in the first place! However, to quote a famous Catholic guy:  

"But how can they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone to preach?" (Romans 10:14).

To paraphrase: how the heck is anyone supposed to learn how to follow Christ, if no one around them is following Christ, living our their baptismal call to be a priest, prophet and king??

Yeah, I just went there.

It was a huge eye-opener for me in college when I learned that "The Church exists in order to evangelize" (Evangelii Nuntiandi). Did you catch that? Exists in order to evangelize... as in, the whole purpose of the Catholic Church is to bring people to Jesus. It's not to do good works, although that is essential. It's not to run a bunch of programs, although we do need structures. It's not to keep the teenagers busy, so they don't get into trouble somewhere else (sorry, had to throw that one in there!). The purpose of the Church is to evangelize - to preach the Good News of salvation! If we're not spreading the faith, what are we doing?

As Sherry says, "Widespread neglect of the interior journey of discipleship has unintentionally fostered an immense chasm between what the Church teaches is normal and what many Catholics in the pews have learned to regard as normal. Many lifelong Catholics have never seen personal discipleship lived overtly or talked about in an explicit manner in their family or parish. It is difficult to believe in and live something that you have never heard anyone else talk about or seen anyone else live. It is also very difficult to openly hold a minority opinion or speak of a minority experience in the midst of a group that does not understand."

What if this describes our parishes, the very places where Catholics should be able to find people that understand their passion for Jesus Christ? It is a tragedy if a faithful Catholic, striving to be a saint, is the minority among their parish - or worse, even among the parish leadership.

Every person is supposed to be a disciple, not just those who are "really into that stuff" or "too religious." As Weddell says, many people think there exist "two basic spiritual 'tracks': 'ordinary Catholic' and 'saint.'" I read that and I thought, YES! So many people do think that way. I want to follow Jesus... but I don't want to do that one thing that makes me uncomfortable. I want to go to heaven... but I don't want the Church to tell me what to do in my personal life. I like belonging to St. So-and-So Parish, but I'm not like those crazy people who are really into it. I just want to be a nice person, and going to church makes me feel like I'm doing good things. Etc. etc. etc.

I think we need to spread the concept that being Catholic = trying to be a saint! Following Jesus Christ = striving for holiness, and sometimes being a little weird in the world's eyes! You can't go half-way... it's all or nothin'. We allow for weaknesses, of course; but the point is to be striving.

In our own parishes, we need to create a culture where this is "normal." Church should be a place where it is safe to be totally sold out for Christ, a place where we can go when we're weary from the world's nagging and teasing and criticism. How to create this culture is a constant discussion, and the task belongs to the creativity and insights of Catholics everywhere... but it needs to happen.

Sherry talks about how in the early 90's, she and some friends got together and decided to come up with a support group for lay Catholics. They drew up a mission statement, which included this excerpt:


Our Values
It is NORMAL for lay Catholics to have a living, growing love relationship with God.
It is NORMAL for lay Catholics to be knowledgeable about their faith, the Scriptures, the doctrinal and moral teachings of the Church, and the history of the Church.
It is NORMAL for lay Catholics to know what their charisms of service are and to be using them effectively in the fulfillment of their vocation or call in life.
It is NORMAL for lay Catholics to know that they have a vocation/mission in life (primarily in the secular world) given to them by God. It is NORMAL for lay Catholics to be actively engaged in discerning and living this vocation.
It is NORMAL for lay Catholics to have the fellowship of other committed lay Catholics available to them, to encourage, nurture, and discern as they attempt to follow Jesus.
It is NORMAL for the local parish to function consciously as a house of formation for lay Catholics, which enables and empowers lay Catholics to do #1-6 above.


It seems like we need to redefine "normal," eh?