A Weekly Dose of Holy Thought

36th Dose: What? vs. How?

2012-02-03T11:15:00.001-06:00

Not all questions are the same.

Some questions lead to answers while some lead only to more questions. And some, if we cannot supply an answer, remain unanswered and can plague our minds.

The mind, after all, is a problem solver. And when it can't solve a problem, the question lingers and may even keep us awake at night.

"What am I doing with my life?"
"What if I'd called her/him one more time?"
"What is the appropriate amount of time to call someone back after a first date?"
"What if..."

These kinds of questions, which can be very daunting, often lead only to fear or anxiety instead of answers.

Now I don't want to completely sail the word "what" up a river. "What" can begin some questions that will lead to knowledge, and knowledge is the beginning of understanding how to change our selves, our minds, and our relationships with others. But, the longer I've been in ministry, Ive become far more fond of the question "how?".

Rick Warren said somewhere (and forgive me for neglecting you the direct page number and text as this would be the responsible thing to do--but here it comes), "Most people already have more knowledge than they're putting into practice." His argument was that the last thing many Christians need is another Bible study, because we already know more than we tend to use or implement. Discipleship is more than just Sunday school--it is about taking that good news into our homes and out into the world.

This is why I love the question "how" instead of "what", and far more than "what if...". Let me give an example. Which of these do you like better:

What am I doing with my life?
or
How can I improve my routine this week to better use my time?

The first is general and vague while the latter is clear and specific.

Of course this latter phrase could be stated: "What could I do to improve my routine this week?" but it still lingers there as knowledge, instead of action. "How" tends to lead us into action.

We have, perhaps, the most educated society in the history of civilization, and yet we have more problems than ever before. We have a vast communication network at our disposal, and dozens of modes of "social networking" and yet people are still chronically lonely, despite 600+ facebook friends, and tweets keeping them up to the moment with what some celebrity is up to.

Knowledge is potential power, but only if we use it to put into action those things that would change our lives for the better.

Knowing God is one thing... loving him is something better, and serving him better still.

Knowing my wife is one thing... loving and serving her is better still.

You probably won't serve that which you don't love, and it's not likely you can truly love something or someone you don't know.

Go ahead. Ask the "what", but carry it forward into "How". What is wrong, and how can I make it better?

How can I make time for more prayer this week?

How can I get to know my God, my spouse, or my kids better this week?

How can I show them my love a little more this week?

How can I make this world a better place, while I'm still alive to be a steward of it?

Answer one of these questions at a time in progression, and you might find you're being a better disciple, a better, spouse, a better parent, or just a better child of God.

Fr. Jon+

35th Dose: What divides us?

2012-01-16T15:07:00.001-06:00

Last week I took my 7th class toward my Doctorate of Ministry degree, and this course was on "The History of Orthodox/Anglican Relations." Basically, it was about the history of doctrines that could serve to divide us, or reunite us as a faith tradition.

In the late 1800's an Anglican Priest named Edward Pusey was writing to his friends in England about how to reunite with the Roman Church. His perspective at the time was that the Anglican and Orthodox churches were basically in agreement on virtually everything, and in the 19th century, he was right.

Unfortunately, this is no longer the case today. Bishop Robert Terwilliger (formerly suffragan Bishop of Dallas) was apparently once known for saying that reunification in Anglicanism seems to be a revolving theme that seems to come about every 100 years. So what has changed over the last 100 years?

The things that historically divided the Eastern and Western Churches, from an Eastern perspective, were essentially: the use of ikons, the validity of ordinations, and authority within the Church. While Westerners, like Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Methodists tend to create catechisms or doctrinal statements to define every aspect of faith, the Eastern Churches have a good respect for allowing mystery, and sharing authority. I don't think any of us debate that Christ is the rightful head of the Church, but we do seem to have problems over who is #1 in his stead on earth until he returns. The East refer to the patriarchs (highest church leaders) as "1st among equals" with their brothers in Roma, while the Roman Church claims the primacy of the Chair of St. Peter (the popes).

These days, Anglo-Catholics (high church Anglicans) and Eastern Orthodox groups have very little that divides them, because they continue to agree on core doctrines, and the use of ordination. Holy orders have everything to do with sacraments, therefore if those in Holy Orders aren't in right order, neither are the sacraments which they confect.

This is no longer true for Most of Anglicanism. There are portions of our Church that differ in their teaching on the 7 sacraments, hold to the Nicene Creed as we have it in the prayer book which adds: "Who proceeds from the Father 'and the son'," which was not in the original text of the Creed of Nicaea; and a portion of Anglicanism also departs from the historic teaching of the Church concerning women in the Priesthood. These things cause a problem for the unity of Orthodox and Anglicans, but also for the unity of Anglicanism with itself.

Dr. Pusey also wrote in his day of the things that divided Anglicanism and Orthodoxy from the Church of Rome. It is amazing how much of this is still true, even 100 years later!
(Bear with me, this is an exhaustive list, but I didn't write it!)
Points made by Pusey as "practical evils popularly feared from Rome" are:
A. Eucharistic sacrifice
B. Necessity of intention to validity of sacraments
C. Statements on justification
D. Doctrine of satisfaction or making amends (confession practices)
E. Adoration of the Lord in the Holy Eucharist
F. Limitation on cultus of images
G. Doctrine of the "real presence" in the Holy Eucharist as defined as "transubstantiation."
H. On the number of sacraments
I. The sufferings after death (Purgatory)
J. Deutero-Canonical Books (Apocrypha)
L. Primacy of the See of Rome (which would include: "Papal infallibility" and it's aftermath including: Transubstantiation, marriage of a brother's wife, title of "universal bishop", Papal authority, Immaculate Conception, Marriage of clergy, the grace of the cup, and [in his day] prayers in vernacular.

So, how much of this still applies to us today?

I would say that just about everything that divides any Church, doctrinally speaking, can be narrowed down to one of two things: authority and mystery. I think most of the problems that divide us are either centered on trying to over-define things that will always be, to some level, a mystery; and claiming too much authority over things which rightly belong to Christ alone, namely, supremacy over the Church.

So what do you think? What is it that divides churches? We can have a varying amount of usage when it comes to liturgy, calendars, music, and lectionaries...but those things have never really been universal. What really keeps us from being united with out fellow Christians around the world?

Think hard, and I imagine it will come down to some element of mystery or authority.

What would happen to the Church universal ("catholic" or "sobornost") if we grew in a little humility, and learned to listen to the things that divide us, and determine whether we have the authority to claim that they are true, or whether they rightly belong to the mysterious power of God alone.

May God bless you this week as you contemplate these things.
Fr. Jon+

34th Dose: Resolutions

2012-01-03T14:28:00.001-06:00

A new year brings new opportunities for change. And change usually begins with finding out where we've been going wrong, and then trying to remedy our faults.

My fault in blogging is inconsistency. And it makes me sad, because I get a lot of positive feedback from it, and I seem to help a lot of people who don't go to Church, yet read this blog. This is a sorrow I hope to remedy this year.

So, how do we change ourselves to make a fresh start together this year?

It seems to me that the problem these days, is that few are willing to admit that they've made mistakes at all, except it seems that everyone is honest in hindsight, when the heat is off, and there are no penalties for honesty. However, true contrition is rare. And it is a pity, because contrition can be a real motivator for change.

Contrition is that true sense of sorrow for having made a mistake, a sin, or simply a miss-step in everyday life. Contrition is when we feel bad because we've hurt someone--hurt God, hurt our family or friends, or hurt ourselves. True contrition begins with true sorrow and a desire to be more loving to those who deserve it--even ourselves.

St. Thomas A' Kempis said, "I would far rather feel contrition than to be able to define it. If you knew the whole Bible by heart, all the teachings of the philosophers, how would this help you without the grace and love of God?"

Sometimes when we make mistakes we don't feel bad about it at all. Partially because society teaches us these days that there are no mistakes made by people, just incidents that didn't go as planned.

To grow in a real sense of contrition is to consider ourselves in perspective to the sacrifice of Jesus' blood for our lives. Or rather, to consider that God always wants better things for us than we want for ourselves.

Thomas A Kempis also said, "Many people, although they often hear the Gospel, feel little desire to follow it, because they lack the spirit of Christ. Whoever desires to understand and take delight in the words of Christ must strive to conform their whole lives to him."

But is this our desire? Do many of us who wish to be good Christian people have a real desire to actually BE like Christ? Do we desire to conform to anything, or rather do we desire that the world conform to us? Or at least conform to tolerating our behavior, however it comes out?

Desire is at the heart of this. Desires draw us into all kinds of trouble. Desires for food, sex, attention, love, comforts, and so on--these desires can be used for good or for bad.

So what would happen if we re-directed our desires toward heavenly things? How could a true desire for heaven or virtuous living change your life this year?

Ask yourself today if you are where you want to be in life. What are your deepest desires? Is there room for change? Is there room for true contrition to motivate us into better living for ourselves and those around us?

Answer these questions, and make a few, that is FEW (not many) resolutions for this year. Let's see if we can make a change together in 2012.

Feel free to email me your prayer requests for what could truly change your life this year.
Joncjenkins@gmail.com

Happy New Year!
Fr. Jon+

33rd OVERDUE Dose: Preparations for Something New

2011-09-20T16:44:00.008-05:00

I've been excited to get back into blogging by 2 people lately. One is my dear old friend Mr. Tony Clark (who is apparently my biggest fan and checks in on me every day); and the second is a new visitor to my parish, Mrs. Jenny Thompson.

As I return to this long overdue habit, I must make my apology, which is to say, my explanation, for why I haven't been blogging.

1. It takes a lot of time. This is going to be remedied by making the blog posts smaller, and without as many photographs. My greatest frustration with Blogging is the posting process. I usually write these in a very short amount of time, and then spend 3 X as long trying to get it to look like I want it to look, with text wrapping around photos, and paragraph breaks where I need them to be. Sometimes it looks great in the "compose" page, and looks like one large seamless paragraph on the actual blog. So that can be frustrating.

2. I haven't settled on a regular time to write. This is hopefully going to be remedied by a change in my schedule to make Monday a "Reading and Writing" day. It seems to be the only day that people really don't call as much, and so I can hopefully get into the habit of doing some study and writing this blog, as well as working on my dissertation.

3. Format. I usually tell you what's going in in my life or parish, and then give a word of the week and a book of the week. The trouble is, I have no shortage of words for the word of the week, but not that many people read books, and truly a lot of what I recommend for people is limited. So I'm going to drop the whole"book of the week" concept. However, I am working on revamping my parish website in the near future (already underway) and I intend to clean up my "Suggested reading page" so that everyone who wants to ask me about books I'd suggest on various topics can find them there.

And so, here were are. I guess I'll begin with an update.

Since last year...

I've gotten engaged, and am slated to be married to Claire Galloway on October 22nd, at St. John's Church, Ft. Worth.
I've completed my 3rd year of Doctoral Studies at Nashotah House. I have my dissertation topic, but I need to submit a formal request for my outline and bibliography. Although, I haven't had time to get that done yet, due to lingering summer school homework and marriage preparations.
I've become far more involved with my Diocese in serving various committees, and writing curriculum for our youth camp.
I was elected Secretary of the Alumni Association at Nashtoah House.

All in all, I've been really busy. There's probably more to report, but those are the major things. Most of my life is a parish routine, and that basically doesn't change much.

So, what do I say, after starting a post LAST September saying I was back at it, and then not writing for a whole year? I suppose I'll just say that I'm thankful for all God's provided me this past year. This last year has brought me a lot of spiritual growth, and myriad blessings in my personal life. Not the least of which is Claire. She redeems me more than I'd generally like to admit. Our life together is going well, and it's been an interesting year as I've both taken Marriage Counseling Courses, and given some as well.

I guess the most interesting thing about getting ready to be married is all of the advice people try to give us about marriage. All of it is pretty interesting, and some of it is very particular. Here are a few things I've been told since we got engaged:

If you ever have a fight, just say, "Yes dear, you're right. Oooh La La."
Pray together every night. (And we do, unless hindered by travel)
Have a system of giving yourselves a small regular cash allowance so to buy things you want for yourself, and so to buy gifts for each other without knowing about it from reconciling your bank statement.
When it comes to the wedding, just let her have her way.
Have sex at least once a week.
Don't go to bed angry.
Have a "date night" once every week.

There have been other things, but they all basically fall into these categories.

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WORD of the WEEK: Holy Matrimony

I don't get to share a Greek origin for this word. But I think it's important to distinguish "holy Matrimony" from Marriage.

A lot of things are paraded around as "marriage" these days. "Wedding" is also a pretty vague term. If I say to someone, "We're going to a wedding" the first question will likely be, "Whose wedding?" or "What kind of a wedding?"

"Whose wedding" might seem like a simple question, but is it? Is this the Groom's wedding? Is this the Bride's wedding? Is this God's wedding? Is this the Mother of the Bride's wedding? Whose wedding is it? Most people ask this question simply to identify who is getting married to whom? But a conflict often arises over "whose wedding is this anyway?" Is this the bride's big day? Or is it just THE big day?

This brings us to "What kind of wedding is this going to be?" Priests or ministers also have a certain character to their weddings. In fact, I have more than one. I can have a Nuptial Mass, or simply An Order for Holy Matrimony. Some even have Solemn High Nuptial Pontifical Masses, which means a really long wedding with lots of ceremonial presided over by the Bishop. (I think our wedding will be somewhere in between.) Some people have Star Wars weddings, or Cowboy weddings, or any number of other themed weddings. So how can we look at all of these things and call them Marriage, or Holy Matrimony?

Few people distinguish a difference between a Wedding vs. Holy Matrimony? Bridal magazines don't distinguish a difference. They're going to sell the same product to a bride no matter where she's getting married. The State doesn't distinguish a difference. They're going to give the same licence to a couple being married in a Church, as a couple being married at the Courthouse, or on a beach. I even had a conversation with a bartender earlier this year who told me that he got ordained on the Internet so he could preside at the wedding of another friend of his on a beach in Jamaica. So what's the difference between that, and Holy Matrimony?

I guess the big question is, "what makes it holy?" What makes anything holy? What makes it good? In creation, as reported in Genesis, God makes everything and it is GOOD. What did he mean by that? Was the dirt playing well with the rocks? Were the trees being nice to the ants? What does it mean to be good, let alone holy? Being good means fulfilling God's purposes. The dirt was Good because God made it for a purpose, and it fulfilled it's purpose.

Being Holy, means to not only be good but to be sacred, set apart, spiritually whole, well, perfect, or pure. Holy Matrimony is set apart from common marriage by being made holy through God's presence, uplifted by fulfilling God's purposes for the couple, and being made whole in the 2 becoming one flesh through the binding of hands, and mutual sacrifice of one to another. The care of each individual is for that of the other in that they try to fulfill God's purpose for their creation, and furthermore for God's purpose in setting them apart. They are no longer in the open pool of single people, but are now set apart from society as a married couple.

Did you know rings aren't even required for marriage? They are a sign of it. We say that the marriage is bound when the man and woman bind themselves to each other in oaths of self-sacrifice and mutual love, and we demonstrate this in our service by binding together the couple's hands as a sign of their union. St. Augustine spoke of the "two becoming one flesh" in holy matrimony as "the rib that was once taken from Adam to make Eve is being restored." He says that when the rib that fits comes along side the man, they are reunited into one flesh and fit to fulfill the purposes for which God made marriage.

These are the purposes that make marriage holy, according to the Book of Common Prayer:

Mutual Joy
Help and comfort granted one another in prosperity and adversity
When it is God's will, for the procreation of Children.

C.B. Moss, a great Anglican Systematic Theologian puts them in reverse order.

Procreation of Children (Bodily purpose) [Genesis 1:27-28]
Hallowing of Sex (Purpose for the soul) [1 Cor. 7:9]
Mutual love (Spiritual Purpose) [Gen. 2:24]

Fr. Crary, my dear mentor and a senior Priest of our Diocese, would say it yet a third way:

For the procreation of Children, to be brought up in the fear and nature of the Lord, and to the praise of his holy name.
For a remedy against sin (concupiscence), and to avoid fornication; that such persons as have not the gift of continency might marry and keep themselves undefiled members of the body of Christ.
For the mutual society, help, and comfort that one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity.

All in all, Marriage not only serves as a holy thing because it prevents the couple from sinning by having sex outside of marriage, it also serves to build up society. Parents teach children how to live together in community, with self-sacrifice, mutual concerns for the needs of others, and love shown through support in good times and in bad. It is a most holy virtue to give of oneself in charitable love--love which is concerned about the needs of another over ourselves. That's why St. Paul calls it the greatest of the virtues, and the lesson which reminds us of this is probably the most common reading heard at all weddings: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13.

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Well, I suppose that's enough for a first post. In fact, It's probably still too long.

Have a great week.

Fr. Jon+

The 32nd Dose: Back to School!!

2010-09-04T16:41:00.012-05:00

Welcome back! That's what they say on the first day of school: "welcome back."

Although sometimes we aren't that eager to be back in school. But I don't see why not. The beginning of a new school year is a good thing!

Even if you don't have kids, the school year definitely affects how we do things. My commute to work is a little longer each day when school is in session. No more easy 8 minute drives to work. In fact it's more like 18-20 minutes. I confess that I've been late to work a lot lately, mostly due to traffic as I live near a school, and all of the morning commuters are delayed a little because of dropping their kids off for school. It seems there have been more wrecks lately, probably because people are going fast because they're running late!

The school year puts everyone on schedule, or at last it asks them to keep a schedule. When I was in school, if you were late, you got a "tardy slip." That or someone recorded that you were late to class. If we received enough of these slips, we had to stay after school in detention, which was NOT pleasant. In the High School I attended, punctuality was encouraged with negative reinforcement, and I'm sure it is in other places as well. If you were late, you were penalized. Perhaps your job has a similar level of accountability with a time-clock that you punch-in or out on, and if you're late enough times, the boss gives you some kind of a warning, and may eventually fire you, something no one needs in this economy!

I've noticed, especially over the last few years (this is sort of a rant, but bear with me) that fewer and fewer people care about punctuality: BEING ON TIME.

I've always been at least 15 minutes early no matter where I'm going. I've found that being early ALWAYS benefits me in some way. If I'm early to work, I have time to get organized and settled before I go to pray Morning Prayer. When I'm early to a meeting or a doctor's appointment, I've found that often times the person I have an appointment with is ready to see me early, and I get to have more time to myself later in the day. When I'm early to a dinner party, I get to talk with the host a while to catch up with my friend before the crowd arrives and the small-talk begins. Being early to things has almost always blessed me in some way!

But I've found more and more lately that many people are always running late. People run late to important meetings, and then wonder why the meetings go on longer than expected. Some parents are late picking their kids up from school. And some parents are late at bringing their kids to Sunday School or to Church. I've hosted many dinner parties over the last year and at every single one, there is someone who arrives 2 hours into a party. I even have one friend who is notorious for showing up to a party about 15 minutes before it is supposed to end, and then she can't understand why everyone is leaving. "I just got here!", she says.

Another thing that has gone by the wayside is R.S.V.P.ing to anything. R.S.V.P. stands for the French Phrase: "repondez s'il vous plait" which means: "respond please." When a person decides to host a party, or any kind of an event where food and beverages are to be served, or materials have to be produced for the guests such as handouts or whatnot, they ask for you to RSVP, which is to say, "Please let us know if you're coming so we may be good hosts and provide enough food and resources for our guests." However, very few people do this anymore. They just show up to events without alerting their hosts that they're coming. This is not very polite behavior.

We've also had the opposite phenomenon here at the church. With the dawn of the social networking websites like Facebook, people can set up invitations to events through the website for greater efficiency. The trouble is, people RSVP for things without any real intent to attend them. For example, the first of my "Second Sunday" masses last September, I asked people to RSVP so I would know how much food to provide. I had over 40 people promise to come, however only 15 people actually came. I had all this extra food (and expense) but no one to enjoy it. I managed to turn it into a blessing as I took nearly a dozen pizzas to the Union Gospel Mission to feed the homeless, but it also cost the church quite a bit of money.

Punctuality is really about balance and organization, but it is also a matter of respect for those who have us over to their homes for hospitality.

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WORD OF THE WEEK: Hospitality (Middle English from French/Latin hospitalis: to host.)

Hospitality is the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers. In Benedictine spirituality hospitality has always been a element of the holy and religious life.

In a monastery, there is a monk (or a rotating schedule of several monks) whose job is simply to welcome guests, show them where they need to go, and to see that their stay is enjoyable.

In the Bible, God's people (the Jews as well as ourselves!) were taught to be good hosts to those sojourners (travellers) who came among them, as they too were once sojourners in the wilderness. "19 Love the sojourner therefore; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt." -Deuteronomy 10:19. The basic tenet here is simply the golden rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Why wouldn't we want this as a cornerstone of our lives? Why wouldn't we want to be good hosts to our friends, as well as good guests? Once again, I've found that being a good guest blesses me. When I come to someone's house for a dinner, and I come on time, we find that everyone enjoys themselves, and we all look forward to doing it again at someone else's house next time. But if we're constantly late, the host ends up making food for a table without guests. After a while they stop inviting us. Fortunately, God never stops inviting us to his table, but this is only due to his divine mercy and compassion, forgiving us our negligence. Friends aren't always as forgiving.

In our baptisms, we all promise to keep the commandments, which include WEEKLY attendance at Church. This is what is meant by the 4th Commandment:

"8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; 11 for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it." Exodus 20:8-11

If you RSVP with God and don't show up, what does that say of our promises? What does it say of our relationship?

Hospitality is always a matter of generosity, not only to our friends, but to guests and complete strangers. That generosity usually comes at a cost, which may often mean that some of our friends will come late, or not at all. But the payoff, the benefit of the generosity is the company of good friends who come together, and the blessing of meeting new people and expanding our families to include those who are otherwise strangers.

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Since this is my first post after a summer hiatus, instead of giving you a BOOK OF THE WEEK, I'm going to tell you about my summer, and my summer reading.

This summer was intensely busy for me. It always seems so easy to schedule hings to keep busy during the summer, but even so much as a week away from the parish leaves a lot to be done when I get back.

CAMP CRUCIS

The first major thing I did this summer was to spend a week out a Camp Crucis with the Sr. High crowd of 10th-12th graders and the summer staff. This summer's session was incredible! I was asked to write the curriculum for camp this year, so I took it a bit more seriously than in years past. I always try to prepare a lot of good things to offer for the session I teach, but this year I had the added responsibility of trying to prepare resources for the entire summer, although, I never know for sure if they were used or not! The theme was "Praying through the year with Jesus" and it was about looking at the life of Christ as we remember it in the Church year, but not so much to develop liturgical rhythms, but rather to learn to spend our lives with Christ, sharing in his joyful and trying moments, and to be resurrected with him again and again as we fall throughout our lives.

I also had a sub-program which was to walk around camp asking the kids questions from Trivial Pursuit cards (Genus Edition). Whomever got the most cards each day won a Star Wars Pez dispenser. The competition got pretty rough, but all told, we had some great interactions.

NASHOTAH HOUSE

About a week after I got back from that, I went back to Nashotah House for 2 weeks of Summer Schooling in my Doctor of Ministry Program. Last year Nashotah was nice and cool, and I had one very demanding class, and one more relaxed class. This year, it was incredibly hot and humid, and I had two well balanced classes.

One class was with Dean Kevin Martin of the Diocese of Dallas, who is an expert in Church Development. This class was great as I got to hear from others, but also research techniques in developing the life of the parish along with the potential growth of the parish. The books I read for this class were:

The Myth of the 200 Barrier: How to Lead Through Transitional Growth by Kevin Martin

5 Keys for Church Leaders: Building a Strong, Vibrant, and Growing Church by Kevin Martin

44 Ways to Increase Church Attendance by Lyle Schaller

Assimilating New Members by Lyle Schaller

The Seven Day a Week Church by Lyle Schaller

I cannot recommend enough, especially to my clergy brethren, how much these books are worth your time, most especially Lyle Schaller's books. I've bought at least a half-dozen more of them to read when I get a little free time.

The second class I had was titled: Theological Anthropology through the Eyes of the Eastern Fathers. This class was taught by Fr. John Behr (pictured to the left), who is the Dean of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary in New York, but also among the greatest minds in the world just now in Patristic Studies. We read so much for this class, that I cannot list all of the articles, but suffice to say that I read a great deal from the Church Fathers.

The full texts I read were:

Dogmatic Treatises by St. Gregory of Nyssa

Against the Heresies by St. Irenaeus

On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ by St. Maximus the Confessor

The Mystery of Christ by John Behr

The Life of St. Antony by St. Athanasius the Great

In my final paper which I just turned in, I did a study on "Pleasure as the End of Appetite in the Life of St. Antony". This was a wonderful read, but I also encourage all of you to get an opportunity to read anything written by Fr. John Behr. He is a terrific writer, and a magnificent teacher. I was so blessed by my congregation this summer to get 2 weeks away for these studies.

Shortly after my return from Nashotah, in the midst of trying to do coursework and implement my studies to the parish life, I was on a Happening weekend, which took up a lot of time, but it is ALWAYS worth it.

After that, I took a while to try to catch up on work, and I took a short vacation at home. I got a lot done, but it seems there is still more lingering from my summer even though it' well over now. I finished the cedar armoire I was refinishing, I made 2 new mirrors, wrote 2 papers, and got organized both at the home and the office. Unfortunately, it was still too hot to get much done in the garage, but I did get a good coupe of days of projects in before the heat of the mid-day 100's that plagued us through August.

Anyhow, that was essentially my summer. This "Back to school" time has me running ragged, but it has been very fruitful, and we're starting to see a lot of visitors here at the Church, as well as some wonderful new families. I welcome the routine of the school year, but I suppose my trouble is in still trying to reconcile all of the things I started in the summer time. There are also more pictures to be found on my facebook page (www.facebook.com/FrJon) if you want to see more of beautiful Nashotah House or the pictures from happening. I don't have many camp pictures, but I've seen that tehy're available somehow through the website: www.campcrucis.org

So, WELCOME BACK! I had a great summer, but there's always more to do. . Let's get into a routine together, and perhaps we'll be fruitful as we grow in our knowledge and love of God!

In Christ,

Fr. Jon+

The 31st Dose: Waking Up and Finding Sanctuary

2010-04-30T17:13:00.009-05:00

Welcome back from a time of Rest...well, at least MY time of rest.

It feels like it's been a month since I've written anything on here, and for good reason: I finally took a much-needed vacation! And to be honest, although I only took off one week, it feels like my vacation was 3 weeks. Partially because I got some good time away and time moved slowly as I enjoyed long days of NOT WORKING! But it also felt longer because some of my people misunderstood when was taking off, so the week before my vacation, a lot of people assumed I was away and they didn't call me to interrupt my work, so I got a lot done! Then the week I got back, although I had a lot of work waiting for me, I really managed to knock it out in short order, so the week after my vacation was pretty easy too (with the exception of an unexpected series of sudden hospital calls when I normally write the blog, so I missed last week as well).

As I said in my Easter post, Lent was VERY good for me. I really put a lot of bad things behind me: bad behaviors (sarcasm), lingering history, lingering pain and anxiety, and I finally moved on from a funk I'd been in since our parish troubles a year ago. I also taught a class on the history of monasticism and how we can apply their experience to our daily lives, which was also good for me from a perspective of study and class preparation, but it also took a lot out of me. So once I finally made it to Easter, I had no more anxiety, no more depression, no more classes to teach, and I came out of it with some good tools to really rebuild my life. Not to mention, I got a new companion in my awesome dog Eamon!

But even though all of that was behind me and I had some good things going, I WAS BEAT! I was tired. I was thoroughly exhausted from the teaching, extensive prayer, self-examination, study, and whatnot...and so I simply came out of Easter feeling really good, but completely spent of energy.

This week, I feel as though I'm finally waking up from Lent, Vacation, and all of the things I've overburdened myself with over the last few months. I want to reiterate that I'm coming out from under a burden I put on MYSELF.

The weight of life's burdens can be a most heavy load to carry. As some of you can imagine, I usually carry a lot of other people's burdens too, but that hasn't been (at least from my perspective) the weight that I've set down. The burdens I've had most trouble laying down are things I put on myself to stretch who I am, further my mind, and truly things that kept me busy at a time when I didn't want to get out into the world. I just wanted to bury myself in work, and I COMPLETELY succeeded at that!

When I get upset, and this has been true since my youth, I pour myself into some kind of work. When I was in college, there were many times when I was angry with someone, with my job, with my schedule, or with a girl; and when I get angry, I get restless--literally, I don't get any rest. I toss and turn all night. And so I usually decide that if I'm going to be awake I might as well get some work done.

In art college, this meant that my friends found me in the studio day after day between 2 and 5am working hard at completing some project because I really had nothing else to do and I was insomniated and angry. I do very well at taking out my anger in WORK. There were months when the ceramics professor LOVED me because I was not only available, I was eager to take the overnight watches on the kilns which none of the non-art majors would take, essentially meaning he was pleased that I was responsible enough to look after the kilns in the middle of the night when anything and everything can go wrong if you're not attentive, and I was actually qualified and eager to take the night shifts.

This past Lent was similar to that time. Many a night you could have found me in the office at 3am working on Holy Week services or writing a lent program lesson or a sermon. In fact, one of my parishioners sent me a text message at 3am about her mother dying, and I responded with a call in under 30 seconds. I was available to make a call to the hospital within 15 minutes because I was already awake and alert when that family needed me most.

But the inevitable result of not sleeping is exhaustion. It eventually catches up with you.

The work was good for me on a spiritual level, and it helped me get through my angst, but it also left me really tired and in a dire need for rest. We all need rest.

I can't tell you how many people I meet in public who don't go to Church because they want a day to sleep in. Of course when I mention that they offer church on Saturday night and Sunday night as well, they're seemingly still unable to find the time. They usually say something like: "I'm just so tired, and I need that one day to rest."

And I COMPLETELY agree! That's why God gave us a Sabbath: a day of worship and a day of rest. There's a reason we don't ask you to do push-ups on Sunday morning: it's supposed to be restful! Worship is restful. The act of leaving home, coming to a sanctuary, and bringing your troubles to God so to LEAVE THEM BEHIND is a wonderful gift of rest and refreshment. If you go to Church every week and you're not leaving behind your anxieties and/or your gift of thanksgiving to God for all he provides you, I really think you should consider that you probably haven't experienced the Sabbath as God intended!

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Word of the WEEK: Sanctuary (Middle English from Latin sanctuarium: sanctus=holy + sancire= consecrated or "set aside")

Sanctuary has 3 meanings, the last of which has to do directly with the Church itself, although we will see how the others do in some way as well:

1. A place of refuge or safety

2. A nature reserve (i.e. bird sanctuary)

3. A holy place, temple, or church (also used to define the innermost holy places of a Church)

Although the 3rd definition here has to do with the church itself, the 1st and 2nd definitions come from the Medieval Church period in which fugitives were not allowed to be arrested in churches, so they would come and hide in the sanctuaries.

But more importantly that that, I think you should all consider that the first definition has EVERYTHING to do with YOU! You typically are a fugitive in need of a safe place. The outside world is constantly looking to attack your morals, question your beliefs, break down your family values, seek 90% of your money (instead of 10%), an ALL of your attention, your love, and above all, your will. YOU ALL NEED A PLACE TO GET AWAY from that bombardment on your lives!

This is what the Church offers you: a holy (sanctus=holy) place to get away (sancire=consecrated place which is set apart from the rest of the world). You need a holy place to get away from all of the UN-holy places that demand your time, treasure, and attention.

Think of it this way: there's nothing in the Church to distract you from your time of rest with God EXCEPT what you bring into it. There are no phones in the Church except the ones you bring in. There is no Internet access in the Church unless you bring it. There is no television...and so on. The Sanctuary is a HOLY place that is SET APART for you to come and get away so to find sanctuary, safety, rest, relaxation, relief from running around, working, and turning yourself in circles.

However, the greatest trouble with sanctuary is usually ourselves or other people. When we get to Church we begin to treat it like the rest of the world. When we see friends we want to talk, chat, converse, and carry on all the business that we do everywhere else. Here's another fun fact: there are no voices in Church except the ones you provide. The Church is a place to come and listen as well as praise God.

One of the Churches I attended in High School was St. Barnabas in Garland. They had printed on the door as well as on the front of their bulletin: "Before the service speak to God; during the service let God speak to you; after the service speak to each other."

So many people come to Church and depart feeling as though they heard nothing from God. But then I often challenge them to ask themselves honestly, "Did you ask him anything, and then did you listen for the answer? Or did you spend the whole time whispering to your neighbor about so-and-so on the 3rd pew with the funny looking hat?"

You all need a day of rest. You all need a place to leave your burdens behind. you all need to be attentive to making your Church a place of quiet so others can converse with God. And above all, you need to renew your purpose for being there through an act of worship: to give to God your love, your thanks (this includes the first fruits of your labor which is your tithe= 1/10th of your income as a sign of trust that God will provide for you), and you need to give him your burdens and ask him to bear them with you.

If you go to a sanctuary for quiet and only fill it with noise, what are you doing there?

If you go to a sanctuary for relief, but don't actually ask God to help, what are you doing there?

If you go to a sanctuary to GIVE your life, will, and treasure to God but don't actually leave any of those things behind there for God to enjoy and use as he will, what are you doing there?

God's sanctuary is open to everyone, even fugitives, but it has a purpose, and that purpose is to be a place of REST, REFRESHMENT, and the RESURRECTION of SOULS.

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Well, welcome back to regular blog posts. I've finally had some rest, and so I should be pretty regular at writing once again.

As an added bonus, here's a recent picture of myself with my dog Eamon. This is also going to be the picture I give my Momma for Mother's Day (it's what she asked for).

Thank you to all of those who let me get rest, and to those of you who have been supportive to me through this time of refreshment of my own soul. I thank you for your laxity in letting me off a week or two there, and I hope this return to weekly doses does you some good. After all, we need sanctuary EVERY week, not just once in a while or when the family is in town for a holiday.

God bless you all!

Fr. Jon+

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The 30th Dose: Resurrection AT LAST!

2010-04-09T18:07:00.005-05:00

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

We've finally arrived in Easter, and things are also finally slowing down for me. Holy Week, the last week of Lent leading up to Easter Sunday, is mentally and physically exhausting. I apologize to all of my faithful readers who missed a post from me last week, but let's just say I was thoroughly occupied with a visiting church joining us for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. I intended to write while things were slow on Good Friday, but then a few hospital calls sprung up, so my free time was no longer free.

Anyhow, I'm not going to say much this week. My big news, aside from celebrating the Resurrection of our Lord and of my own soul through this most difficult Lent, is simply that I have a new member of the family.

On Maundy Thursday, I got news that a dog I was looking to take ownership of this past Monday was given to someone else. Just before that time, my friend Rachel was trying to convince me to look at getting a Border Collie (they're typically the dogs you see on TV chasing frisbees around). So in my frustration over looking forward to this new idea of having a dog, I finally took everyone else's suggestion that I look on petfinder.com. So I did, and I searched for a Border Collie in the area.

Most of the dogs I found were in peripheral country towns, or at least an hour away from Ft. Worth (in the North Dallas area), but there was one at the Animal Shelter in SE Ft. Worth, so I clicked the link to look at his pictures, and he looked great. I called the shelter, but of course they wouldn't tell me if he was there since they have to work on a "first-come, first served" basis. So I hauled my Jeep on over there and found that he had not been adopted yet, although he was going to be adopted that afternoon by a couple that worked there who volunteer with Border Collie Rescue outside of the shelter (he was about to be euthanized). For him, it was a liberation from a near death sentence, which is what Jesus offers each one of us every day.

Anyhow, I adopted my new friend Eamon, who is just over a year old according to his vet. He's about 30 pounds, VERY energetic, and very VERY smart! He had a cold when I got him, so the Doctor gave me some meds. Now that he's getting over his runny nose and cough, he's got even MORE energy than I know what to do with. He already knows how to sit, lie down, stay, come, and he's all about fetching things. I've even taught him to wait for me to tell him to "go get it" before he chases whatever I throw for him. Now we're working on giving high-fives, roll over, and other such tricks.

So, that's my news.

I suppose my holy thought for this week, as I prepare to take a LONG OVERDUE VACATION next week (I won't be blogging next week either) is simply this: If your Lent was good, purgative, cathartic, and spent humbly examining your life for the removal of sin and the increase of virtue, then you don't need anything more from me this week than a "Congratulations" for your terrific feeling of renewal as we've finally come out of Lent.

But if you don't have that feeling, if Easter wasn't any different for you, or if you really don't feel resurrected, then I suppose my question for you is: "What went wrong?" If you don't know, then email me, and let me know what's going on with your life, or go see your priest, pastor, or whatnot, and let them explore what's going on with your life. If you feel like my dog, having come out of a terrible place, but still with a case of "kennel cough" even after you're free... go and see your Doctor of Souls (=your Priest) and get yourself a prescription for new life.

Keep your eyes on the goal of resurrection, and out of the pound. Even if you have no Church- Home, someone out there is looking to adopt you! Maybe someone needs to create http://www.soulfinder.com/ so you can be adopted. (If this website actually exists and is something illicit, I was making it up!).

Maybe you're going to have to work a little at finding yourself a good home, or maybe you already have one...and you just ran away. Maybe you have a home, but need to learn a few tricks involving obedience. "Sit, STAY, be good." You know...the basics.

Praise God for the Resurrection of his Son this week. I praise him for my resurrection time and time again, for a long needed week off, for my new son (dog) Eamon, and above all for the love and support of many good friends who have seen me though another hard time in my life.

God Bless you all. Enjoy a week off from ME!!!

Fr. Jon+

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The 29th Dose: Finding Stability in an Unstable World

2010-03-28T21:52:00.005-05:00

I find it somewhat ironic, or perhaps just a little hypocritical, that I'm writing about STABILITY in a week when my life is just about anything but stable!

Not that my life is out of control or dangerous, or anything like that, it's just that this week my schedule has been so busy that some of the normal routines have been put on hold for transient things like Lent Programs, Parish Clean-up day, and getting ready for Holy Week which is a week full of services counting down the last days of the life of Jesus that began today with Palm Sunday.

One of the elements of stability in our lives is keeping important things on schedule and on time...such as: meals, prayers, sleep, and work. And here I am writing this Blog a full 3 days after it's scheduled appearance. But life does that sometimes, and I think it's good when we can catch up before things get completely off-track.

So, for this final post following my Lenten Series, let's talk about stability and establishing a "Rule of Life" for ourselves to try to bring your lives more stability, and hopefully thereby, more peace.

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SEEKING STABILITY

All communities, all families, and all organizations require one thing to maintain a healthy life and to advance their work together, and that one thing is STABILITY.

Stability encourages us to be on time to work together, to have common times away from work to relax, rest, and balance our personal lives, and to learn to work together while also leaving time for us to be alone, or with those we love.

Characteristics of a community that build stability:

Establish structure of leadership (Who is the boss, manager, department head, and so on...)
Define responsibility of those in leadership.
Define expectations of those in the community (duties to community, chores, job descriptions, and etc.).
Establish commonly agreed upon rules.
Establish schedule of daily life (Start times, stop times, meals, work, study, prayer, sleep).
Establish times designated for rest, silence, or other private time (breaks, vacations, days off).
Define the penalties for those who break the rules.
Establish a structure of how to handle or discuss conflicts when they arise.

All of these details set up the basic governance of a community, but do not necessarily mean that the community will work well. We must also add to this structure the ideals that make it holy and virtuous.

Characteristics that promote holiness:

Setting a time to worship or pray together as a first priority.
Showing hospitality to others living or working in the house.
Showing hospitality to those who visit.
Giving time to allow private study of the Bible or other good resources.
Provide opportunity for group study of similar materials.
Establish opportunities to serve the community or those in need.
Establish opportunities to serve our Church, and expectations of giving.
Working to make everyone else in the house/team prosper by showing humility.

Characteristics of Humility:

holy fear of God
repression of self-will
submission of the will to superiors
obedience in hard and difficult matters
confession of faults
acknowledgment of one's own weaknesses
preference of others to self

avoidance of singularity

speaking only in due season

stifling of unseemly laughter (laughter at the expense of others)

repression of pride

Each business, community, or family has it’s own rules which will go above these details depending on their state of life and needs of the community. Sometimes groups will establish incentive programs as a reward for good work. Some families offer their children allowances with expectations of a tithe to the Church. Each group will have things that will come in to establish structure at one point in their life as a family which will eventually fade into the maturity of the community. But ALL of these things work together to establish STABILITY among those with whom we work, study, and pray, and most especially among those we love.

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Now, as for a Rule of Life--most communities with any common holy purpose, be they monasteries, the Episcopal Men's Group known as "The Brotherhood of St. Andrew," or the Women's Prayer Group "Daughters of the King," or any of the various other groups bound by a common holy discipline usually require that we live up to a certain "Rule of Life" in order to have balance or stability in our daily lives AND our life with God.

All of these kinds of groups center their members' lives around the healthy balance of 3 categories: PRAYER, STUDY, and WORK (or Service). These groups have found that to have a good balance in these three areas leads to a good balance of personal life, life with others (especially family), and a life lived with God.

So as an exercise for yourself, I ask you to look at the following categories, and to take a blank piece of paper, and define for yourself what your discipline for your own life will be. These categories will change year after year, so copy and paste this entire section to a document and save it for future adjustments.

What works for me might not work the same for you. But unless you establish a rule, a standard, an expectation for yourself, you'll never have anything to challenge you to do better, or to find this balance.

PRAYER--This should include DAILY personal prayer time, not just the time you spend in Church on Sunday with your Church-family.

I will pray…

In the morning, before I begin my day

At mid-day, perhaps during lunch.

In the afternoon when I get home from school/work

Before I go to bed

With my friends/family at _________________________

When I’m by myself and can share my day with God

Add your own…

STUDY--This area of your life should include not only your professional studies (School, college, work) but also your personal study time. The time you spend studying the Bible or other Holy Books and Resources for the nourishment of your soul. You will not learn it all on Sunday Morning!

I will study…

I will set aside time to study my Bible___________________

I will study with a Group of friends ____________________

I will begin reading a chapter a day from ________________

I will do my homework ______________________________

I will turn off the TV and read from _________ to _________

I will tutor ________________________________________

I will make time to read for leisure _____________________

Add your own…

WORK/SERVICE--This should include not only the work you do for employment, or chores around the house, but the time you give in service to others. One thing you will probably not learn on Sunday morning is the benefit from serving your fellow man. We learn this by DOING it.

I will work…

I will work (job) ________________

I will set aside _______________ time to do my chores.

I will do ____________ as my parents/roommates/Spouse need(s) me to ______________________

I will volunteer to serve ________ every (week/month/quarter/year) ___________________

I will give of my time to help my (siblings/family/friends) to ____________________

I will set aside some time to do work/exercise for myself _______________________

Add your own…

This exercise should be done or checked in on frequently, but no less than 2 times a year. Lent and Advent are two good times to re-evaluate ourselves to make sure we are keeping up our spiritual disciplines.

As we head into the last week of Lent, this would be a good time to evaluate what it is you do with your life, find what's missing in the balance, and replace it with some small step toward finding that stability. Many of us work, and work, and work, and try to squeeze in study or prayer when we find time. Some students study a ton, but don't find much time for prayer after they are already struggling to squeeze in work. But all three are necessary, although they need not all take the same amount of equal time. Prayer can be most successful when we make time for a small does of it at the beginning of our day to set the tone of our entire day, and then perhaps a small prayer of thanks at the end of the day to look back on what we've done and make an effort to do better tomorrow and learn from our mistakes.

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So, I leave you all to a fresh week, asking your forgiveness for my tardiness, but commending you to make this a good Holy Week beginning with a brief look at yourself, and trying to fill the void wherever it is.

God bless you all. Have a good week. I can't promise that this week's blog will be on time either, but I'll give it my best shot!

Fr. Jon+

The 28th Dose: March MADNESS!!

2010-03-18T21:34:00.007-05:00

March Madness is ON!!!

But that’s not all that’s going MAD!

We are IN the “Ides” of March, and people are most certainly getting stir-crazy. Our prolonged winter, combined with the continual spells of rain have most of my friends wanting to get out more, although being hindered by cold, rain, and other obligations.

Everyone wants to get out of the house, take a walk, go to the park, or take a vacation, but even vacations spots aren’t looking all that attractive at the moment. Of course, when you add to this the natural law of crazy things going on at the turn of the full-moon AND throw in a random party holiday like St. Patrick’s Day, which always falls in the middle of this month, you really never know what will happen next!

After all, that’s what the warning about the “Ides of March” is really all about. In the play Julius Caesar, Caesar is warned to “Beware the Ides of March.” In Roman culture, the middle of March was a time of celebration to Mars, the God of war. When people have war on the mind, and the booze is flowing freely, it might just be a good time to stay in and watch some basketball. If only Julius Caesar had a NCAA tournament to watch, he might have lasted a bit longer!

Temptation is always waiting for us outside, but even moreso when we are tempted to get out of the house by a sense of “cabin fever.” Lately, the weather has been tempting us with days that are lovely, beginning with a cool dew, reaching an apex at just under 70 degrees, and concluding with cool evenings occasionally interrupted by rain or cold fronts. But there’s more to it than just the weather. The grass is just starting to come out of dormancy; the weeds have certainly made their debut. My neighbors are already looking at me funny for mowing a yard that’s mostly grey, but I’ve got to keep those weeds under control until the soil temperature is warm enough for my weed killer to work.

We are all eager for our worlds to “get back to life,” but something is keeping us back. What is it?
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WORD of the WEEK: Reviviscence (Latin. reviviscere = “to come to life again”)

This term might be new to many of you, but I guess that’s why I do this! Reviviscence is a term used in sacramental theology to signify that a sacrament administered once, but was perhaps rendered ineffective due to the resistance of the recipient, may take effect later when the resistance is removed.

All sacraments are permanent changes that cannot be undone. But there is often a case for argument as to whether the sacrament was ever real in the first place due to an obex or impediment. But sometimes everything seemed to go as planned, but the effect wasn't as full as expected.

For example, we only baptize people once, but it can be the case that the person who has received the sacrament of baptism may not have had true faith in it, and so the spiritual graces that normally accompany baptism may be counteracted by the resistance of the individual who acts contrary to the holiness and indwelling of the Holy Spirit which they have received. However, that doesn’t always mean that the sacrament wasn’t real, or that God cannot continue to work good things in them. It just means that they get in the way of their own grace.

When we ask God for his graces, and yet do not open ourselves up for them to work in us, they tend to lay dormant, waiting for us to call upon them again. This is not only limited to Baptism.

Often people who have received the sacrament of Marriage were far more focused on other things at the time of the wedding, and perhaps weren’t completely attuned to the spiritual works being done in them by God at the wedding. Perhaps they were more focused on their nervousness, where they were supposed to stand, what they were supposed to say, or any of the many other distractions that come with important moments in life. But perhaps later, when things calm down, and perhaps we encounter our first fight, argument, or big trouble in a marriage, the grace of God is waiting there to be uncovered, rekindled, and there is a reviviscence of the sacramental marriage—the Godly, grace-filled aspect that gives us the fortitude to keep our commitments, and the strength to stick together in hard times.

Other sacraments are often also hindered by our reluctance to approach them honestly or with true intentions. We often take the Lord’s Supper/Holy Eucharist for granted, and don’t give it our full attention each and every time we receive it. St. Paul warns us against such things in 1 Cor. 11. However, the more attentive we are to what we receive, the more our soul responds to the grace and it heals us, nourishes us, and gives us a closer bond with the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus and his actual presence with our soul.

And of course, neither last nor least, there’s Confession. If we make a confession to our Priest, or to God, knowing full well that we’re holding something back, we refuse to let go of our sin and try to really give it up for good, or we simply struggle with a sin so much that it seems to linger even after we’ve tried to confess it. Then, if we hold on to it, the sacrament cannot work it’s full effect, unless…sometime shortly after, we realize what’s holding us back, and we finally LET IT GO! In this case, we’ve already asked for forgiveness, God has granted us absolution, but the restorative reviviscence of the sacrament can bring us to new places of divine grace after we let go of sin, and LET GOD REDEEM US and RESURRECT US!

NOW is a time to look for the things we’re still holding on to. Now is a time to look at how much benefit we’re getting out of the enormous benevolence of God that is waiting for us anew each morning. Are you taking advantage of the gifts you’re being offered, or are you content playing with your same old broken toys?
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Since I’m not sure that many of you read books much anymore, I guess I can change up this category from time to time toward things you might rent and watch on a DVD player instead of buying, reading, and enjoying the benefit of the many books I suggest you pick up. Besides, I guess 52 books a year is a lot to ask!

MOVIE of the WEEK: Hoosiers, Starring Gene Hackman, Barbara Hershey, and Dennis Hopper.
Since I’ve got basketball on the mind, I just HAVE to suggest that you watch this film for the first time, or re-rent this film, which I think is among the greatest sports films of all time, and arguably the best basketball film ever made.

I suggest this film, along with my theme of reviviscence, because it embodies in so many different characters the theme of resurrection by means of getting back to the basics and taking away the things that distract us from our purest and most noble intentions.

The coach is resurrecting a career he loved and left behind for a while due to a mistake. The team is resurrecting their fundamentals of basketball to counteract the pride they’ve had over being more o a group of individual talent rather than a cohesive team. “Shooter,” who is father to one of the boys on the team, is resurrecting his very life from alcoholism in pursuit of reviving his relationship with his son.

This whole film is based on a true story, and is a perfect film to get you as excited as I am about the NCAA March Madness tournament.

Also, as another bonus feature, I suppose I’ll admit in advance that I’m rooting for Kansas as I have for the last 5 years. It paid off 2 years ago, and they were knocked out last year. I also think it’ll be Duke over Kentucky by a narrow margin, but Kansas will take it all at the end. Go Jayhawks!
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Well, that’s all for this week. Learn to “let go and let God”, and see what changes in your life. I think it’ll be a change for the better, and you’ll appreciate what it means to really grow closer to someone else by letting go of yourself for a while.

Have a good week!
Fr. Jon+

The 27th Dose: Offering Yourself to God Without Quitting Your Day Job

2010-03-11T19:47:00.009-06:00

This week, as we've now passed the half-way mark in our Lent together, I want to talk to you about a particular manner of giving that is also good for YOU.

Most of the time, our sacrifices, our charity, and our love is given to the benefit of others, but it is seldom returned. People sometimes are appreciative of our gifts, while others take them for granted, or just assume they deserve to receive your love and assistance without returning so much as a "Thank you." Much of a minister's life is thankless, and I know it's also true of those who give the most of their time (more so than money) to charities. In fact, it seems to be that most people who continually give of themselves really don't expect thanks, but will admit that it's such a great gift of validation when "thanks," appreciation, or love are returned.

This is part of the reason I enjoy hospital calling so much. I also love calling on those who are stuck at home, in nursing homes, or rehab hospitals. These folks tend to be VERY appreciative just to talk to someone who is not a nurse, doctor, or someone who is only there to poke them, prod them, or otherwise ask them "How are you doing?" without any real interest in hearing an answer that pertains to how they are doing spiritually, personally, or even emotionally. Usually when a Doctor asks, "How are you doing?" they are primarily concerned with your pain & suffering, or the management thereof.

There are a few health care professionals out there who are truly concerned with their patients' entire well being and comfort...however most fall into the daily grind of feeding, bathing, and giving patients their pills. So when I arrive at these places, the people love the opportunity to talk to someone who is ready to listen. In fact, I find that most people in this world just want someone to listen to them for a few minutes a day. Can you imagine what IMMENSE GOOD you could do in this world just by asking that question and listening to the answer?! What an offering!

There is another kind of offering that is always good for us, it always serves our souls well, and yet it is safe to say that few people take advantage of this opportunity.

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WORD of the WEEK: Oblation (Latin. oblatio = "offering, gift")

In the context of the Mass (Holy Eucharist/Lord's Supper liturgy), we speak of Jesus offering himself as an oblation for the sins of the world. In this context, it is also a matter of sacrifice, but a sacrifice which earns something. In the case of Jesus' life, his oblation paid for the sins of the world. It cost him his life, but gained so much more for others.

In the context of my Lenten series, this root takes another form in the word "Oblate." An Oblate is someone who offers themselves to God by committing to a Rule of Life, without taking full monastic vows. Throughout the entire history of monasticism, there have ALWAYS been normal lay people hanging around Monks and Nuns, longing to learn something of their holiness, their connection to God, and their way of life which has apparently led them to some inner peace. (The picture is of an oblate medallion of one Benedictine Order)

In some cases, the Monks would come out of their caves, come down from their mountains (St. Antony in Egypt), or step outside of the walls of the Monastery in order to organize these "monk groupies" into some kind of structure that would be self-sufficient. This is even true today. Every order, whether they be Benedictines, Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, or many others...tend to have far more Oblates than actual monks or nuns. Even in Ft. Worth, there is at least one order of Benedictine Oblates which meet once a month to share a meal, hear a teaching on the Rule of St. Benedict, and pray together. These people commit themselves to follow a rule which pretty much commits them to daily prayer, Bible Study, and a quality of life that tends to lead to inner peace and peace among their neighbors.

You don't have to "give up your day job" to be one of these Oblates either. You merely have to examine your life, commit yourself to a structure (mostly of your own making), and come together from time to time to learn how to grow in virtue, one virtue at a time. (If you're interested in something like this, contact Mrs. Julia Smead at St. Barnabas' Church in Ft. Worth).

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BOOK of the WEEK: How to Be a Monastic and Not Leave Your Day Job by Benet Tvedton

This is a book I came across a few weeks ago, and once I bought it I read it fairly quickly. It's not a difficult read at all, nor is it very long, but it gives a good introduction to what this whole Oblate life thing is really all about, along with all of the "Frequently Asked Questions".

I was most interested to learn just how many societies of oblates are in existence in the US alone, and how diverse they are in structure. Even if you don't want to formally commit yourself to this sort of a life, but want a little more structure in your life, buy the Rule of St. Benedict I spoke of last week, and then also pick up this book. Who wouldn't like to get their life a little more in order in a truly holy way?

God Calls us all to offer him our love, our worship, and to serve our brothers and sisters in this world. Perhaps we could learn a little more about how to perfect our outlook on this vocation.

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Well, that's all from me for this week. The pressures of Holy Week preparations are already looming, and my mind is a bit overloaded this week.

God Bless you all on the down-slope of this Lenten Season! I hope and pray you're sticking to your Lenten disciplines!

Blessings,

Fr. Jon+

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The 26th Dose: Finding Stability in a Hectic Life

2010-03-05T16:25:00.005-06:00

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I'd be mirroring my Lenten Program with this blog, and so this week I'm teaching about the development of Benedictine Spirituality.

Perhaps a simpler way of saying this is to first ask a question:

How do we live a Christian life that is well balanced between life as an individual, life at home with family, life in a Christian Community, and then life in public, which is definitely not always Christian?

Some people handle this by compartmentalizing their lives so much that they have a different persona (persona = mask) that they put on in these 4 contexts:

A. There's the persona they speak to in their own head, that is to say our inner monologue, the person WE think we are, and the person we talk to when we're thinking things out in our own minds. We all do this.

B. Then there's the persona they put on as a part of a family, which is also varied in different contexts: sometimes a man might be a dad, brother, son, husband, and so on.

C. There are some people who put on a whole different persona in public, especially at Church when we have to be a role model or simply want to have people think we belong there. This too can change from being an anonymous face in the Church, toward being a Bible Study Leader, Sunday school teacher, vestry member, and any of the other dozen jobs that are filled by lay-people in a church.

D. Lastly, there is our public persona, the face we put on in public which can also be different depending on who we are engaging, be it at work, school, on a bus, sitting in a restaurant, the way be behave on a first date vs. date 24, and the list goes on and on.

When we compartmentalize our lives, we can often find that in some cases we can be very artificial, while in other ways we can be very genuine. It's difficult to have a consistent persona or mask that fits all occasions, especially when we want to look confident when we're actually quite nervous, or when we have to be a little tough to "be the boss" in a certain situation, when we'd much rather just be nice to everyone. Although it'd be nice to be a consistently kind and gentle loving person to everyone, just as we are to our own children or loved ones, life has it's dangers and needs, and so we adapt to fill those needs, depending on who we're dealing with. Not everyone we meet in public is very nice.

So, can we be genuine and have a consistent Christian persona in all contexts? I think we can, but it's not easy.

As you can imagine, wearing a Priest's collar in public attracts all kinds, but it also lets people know who I am, and for my own sake, it even establishes certain expectations from those around me. I'd say it's actually easier to be a Christian in public as a Priest, because people immediately think certain things which work both to our advantage and disadvantage.

When someone sees me wearing this collar, some think, "He's got to be a nice guy, someone who is respectful, and someone who I should be nice to." Others think, "What is HE doing HERE? Aren't they supposed to be locked up after dark?" Sometimes people feel very guilty around me, which makes them also open up to be honest with me as a complete stranger, than they might be with another complete stranger or even a friend or loved one! But what I'm really getting at is this: I don't have to work as hard to defend my stance in public as many of you do. People assume I've got some standard of life, and so they don't usually try to talk me out of it. There have been a few exceptions in my life when someone has truly tried to "sell me" on their lifestyle or convince me to change mine for their comfort. But that's a 1 in 1,000 kind of a deal.

So, there's one problem: "How do we face the world and be consistent in our own daily spiritual life as we move from one context to the next?"

And associated with it is our second problem: "How do we find time to fit in all things? How do we live a balanced and healthy spiritual life as well as a social life?"

St. Benedict, whose rule was written around the year 540ad, was not merely trying to make a set of "house rules" for monks to live under in a single monastery. In fact, it appears that most of his work as a Monk, who himself was NOT a Priest, was with lay-people, which is to say, average folks. But even for those who wanted to live in a monastery and share a rule, they all faced this one same problem: they all came FROM the world, and so they all had the same problems! These problems are the same problems we all face...we want to be good and holy, and the world is full of temptation and distractions from this goal.

I encourage all of you to buy a copy of Benedict's Rule of Life, which is just 73 little "chapters" some of which are only a sentence or paragraph long, about how to live a balanced life. You might even be able to find it online for free.

Benedict's "Rule" which you can apply to your normal life, has everything to do with certain precepts: Prayer, work, community, hospitality, peace, obedience, stability, humility, stewardship, and poverty. But I think the most important of these is STABILITY. (After all, this is today's thought!)

Benedict spoke of those both in and out of the community to live a stable life, which is to say, one with balance. For Benedict, stability came from the careful balance of 3 things in the daily routine: WORK, STUDY, and PRAYER.

Many of you might find that you work an awful lot, but don't leave much time for study or prayer. Over the years, many monastic orders have struggled to find the right balance. some orders focused heavily on making their monks pray more and work less. Others were heavy on manual labor, while leaving specific times in the day for regular prayer, as well as setting aside time for Study (which in the early days was copying Bibles or decorating manuscripts).

In my life, I find that I get quite a bit of study, and plenty of prayer, but I often long to do some manual labor. I love nothing more than a full day off with good temperatures and good humidity so I can build something in my garage, get covered in sawdust, and at the end of the day feel as though I've accomplished something tangible.

So how do YOU get that? What are YOU lacking? Work, Study, or Prayer?

One of the things Benedict talks about in establishing stability is having a regular schedule. Often, lay people tell me that they get a lot of work done in a day, but they have a hard time squeezing in study or prayer. And I think the trouble is simply that, they haven't MADE a regular time to do them. Most people who succeed at studying the Bible do so because they attend a scheduled Bible Study with other people at a set time and place. Those who have a very active prayer life do so because they have a SET TIME to stop what they're doing and to pray. The same is true for me. I have a set time for morning and evening prayer and I make extra times in other parts of my day as needed.

This ideal of stability can apply to other good things for your family too--things as simple as having breakfast or dinner set and ready to eat by the same time every day really balances out a family life together. If everyone knows that dinner WILL be ready at 6pm, and homework, tv time, telephone time, video game time,or whatever else is put on hold for that time together, it eventually just becomes a habit, and a family has a set moment each day to come together. You can also assign this tome for other things: bath time, homework time, play time, and etc. Stability is found best in regularity than in randomness. The reason people don't find time to pray when "nothing else is going on" is because, unless you set a time for it, you will always have something else going on, and so you will fill that time with other things.

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BOOKS of the WEEK: Benedictine Spirituality

Usually I just give you one, but today I'm going to give you 5:

The Rule of St. Benedict--simply the rule as it is and was, and will be, for all generations to read and enjoy the fruit of it's teaching. It's really not that long or expensive, and is WELL worth your investment. for over 1,500 years, millions of people have used it as a basis for a balanced life. It WILL WORK FOR YOU!

Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict by Esther De Waal is a wonderful book about delving deeper into ways to apply the rule to your life and to find a more Godly outlook on life in the process. She is an expert on Monastic orders, and can give you some insight on how to apply this rule to your life.

St. Benedict & St. Therese: The Little Rule and the Little Way by Dwight Longenecker--this is a text on spirituality that will especially appeal to those of you who aren't of a Catholic mind. Dwight Longenecker was a protestant who was raised by Mennonites and who was always taught that all things Roman were bad. In opening his studies to read the lives of St. Benedict and St. Theresa, he found something that deeply impacted his life in a way he didn't expect, and this is one of several books he has written about Benedictine Spirituality, most especially as it pertains to a child-like understanding of the spiritual life. This is a good book for parents.

Listen My Son: St. Benedict for Fathers by Dwight Longenecker--just as the title reads, this is for Fathers who want to lead their families in a balanced life following Benedictine principles.

The Family Cloister: Benedictine Wisdom for the Home by David Robinson--the title says it all.

I've been reading parts of all of these books over the last 2 months, and I can tell you they have deeply influenced even how I look at life as a leader of a Church family, but also about how I want to raise my own family someday. If you don't have SOME resource to improve the faith of your family's life together, I strongly encourage you to look into these books.

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Well, that's all for this week. I've had a very full week, and so I've been late in putting this article out.

I encourage all of you to endure these hard days of Lent as you continue to make sacrifices in preparation for Easter. If you haven't started, it's not too late. I pray you will all endure and receive your reward at Easter.

Blessings,

Fr. Jon+

The 25th Dose: Making Changes to Improve Life Together

2010-02-25T18:47:00.008-06:00

This week, I'm just happy to be alive!

Some of you might have heard, but in case you didn't, last week, as I was writing this blog, I was also getting VERY sick. Sometime Thursday I contracted a stomach virus which went to town on my insides. After 2 days of my bowels violently purging every ounce of liquid from my body I was eventually hospitalized Saturday night due to severe dehydration. But after that, once I was re-hydrated with 3 massive bags of IV fluids and a few doses of the right medicines, I was finally on the road to recovery.

And since I always have to tie things together in this blog, here is what I've taken from this experience that I want to talk about this week: when our bodies are infested with something that really doesn't belong, it gets rid of it!

In many theology books, some particular sins are frequently described as "besetting" which means they are more natural to our appetites and so we are drawn to commit these sins more than others. For example: lust & gluttony, and all their "friends". However, after re-reading a wonderful book during the Clergy retreat in January (Elements of the Spiritual Life by F.P. Harton), I have come to believe that no sins are besetting--TEMPTATIONS are! There are many things which tempt us, particularly the works and appetites of the flesh, which our bodies seem naturally drawn toward. These can be the most difficult sins to overcome, because we like them (on a mental level) AND our bodies seem to desire them. I've written of these troubles before.

But this week, I want to speak about one particular sin that plagues me, which is NOT natural to the appetite, and yet has been for me one of the most difficult to remove. It doesn't belong, and I've come to the conclusion that the ONLY solution is to purge it from my personality. In some ways, it appeals to the appetite for love and affection, however it more frequently has to do with a desire for attention.

Believe it or not, I think of myself as a somewhat introverted person (internal thinker) who has adapted well to a life that requires me to at times be an extrovert (outgoing personality). What I mean by that is, I'm a person who deeply values "alone-time" and privacy, however much of my work involves interacting with people in a very intimate way, and more than a few opportunities for public speaking and teaching (sermons, bible studies, forums, lent programs, and etc.). And I'll admit I also have my moments of loud, obnoxious behavior.

HOWEVER, despite my love for privacy and quiet time, I also at times crave attention. This isn't always a bad thing, but it depends on how you get or maintain that attention. I never feel bad for teaching a good Bible study, or fielding questions about the faith, or talking to strangers in public about God or the Church because "the collar" makes me a magnet for public attention. Those are decent pursuits. My great vice is sarcasm.

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Fr. Jon's Greatest Personality Flaw/Sin of the Past 2 Decades: SARCASM (French sarcasme or Latin/Greek sarcasmos= "to tear the flesh".)

In Greek, sarx is the root for "flesh," and although I'm not perfectly certain, it makes sense to me that the latter part chasmos has something to do with a gap, chasm, or otherwise deep separation or tearing, such as when the tectonic plates of the earth create something like the Grand Canyon by tearing the earth apart via an earthquake or something sudden and violently abrasive.

The full definition of sarcasm is: 1. a keen or bitter taunt, a cutting gibe or rebuke or 2. criticism, attack, or reproach of an ironical or sarcastic nature.

Lately, as I've been examining myself for things that cause me trouble in my personal and parish relationships, this one thing keeps popping up: I tend to be very sarcastic around other people, usually because I'm trying to be funny or amusing. However, when I get upset or frustrated with someone, I also tend to use that same sarcasm to indicate my frustration with them. Of course, when I've gone "over the line" I typically try to explain that "I'm only joking," but that's not always true. Sometimes I say sarcastic things to point out that someone has let me down, or fallen down on their duties, or are in some form or fashion less adept than I am at something. Essentially, I become guilty of breaking them down for my own intellectual enjoyment of word-play or cynicism, when I really should be stepping back from the anger and showing them a little more charity. Sarcasm is usually expressed most in demonstrating the assumed ignorance of others in a way that portends to be flattering.

I've always been a fan of word-play, in the sense that I like good conversations, and using one statement to mean two things. I've always made good friends among people who can "keep up with me" in the sense that they share my wit and occasional cynical remark, and talk about the world around us as though we were somehow above it all, because we payed more attention, or understood things better than everyone else. I've been guilty on many occasions of answering a question or talking about someone in a way that they really can't tell whether I'm flattering them or putting them down. Unfortunately, it's usually the latter.

Pride is the greatest of the deadly sins, because it encompasses so much. Pretty much any time we put ourselves before God or others, we have made some act of pride, and there are SO many things that we put before loving God, or being charitable to our neighbor. My own pride is the root of my problem. I've found myself saying more and more lately, "I'm sometimes too smart for my own good," which to me simply means, I let my pride for intellectual stimulation and the attention I get from it get in the way of my relationships with people who deserve my love. People often don't get my snide remarks, because they shouldn't...I'm being a JERK!

So, for this Lenten season, and hopefully FOR GOOD, I'm going to work to put this one away. It's only ever hurts my relationships with my friends and family to the point where a lot of people who don't know me well (and some who DO) simply think of me as a jerk, because at one point or another, my sarcasm tore into their flesh, and they didn't find it funny, or charming, or intellectually stimulating--they found it to be unnecessarily hurtful.

My goal for this Lent is to continue focusing on something I began to ponder around this time 4 years ago, which was this: When John the Baptist's ministry was coming to a close and it was time for Jesus to shine, John's disciples asked him what he was going to do now that the Messiah was here. John the Baptist's response was: "He must increase, and I must decrease."

As I was preparing for ordination (I was ordained Deacon on March 18th, 2006), I was thinking a lot on this passage. Many of the bad habits I carried with me through my college days and into Seminary were going to have to give sway, and eventually die. I was about to be set apart as a minister of God, a servant of God, someone who was to bring God's love to the world. And to succeed in that endeavor, something of MY foul-mouthed sarcastic bartender self was going to have to decrease, so the work of Christ in me and through me could increase.

I have renewed this prayer, and I ask you all to help me be accountable to it. We all need friends to keep us accountable, otherwise we end up alone, because we've wandered away from the path of love and charity, and on our own path. When we stray far enough, we might not find ourselves so alone, but rather with a crowd of people who are also lost and in need of redemption. These people are NOT usually the ones who will lead us back to the right path.

I want to be a better man, a better friend, a better Priest, and perhaps even a better candidate for a special someone who will vow to keep me around the rest of her life. But to get there, I must decrease and Jesus must increase. Harshness must decrease, and charity increase.

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BOOK of the WEEK: Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I think I've mentioned this author before, but to remind you all, Bonhoeffer was a Priest and prisoner in the Nazi Concentration Camps during World War II. This text is a book he wrote about living Life Together in peace, most especially in a tight community, when the world around you is hostile and seeks nothing more than to CHANGE YOU, or worse yet, to ELIMINATE your way of life from the face of the earth.

This week, as I begin my Lent program, we are talking about the early days of Christianity. In the first few years after Jesus ascended to Heaven, the Apostles and other Disciples of Jesus were very close communities of families and friends. As Jewish families were also very tightly inter-woven communities based on a common heritage of faith, so were the early Christian Communities. Being Christian in the early days was sometimes very dangerous, and the disciples and their families needed each other to support the spread of the Gospel (good news) of God's love for the whole world.

After Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit brought many more thousands of converts to the faith in understanding the Gospel of Jesus, the people desired nothing more than to remain in community. And so, the community supported one another. Everyone sold what they had, and they shared a common purse, common table, and the needs of ALL were met. We ALL need others to survive. If each one of us personally had to grow the crops, raise the livestock and fish, make our own clothes, build our own houses, and do all of the hundreds of other things we all need to survive in this world, we would likely not make it on our own. At least, we wouldn't thrive as well as we do in community. We trade and share resources and make our provisions stretch to meet the needs of everyone. Everyone has place, a talent, a trade, a gift, or a vocation to fill, and when we work together, we support each other more fully.

The early hermits, those pious men and women who wandered out into the desert to experience life without support, just as Jesus did as he was preparing himself in the wilderness before his ministry, often thought it better to remain by themselves out in the desert. Many people who really delve into the inner self to discover God often find themselves more at home when they are alone. Others simply find that they cannot return to the world for fear that it will corrupt the progress they have made in holiness. Hermits all have different reasons for reclusing themselves from the world, but always with the same result: they end up alone and eventually find themselves in need of others to survive.

God did NOT make us to be ALONE. It's the first problem he solved in creation. He created Eve to be a helper for Adam, because it was NOT GOOD that man was alone. All throughout scripture we see God's call for us to take care of widows and orphans--those who have no family and are alone. As Jesus dies on the cross, he looks at his friend John and at his Mother Mary. He says to John, "Son, behold thy mother. Mother, behold thy son." Jesus didn't want his mother to be alone.

We all need family. We all need a community. And we all need to learn to get along in peace. The best families, the best teams, and the best relationships always thrive the most when each person in the community works to make the others thrive more than themselves. This brief little book, which can be read in an afternoon, is all about living Life Together, most especially focusing on Charity--self-giving love for the good of others. THIS is the virtue I need to fill the chasm that will be left in my personality by sarcasm.

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Well, that's my confession for this week!

I pray you will all support me in my pursuit of being a better person, and I'll do my best to support you with the gifts I have to offer. Please pray for me in your daily prayers this Lent. Let me know how I can pray for you.

With Blessings,

-Fr. Jon+

The 24th Dose: Starting Lent RIGHT..."Good things come..."

2010-02-19T16:05:00.006-06:00

Lent has officially begun, and I'm sure you've ALL been looking forward to it!

Of course I'm being a little sarcastic, which is perhaps the one character flaw I need to give up most for Lent.

I spoke a few weeks ago about New Years Resolutions being related to Lenten disciplines. On Ash Wednesday every year, I tell my parishioners that God wants our hearts, our love, and our true devotion, rather than empty apologies. "Rend your hearts, and not your garments," says the Prophet Joel (2:13).

In the "Old Testament Times" (roughly 3-5,000B.C. until around the time of Jesus) people generally reconciled themselves to God with a sacrifice. Every sin or trouble had its respective sacrifice. Just like in the movies, when someone goes to confession, the Priest says something like "Go say 3 'Hail Mary's', 2 'Our Father's' and try to be better from now on." Of course, in some places I suppose confessions DO end that way. But what good does it do? You've said, "I'm sorry," but has anything really changed concerning what got you there in the first place?

Under the Old Covenants, people were made to sacrifice something that proved their faith in God. Whole families would offer their "first fruits," which in reality means that you brought to the Church the first-born animal from a herd, the first ripe fruits and vegetables that came from the ground or from trees and shrubs, and you offered them to God and to the Church as a sign or proof that you believed God would provide for you for the rest of the season, and that you knew you were dependent upon God for everything. God really likes it when we return to him for everything.

These first fruits were offered in 2 sacrifices: the "burnt sacrifice" and the "peace offering." The burnt sacrifice was consumed by the fire as a sign of trust to God and payment for your sin, and the peace offering was shared among the Levites (Clergy who had no lands to produce any kind of meat or food) and the poor who likewise depended on the generosity of others to survive. When sacrifices were made, it meant everyone was made right with God, and likewise, everyone was provided for--think of it as a really large Thanksgiving meal!

Of course, there was always a fear among the people that perhaps this was going to be the ONLY harvest. Maybe the cow, or goat, or what-have-you would NOT produce another calf. Perhaps bad weather would kill the crops, leaving you with nothing to eat. What then? What if that happened? What would WE do if we suddenly lost our jobs, or our source of food and income was shut off...what then? These are fears we leave to God. If we truly trust he will provide for us, we give our first fruits FIRST, and not LAST.

The same is true these days of those who only give to God of what's left over after bills, after we buy all the extra things we really want, and then...whatever's left, we'll give a small portion to God. Of course, if you work this way, there will NEVER be anything left, because you've spent it on yourself. We always do. This is why gifts of trust to God always come FIRST. We will always find ways to spend our extra money on everything BUT charity and the needs of our Churches.

These are the fears that always come with sacrifice--that's why it's a SACRIFICE. A Sacrifice is an act of generosity that comes at a cost to you. Love also involves a sacrifice. It means the one you love will always be able to hurt your feelings again, but they might also do wonderful things to make your time with them an absolute joy! This can describe our relationship with a sweetheart, but it is especially true of our relationship with God. He constantly gives us another chance to love him, knowing all the while that we might just break his heart again.

So, what do we give up for Lent? What is our sacrifice?

As I said in church on Ash Wednesday, it makes no sense to give up something that is bad for you for only about 6 weeks or so, only to go right back into the same old troublesome behaviors once Easter has arrived. The better plan is to give up something that is bad for you FOR GOOD, but you must also replace it with something good, something holy--a VIRTUE!

Jesus describes this need in the 12th Chapter of Matthew:

"When an unclean spirit has gone out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but it finds none. Then it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.' And then he comes and finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then he goes and brings with him seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of the man becomes worse than the first." -Matthew 12:43-45

You can give up the evil within you, but unless you fill the space with something holy, the VACANCY sign shines bright for the old tenant to return and bring friends. That's where sins become vices. I describe Vices as Sins with a multiplier. I don't think this blog will let me type it like I want to, but you know what I mean. It's like when you have 10 to the 10th power in little numbers above and to the right, like in math class. Vices are sins which multiply themselves and become exponents of great power and weight that become harder to get rid of.

So many people don't come to Church or talk to God because the feel too embarrassed, or "too far gone" to find redemption. "I wouldn't know where to start," many of them say. "You don't have enough time to hear my whole confession," some of my friends report. It's almost as if they WANT to keep the sins, because at least they know what they are, and they think they can deal with them. But they can't. They are eroding away on the inside. Something better is near at hand, but they can't see it. Like Atlas bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders, he only has the ability to look down at his feet. If only he put his burden down for a while and looked up. What would he see? What could YOU see?

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So, lent has begun. What are you giving up? What are you putting in it's place? Where do we start? I describe it as a 5-step process. Here's the plan:

1. First, you have to Identify your Sin. The way to do this is to perform an Examination of Conscience. What this does is help you ask yourselves the honest questions to define where your sin is, and highlight the troubled areas. This is something you do by yourself, in private, where no one else will know. (I will make an effort to find a way to post the Examination of Conscience I normally give out sometime very soon, but until then, you can find a decent alternative by clicking here.)

2. Once you've identified it, now we work toward the Removal of Sin. This is done by making a confession to someone who can help you. Usually a Priest is the best resource, but you might also talk to someone you consider a "Spiritual Director," and by Spiritual Director, I don't mean your bartender, your nail-lady, or someone at the beauty shop. Although these people are used to hearing the woes of the world, their solution is most frequently another round of drinks, or something special to make you look better, and thereby to perhaps feel better about yourself. Of course, this doesn't work long-term, it just spends more of your money and perhaps gives you a temporary fix.

The removal of sin has three steps as well, which all start with "C":

A. Contrition--feeling truly sorry for your sin. This is when you feel sorry, not because you got caught, but because you truly want to make amends.

B. Confession--Acknowledging your sin, facing up to it, and admitting that you need help. Then follows the full disclosure of what you've done so to bring it to light and get rid of it entirely, without holding ANYTHING back.

C. Change--Amending your life so to not fall into the same trap again. What good is removing a sin, if we don't change the behavior that brings it right back?! It'd be like replacing the water in a broken radiator. Unless you fix the crack that's letting all of the good stuff out, what's the use in refilling it?

3. Apply a Remedy/Take Your Medicine--Usually, when you make a confession, the Priest will teach you a virtue to counter your sin. This is like the medicine a doctor prescribes you when they identify what's wrong with you. Virtues are usually pretty obvious, because they tend to be the opposite of your sin. For example, if your sin is greed, the opposing virtue is charity. These are the things that fill the void and prevent the sin from returning while helping you change your attitude for the better to resist the desire for sin.

4. Make the Remedy Habitual--Learn good habits to apply to your life as well. This usually falls into holy living. If you don't pray every day, Start NOW! Why not? If you don't read the Bible or something that focuses your mind on God, if only for a few minutes each day, Start NOW! These kinds of things, along with more regular Church attendance, tend to keep your mind focused on pursuing the good things in life, and help us to counter temptations when they come along. The good thing about going to a Church is that there's nothing in there to distract you from God EXCEPT what you bring into it. The Church has no internet, phone, or really ANYTHING to keep you from praying, except maybe other sinners. The same is true if you take a daily walk around the block, or take your lunch outside during work. Get away from the normal grind, and give yourself some quiet. God uses quiet better than anyone.

5. Keep Your Mind on Heavenly Things. We are all made to end up in Heaven. So what do you know about heaven? Is it a place you want to go? Is God someone you really want to know? People often think of Heaven as a place where we sit on clouds and play little harps all day long. But scripture describes heaven, for the most part as the dwelling place of God, and a place of rest. But beyond that, everyone who has been given a vision of heave tends to describe it as "too wonderful to describe." This was true of Ezekiel, the Apostle John, St. Paul, St. Thomas Aquinas, and various other saints, ALL of whom allowed for some quiet in their lives, spent time studying scripture and thinking about God, and in brief glimpses of life, came to know that Heaven is a wonderful place because they came to know and love God above all things. What might God show you if you slowed down enough to look and listen?

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So what is Lent all about? Why do we bother, if it just makes us think on the bad things we've done? What good is it?

As the old saying goes, "Good things come to those who wait." Likewise, Lent makes us appreciate the things we have. Sometimes when we fast, we aren't just giving up the sinful things, we're also letting up a little on the excesses and luxuries we often enjoy. Things like fast food, chocolate or other snack treats, gratuitous shopping trips, luxurious vacations, or really even the basic normal bountiful things we enjoy the remainder of the year. Sometimes the act of giving up something we enjoy, perhaps a little too much, is a good thing. It makes us appreciate the things we have.

Each year, for the last 14 years or so, I've kept the fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. This means I don't eat anything, including water, for a whole 24 hours. In my bartender days, it meant I didn't eat from Midnight to midnight. These days, it's more like 8pm shrove tuesday (also FAT tuesday) until after 8pm on Ash Wednesday. I usually gear down my meals for a few days before this happens so I won't feel as hungry, and my stomach won't growl as much.

Each time, I have a moment in my day when I really just want a drink of water, a cup of juice, a small taste of food, or a can of that sweet nectar of life: Dr. Pepper. And each time, it profoundly reminds me that Jesus likely had those moments, especially on the cross, when he just wanted a sip of water, but it was not to be had. It is these moments that make me appreciate the fact that whether I'm at home, work, or in public, a drink of water is just a moment away. It makes me reflect on just how well I actually do "have it" in the world. I often forget to take lunch, or don't eat diner until late, but I still eat well. Fasting days make me appreciate all those who go hungry every day while I enjoy, pretty much, whatever I want, whenever I want.

Lenten disciplines can do the same thing. But again, I commend you all to first and foremost put away sin and take on virtues. These acts, being done first, will give you that true sense of change, and an appreciation for redemption and restoration. When we get to restore some of those "lesser fast" things at Easter, we really do get that feeling that "Good things come to those who wait for them," and that the "feast after the fast" is truly made all the more sweet for those who have given up luxuries so to appreciate the small things.

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God provides everything, every day. All he asks for is our love in return. And our love is best shown in keeping his commandments and living good and holy peaceful lives.

I pray you all make a good effort at giving up something for Lent that will somehow CHANGE how you do things, and make you a better YOU.

With Blessings as we begin Lent together

Fr. Jon+

The 23rd Dose: Hints for GREAT Valentines Day

2010-02-12T17:44:00.011-06:00

A Frigid Friday to all of you North Texans!

I spent 2 hours this afternoon scraping 1 foot of snow off of my driveway, and clearing the storm drain 2 doors down from my house so the run-off could drain rather than pool in front of my house and turn into an ice-skating rink. I like free water, but a solid foot of frozen water at once is a little overkill! (Also, as a note to the regular readers, I'm now working on Fridays since I moved my day off to Monday, and I now have the internet at home, so I'll likely be posting these weekly doses on Fridays now.)

Valentine's Day is this Sunday, and it might surprise some of you to know that "Saint" Valentine's Day is NOT a day on the Church calendar.

The history of Saint Valentine himself is a murky history, but that's true of most of the saints of the Church prior to the "Peace of Constantine" in 313ad. In the early days, before Christianity was fully accepted or legalized in the Holy Roman Empire, Christians were killed in large numbers. Many were martyrs or "witnesses" for the faith, others were simply killed for sport in gladiator arenas, and a few likely gave up their Christianity for the sake of staying alive. The reason I mention these facts is that the history of 1st to early 4th century Christianity was mostly wiped out...that was the point! The pagans and Roman polytheists were trying to get rid of all remembrances of Christianity! So were the Jews for that matter.

So the result of this dark period in our faith is that in some cases of a few key people, we have clear histories of what they did, said, wrote, and offered to the faith through letters that were hidden, independent histories recorded by those documenting the expense of killing the Christians, and in more cases than not, we have "lore" in the place of history. Folklore keeps stories alive, but it also keeps them in flux, constantly changing and stretching the facts. This is the case with St. Valentine. (For a "best guess" history of St. Valentine visit the History Channel's article on him by clicking here).

So, whether we come to know that Valentine was a Priest marrying lovers in secret, or a Priest in prison writing to a lover he was forbidden to marry, or whether he was writing love notes to God (as some other histories record), Valentine has become associated with the transmission of messages of LOVE, at a time of year when Winter is gradually fading (no sign of that in North Texas today), and spring is on it's way in. Spring brings with it images of new life, new birth, fertility, flowers blooming, animals mating, and men frantically searching the local pharmacy or store for anything that will appease his beloved's desire to be loved as much as all of the other women around her are loved, on Saint Valentine's Day!

Perhaps in that last line you might sense a little cynicism in my tone, but please know that I think there are wonderful things you can MAKE out of Valentine's Day. But it requires effort!

For some, Valentine's Day is about rekindling love, making an opportunity to express, in a particular way, our desire, admiration, affection, respect, appreciation, and PASSION for that one person we've given our soul to, or are in the process of doing so. This pursuit always brings stress, some good and some bad, to give a little more effort toward showing our Love or making a special gesture of affection.

For those who are alone, single, divorced, widowed, or otherwise without a Valentine to speak of, this day can remind them of loss, hurt, sorrow, mistakes, and perhaps even fear or regret for those moments when we WISH we'd said "I Love You" one more time, or for some--for the FIRST time. Not everyone has a "special someone": a spouse, girlfriend or boyfriend, or someone who we're interested in enticing to become so. For these people Valentine Day can feel a lot less like a holiday and much more like a day to hide under a great big rock!

It seems to me that this day CAN be positive for both groups of people, but it requires effort--SERIOUS effort to be all that it can be.

But before I get into that...

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WORD of the WEEK: PASSION (French derived from Latin passio= to suffer)

I've always found it interesting that the root for a certain word can also be used for something strikingly different, yet understandably intertwined. For example: in several languages the root for marriage is slavery (actually "binding," but they're both of the same concept in that you are bound to someone from whom you cannot be released). In a similar way the root for Passion, which we most often use in the context of deep love, actually means "to suffer."

Anyone who has ever really been in love, had love, lost love, or had anything to do with this emotion will speak to you of hurting or suffering as a result of that love.

If you go on a good first date, you long and suffer to see that person again... although society has unwritten rules about how soon to call them back after the date: one day, the next morning, after Noon but before 9pm (I'm guessing now, I have no idea what the acceptable time lapse is; I expect it's different depending on who you take out, as we are all different people).

In my own experience (earlier in youth, not recently), I've sent flowers after a first date which I thought went well, but she sure didn't think so, and so the flowers were a wasted effort. I've bought and delivered Valentines Day cards for girls that didn't know that I existed, and probably still don't. I've made mistakes in word choice at key moments. I've ignored a girl I thought to be "out of my league" to discover as I left college that she had a crush on me the whole time. And the list goes on. (I'm kind of an idiot when it comes to handling some of this myself, but then, we all are I guess).

Emotion is one of the key elements in making a loving "Valentine's moment" work as we expect it to. We are overjoyed when we pick the right moment. We are utterly broken and destroyed when we are wrong. Another word that seems to work like passion is CRUSH. We use it to describe the feeling when we have an overwhelming sense of desire for someone, and it is the same word we use to describe the feeling when that desire is not returned. We feel CRUSHED.

It might not surprise you, therefore, to learn that we talk about our Lord Jesus' sufferings on the day of his crucifixion as his PASSION. This has been made a little more evident to the public mind with the release of Mel Gibson's movie about this subject which was titled "The Passion of the Christ." (<--This is a cheesy picture, but hey, it's almost Valentine's day).

In the dictionary I currently have cracked open on my desk, there are 7 definitions of Passion, and only 2 of them have to do with love...the LAST 2! All of the others which preceded it have to do with pain, fear, torture, suffering, martyrdom, violent or intense emotion, agitation, rage, wrath...and then lastly: "ardent affection for one of the opposite sex; love."

Love is such a broad word. We use it to define all kinds of love. I believe I've detailed it in an older post, but allow me to give a brief recap of Biblical words for Love (Koine or "common" Greek New Testament words):

1. Philios= brotherly love. This is where we get the name Philadelphia. Philios= love, adelphi or adelphos= brother or sister, sibling. This is the love we have for friends, siblings, family, and others that mean a lot to us.

2. Eros= carnal love. This is the love we associate with lustful desire for physical or "sexual" love. It is the root for words like "erotic." This is the love we share with someone with whom we are intimate, preferably in the bonds of Holy Matrimony, although it can be found and is typically sought outsde of these bonds. This kind of love can often interfere with the greater type of love which only enhances this love even more, and that is:

3. Caritas= Charity. This is the word St. Paul uses in 1st Corinthians chapter 13, specifically verse 13 which reads (in most modern translations): "So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." This is a love that I believe will yield the best results on Valentine's Day. Charity is a giving love; a sacrificial love; a self-giving love that requires a sacrifice of the one offering it, usually at a significant cost, with the fear that in most cases it will not be returned. Although when it is returned, it is certainly a grace-filled thing!

The greatest love, the greatest virtue, the most wonderful gift you can give of yourself is going to be a sacrifice that will cost you something, and yet will render you grace. Think of ANY form of charity you've given in your life, and I bet that most of the time, the act of giving it made you feel good-REALLY good.

The best relationships happen when both sides give, and give a lot. This means that you may have to attend a ballet, although you don't like dance-theatre. It means you might have to endure Football season, even though you really don't like sports. It means you've gotta let your wife buy a handbag that costs as much as a riding lawnmower, and vice versa ladies! It means apologizing for hurting them, even though you know you were right. It means making many trips out at all times of the day and night to do all kinds of things that you'd rather not do, when you've got better things to do: replace flat tires; rescue them when they run out of gas...again; going to the hospital; going to the pharmacy; driving home drunk single friends who party too hard on Valentine's Day; and the list goes on for each of us...

Having Passion means suffering for those you love, giving to those who may not deserve it, and giving your SELF entirely to the will of another, knowing that they might not appreciate your sacrifice. This is the greatest thing you can offer someone else, and it is the ONLY thing you can offer God that he doesn't already have!

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!!!SPECIAL FEATURE!!!

BOOK of the WEEK AND Suggestions for a GREAT Valentines Day!!!

This is sort of a two-in-one deal, mostly because I know you can't get this book in time for SUNDAY! But you should still buy it and implement it into your life with your loved one.

The Book: 10 Great Dates Before You Say "I DO." by David Arp, Claudia Arp, Curt Brown, and Natelle Brown.

This is a book that even married couples could use to enhance their relationship. This book contains 10 "dates" to go on, with a structure of what to talk about in the various contexts suggested. Basically, it's a tool on how to get to know your beloved even more than you do now, by removing the distractions we often put into play once we've started getting used to be around someone. Couples often spend a lot of time together NOT talking about anything, let alone specific things, and this book helps to open the doors to those conversations, while enticing you both to try something new.

SO...as the BONUS FEATURE, let me offer a disclaimer which is a piece of advice I offer many married people, and that is "Don't take relationship or marriage advice from notoriously single people." (I admit that I am a single Priest, although I've been counseling couples for marriage for almost 4 years now, and I have a lot of wisdom to impart from the successes and failures of many others who share their lives with me....so implement what you think will work for YOU and YOURS.)

A Few Ideas/Suggestions to Have a GREAT Valentine's Day:

1. For starters...make your own Valentines Day card. Not everyone is creative, but we all have a voice that is our own. If you think the card store might have a card with a poem that says something better, then go for it, but honestly, at this point, the cards that are left are going to be few, so your "alternative Valentine's Day vocabulary or resource" will be limited to what remains at the store AFTER the rush which has probably already happened.

2. STAY HOME! As a man who was a veteran bartender and fine-dining waiter, may I impart this wisdom: Even the classiest restaurant in town is going to be PACKED, NOISY, and in a RUSH to get you out of the door on Valentines Day. TRUST ME! You will likely get a set (limited) menu on Valentine's Day, along with hastily and often over-cooked food, and typically terrible service, as your waiter now has 4 times the normal tables to wait-on, and a waiter can only be SO attentive to SO many people. This has been true in EVERY venue I've worked in, from a piano bar to a super fine-dining restaurant. (If you must go out, pick another day.)

3. While staying home...make dinner together. Make the drinks, appetizers, meal, and if you're not a cook, at least make DESSERT together. Get yourself a recipe for sugar cookies online, and go buy the ingredients (if you don't already have them) and perhaps a little red food coloring and some heart-shaped cookie cutters, and make each other your own Valentine's Day treats! You will have a lot more fun making a mess together, spreading flour in each other's faces, and writing genuine sweet things on the cookies. This is FAR better than the response she will ever make out of opening a heart-shaped box of old candy (I say "She" because Men most often buy this terrible pre-packaged stuff.)

4. If you have no one significant to love, find someone to share the day with who needs a little love and charity. Find a way to GIVE your love, and expect it NOT to be returned. Be nice, invite a single friend over (not me, I'll be busy at Church), or visit your mother or father who might be alone. If nothing else, write a letter to Jesus, giving yourself to him, as he gave himself for you. In any case, don't just mope around.

5. Give up the SUPER-high expectations. Everyone likes a little romance or a sign of love, but I've found that most people cannot read each other's minds, and so what you expect to receive may not be what the other is expecting to give. Learn to implement that idea of sacrifice in your love toward others, and you will likely see more of the grace that comes from sacrificial love. Be open to let them be themselves, and love them for it. Even if it doesn't work out as planned.

6. Think of the one you love when buying a gift. If you're about to buy something, ask yourself, "Have I ever seen them enjoy something like this?" If the answer is NO, then try to get them something that you think they might actually enjoy. I imagine there are hundreds of little stuffed bears holding hearts in the landfills of the world. If you give a gift, the gift should be something you think they'd actually like to receive, and I bet that you will most likely NOT find it in the "Valentine's Section" of the store you are shopping in. Genuine gifts mean so much more than tacky, cheesy crap.
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I hope this reaches most of you in time to be useful. And if not, HEY, it's only a made-up holiday anyhow! Just implement it on the 15th, the 16th, the 17th...or any time you can dedicate to let someone know you love them. After all, if you DO decide to go out to the restaurant after the 14th, I GUARANTEE at LEAST 200% better service on the day after Valentine's Day than on the day itself!

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone! God loves you. LOVE HIM BACK!

-Fr. Jon+

The 22nd Dose: My "So Called" Spiritual Life

2010-02-04T17:48:00.015-06:00

I am BACK from Retreat, and it's been a good time of spiritual as well as personal reflection.

I said in the last post that I was going to attempt to make an "Ignatian Retreat." St. Ignatius' process of retreating involves 4 steps which are intended to take 4 weeks from beginning to end.The process is as follows:

Week 1: Self Examination and Repeated Confession

Week 2: Contemplation on the Life of Jesus

Week 3: Contemplation on the Passion & Crucifixion of Jesus

Week 4: Contemplation on the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus

St. Ignatius (1491-1559) wrote in the formative Medieval years between the Scholastic Period and the Renaissance. His his pattern of these exercises and meditations, although not explicitly so (I've drawn my own conclusion here) follow the pattern of the Rosary, which was still in development as a set meditative prayer system at this time.

When one prays a rosary these days, you pray a repeating mantra (Hail Mary...), and while you are doing so, you contemplate one of three sets of 5 meditations: the Joyful Mysteries (focusing mostly on the happier moments in the life of Jesus), the sorrowful mysteries (focusing heavily on the passion and crucifixion), and the triumphant mysteries (focusing on the period from Jesus' resurrection until his Ascension into Heaven).

The significant difference here is that Ignatius has one meditate for at least an hour on each exercise, and then you repeat the exercises to grow and meditate more and more attentively until such time as the retreatant has been thoroughly moved by participation in the life of our Lord Jesus.

Although I did not have the time to commit an hour to each meditation, I spent a great deal of my time meditating on the crucifixion, and drawing images of it. I drew three images of the crucifixion: one was actually the completion of an image I began last year during Holy Week for my friend Fr. Foster; the second one was a new drawing which I completed with color pencil and gave to our retreat leader Fr. Houlding in thanks for his time away from his parish and country (He's from London); and the third was a drawing of Jesus' face from the (significantly zoomed in) perspective of the penitent thief on the cross adjacent to our Lord.

All in all, I think that this exercise was very moving for me, because it made me think about the tactile details of the crucifixion. What I mean by that is: I had to think about what my hand would look like if a nail went through it. Would it remain flat, or would my fingers curl? How would my arms look if I were hanging there under a weight instead of being supported by a beam? Where would the blood have dripped from my hands? Down my arms and into my armpits ? Down the cross? Would the wood soak it up, or would it run and drip on the ground? What about the crown of thorns? How long are the thorns? what do they feel like? I put my fingernails on the top of my head and just rested them there under the weight of my hand alone. That was significantly uncomfortable by itself. And so my thoughts went on and on as I made each detail of the drawings come together.

All of this thought would have been impossible without leaving room for quiet thought, without distraction.

On a personal level, the retreat was also good for me because of the thought I gave to my personal life. As occasionally happens with workaholics (like myself), I have come to pour too much time into work and the needs of my Church, and not nearly enough time into my personal life. Until this retreat, I hadn't had much rest, and truthfully my rest has not been very good since then. But I've become more aware of a real need to spend a little more time with friends and family. All of my personal relationships tend to come second to work in my life, and I really have given thought to unplugging a little more. I've even thought about getting a dog. (Please do not call me to offer me your dog. I've got something in mind...)

All this is to say that retreat time works differently for everyone, but it is good to step back and get some perspective from time to time. This is true of artwork, as well as life in general. You've got to occasionally step back from the routine to evaluate your work, and then regroup and reorder your efforts.

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In lieu of a WORD of the WEEK...
...I want to say something about Developing your Spiritual Life.

Everyone is different, but we can use a similar pattern in developing our life with God. Everyone prays a little different. Some people pray only when they need things. Others have a continual conversation with God at times, while at other times being quite silent toward God, although perhaps not necessarily distant. But most people who live in a state of sin, without occasionally returning to God, gradually feel that a great chasm has come between them and God, and are often afraid to even attempt to build a bridge over that gap. They don't feel as though they have nearly enough materials to build that bridge.

The only remedy to this problem is to make a conscious effort, and get some help. Just as problems come in various forms, so do remedies. Some people like books, while others need movies or videos or visual illustrations to help them come to a remedy.

At any rate, EVERYONE needs to set a standard or develop a RULE of LIFE. All monastic orders do this. Really, if you think about it, every society has rules that govern how we get along, and how we deal with problems. This is actually going to be the theme of my Lent Program this year: The Monastic Way of Life. (I'll discuss this more as the weeks of Lent progress, and I'll essentially follow the pattern of the Lent Program in the blog so you can follow along if you're unable to attend).

But without going into too much detail, here is my basic format for creating a balanced pattern of life:

1. Diagnosis- using 10 Commandments and 7 Deadly Sins to determine where your problems are most prevalent.
2. Clean house- learning how to put sin way through performing an Examination of Conscience and making a good Confession.
3. Replacing Sins with Virtues- learning how to discover the "medicine" to counter the spiritual ailments that afflict you through learning about the Virtues and the Fruits of the Spirit.
4. Developing Good Habits- Taking on good habits of reading daily doses of Holy Scripture or other good Spiritual Reading, developing a daily prayer life, and learning to use the Sacraments to the maximum benefit of your soul.
5. Aim to be in the presence of God in Heaven- inasmuch as we don't all have a process like this up until this point, it is important to remember that the final destination of all Souls is to be in the presence of God. This last step reminds us to focus on preparing a place for ourselves in heaven, and remembering to put things in the hands of God. Self-emptying is often incorporated into the first step of diagnosis in preparation for confession, but this step of achieving total humility in acknowledging our total dependence on God is critical to our relationship with him. Achieving this can alleviate many of the greatest apprehensions we carry through life, and bring the greatest relief to the soul that lives in torment or under great pressure.
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BOOK of the WEEK: The Spiritual Life by Evelyn Underhill

I'll continue to recommend books such as this as we move through Lent, however I think Evelyn Underhill's books are a wonderful resource for the modern mind, because her original writings and addresses were in English (because she was English!), as opposed to most of the great theological minds whose original texts were in Greek, Hebrew, or Latin and endure some loss in translation.

Evenly Underhill (1875-1941) could rightly be defined as a Mystic of the 19th-2oth century. She was a wonderful author who led many retreats, and developed addresses for radio broadcast to teach the people of England about the Spiritual Life. She was sadly killed during the bombings of England during the 2nd World War, but her writings are VERY easy to read, and are truly wonderful.

The Clergy of my Deanery studied one of her addresses as a group during Advent. The address we studied was addressed to the prayer life of the clergy, and we ALL found that it convicted us to do more with our prayer lives. She began by saying, "What would a woman in the Church of England know about the prayer needs of the clergy, but it seems..." and then she lays out a brilliant discourse on the ideal prayer life of a clergyman.

If you wanted to develop a terrific pattern of reading, I highly recommend that you begin with THIS text, and then work your way through her other works, and then perhaps work your way back through the various mystics in history to see who inspired her. You WILL find this to be a wonderful spiritually nourishing experience. I guarantee it!!!

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I pray this post has been worth of missing a week due to my retreat.

If you'd like to talk to me directly about tailoring a process to suit your particular needs, please do so. As I said earlier, everyone is different, but I'm happy to help you develop a rule or process that will work for you and bring you closer to God. God our Father loves us, and he desires most to have a good relationship with us, his children.

Blessings as we draw nearer and nearer to Lent.

Fr. Jon+

The 21st Dose: RETREAT!!!!!

2010-01-21T19:40:00.017-06:00

This has been a somewhat HECTIC week, because next week I'll be on our Annual Clergy Retreat.

It's hectic because in order to take time away from the parish next week, that meant I had to do ALL of the things I would normally do next week along with all of the work I had this week. This includes end-of-the month meetings, writing and publishing the parish newsletter, and preparing for all of next week's services a week in advance.

Isn't the whole point to GET AWAY from all of this work and spend time in prayer?! And the answer is, YES! Indeed it is! which leads into our Word of the Week:

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WORD OF THE WEEK: RETREAT

(Late middle English from Latin "retrahere" = "to pull back")

The Theological Dictionary describes a retreat as: "A time set aside, often at a special place, for the renewal of the spiritual life, often through the use of religious exercises such as silence, meditation and reflection. It is both a place and a spiritual experience of groups and/or individuals."

The normal Dictionary reads: "To withdraw from enemy forces as a result of their superior power, or after a defeat."

QUITE A DIFFERENCE!

Usually when we talk about "retreating" in the Church context, we talk about the sort of retreat I'm taking next week along with my brother priests (and occasionally a couple of our sister Deaconesses). But in battle, when someone yells "RETREAT!" it means that you're being over-run by the enemy, or overwhelmed, or are otherwise in danger of losing ground. And in some ways, this is what parish life can do to a Priest.

When a Priest sacrifices his life to give of his schedule to the people of his parish, we often find that this schedule is erratic, and doesn't always follow our agenda. Some things do go according to plan, such as Sunday Mass, Bible Study, and our Morning and Evening Prayer routines--well, so long as we don't allow interruptions.

But there is a vast amount of our time that is interrupted with all kinds of things. During office hours, and quite often outside of office hours, people call with all kinds of needs, requests, and demands on our time. Some are things the parish Secretary could handle on behalf of the Priest, such as: prayer requests, Sunday bulletin announcements, information about parish events, (in our case hundreds of calls about our Food Bank), and parishioners asking for people's phone numbers (despite the new parish directory which s readily available); while other things are exclusive to the Priest: hospital calls, pastoral counseling, confession, personal conversations about private matters, and thousands of things you'd never think about nor predict.

You might not think about it this way, but talking to dozens of people a day, especially Sunday morning, about dozens of different topics, each with it's own demand on the memory: date, time, hospital name, room number, phone number, and so on...is mentally EXHAUSTING. I used to be a valet driver and I bartended at a piano bar from 10am til 4am the following day, standing up and sometimes running almost the entire day. That was taxing on my knees, but I could handle it. Now, after 6 hours of Sunday morning (6am until noon), with far less physical labor, I'm wiped out! Then add that demand day after day for a week running, and it's really a good formula for exhaustion.

Then, if you add to this the fact that people call us on our ONE day off to ask all sorts of things that could wait until the next day, or could be handled by someone such as the parish secretary, then you really are in danger of burning out if you don't take a day or two AWAY to recuperate.

So what balances all of this?

The answer is complicated, but it comes down to simply having a balanced daily life, including time away from the phone and office for prayer at least 3 times a day, rest when we can find it, and the occasional stretch of a few days away from the parish to clear the mind. Otherwise, it's really easy to burn out...most especially if the prayer is set aside to start the day of work, or when we continue to work, skipping evening prayer, well beyond the end of the workday.

Most clergy I know who feel burned out have significantly neglected their daily prayers, which sounds awful, but it's not hard when you understand how many distractions we have. The devil doesn't take a single day off, and sickness doesn't know a time of day, nor day of the week.

But, the good thing about praying in a Church is that there's nothing in there to distract you EXCEPT what you bring into it--especially during the week. Sunday morning/Saturday night might be a little different story, as we like to visit with friends, or people make noises when we're trying to pray, and things like that. But if you don't bring in a phone, or turn it off for a few minutes a day to enjoy some time in quiet prayer with God, it can be refreshing to start your day asking God to look-on and share the load, and end the day with God lifting your burden until the next morning.

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BOOK OF THE WEEK: The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius

SO...next week I'll be at Montserrat, which is a Jesuit Retreat House in and on "Lake Dallas." (It's a town and a lake). I never understood why it was called Montserrat, or why the Chapel was dedicated to St. Ignatius of Loyola, until I began reading a book last month called The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. (For more on the life of St. Ignatius click here.)

In my reading, I've discovered that St. Ignatius was a monk who had a talent in leading Spiritual Retreats, and he began a number of retreat houses, one of which was called "Montserrat." He also wrote a series of spiritual exercises to be used to train Priests in a life of prayer and contemplation. Those exercises have been added to and redacted over the years, until eventually all Jesuit Priests, at least in his day, were required to make an "Ignatian Retreat" at least once a year.

I've only been attending this retreat for 3 years, but we've never done an Ignatian Retreat, despite that the place we go to take a retreat is a JESUIT retreat house called MONTSERRAT and the Chapel is dedicated to ST. IGNATIUS! I began asking around, and I've learned that as far back as some of my fellow Priests can remember, we've NEVER had an "Ignatian Retreat" as a Diocese.

So, this year, although we have a retreat speaker who will lead us in some kind of a meditation, I've decided to try to do the Ignatian thing by myself. It's written to be used over 4 weeks, but the author says it can be expounded or reduced as necessary. That is to say, 8 weeks instead of 4, or 4 days instead of 4 weeks. It' gonna be 4 days crowded with prayer and meditations, but I think it will be refreshing.

I've been reading the exercises, trying to get a handle of the format, and I think this IS possible. It's going to take a little discipline, but I think it should be fruitful.

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Well, that's all for this week dear readers!

I hope to post something next week at the end of my retreat to tell you of my progress with this exercise. It will likely not come until Friday. This might surprise you, but not all Jesuit Retreat houses have Wifi, although I think this one actually might! At any rate, I'm going to be too busy to use it, so you'll have to wait until Friday morning at best.

Have a wonderful week! Say a prayer for me to get some REST. I could really use it on this retreat!

Blessings,

Fr. Jon+

The 20th Dose: New Years' Resolutions

2010-01-14T15:23:00.009-06:00

The topic I've been approached the most about lately is the subject of New Years' Resolutions.

In last week's post, I suggested that you all check out my article on this subject in our latest parish newsletter, but since the website hasn't been updated with the latest materials just yet, I though I'd share it here while it's still a timely subject. (My apologies to those of you who read this AND my newsletter. You're getting double coverage, but others have expressed an interest.)

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We have another early Lent this year, with Ash Wednesday coming on February 17th to begin another season of penitence and preparation. (For those of you unfamiliar with Lent, that means "Fat Tuesday" or "Mardi Gras" is only 2 days after Valentines Day this year!) I’ve always found a lot of similarities between New Years’ Resolutions and whatever it is people give up for Lent. Sometimes people resolve, instead of "giving things up" to take things on. Making the transition from sin or vice to virtue is always a matter of doing both: giving up sin or bad things, and taking on a good practice or virtuous behaviors.

Every Ash Wednesday I compare the act of “giving something up for Lent” directly to New Years’ Resolutions, and I do so in the context of suggesting that if you plan to give something up or make a positive change, make it something you plan to give up FOR GOOD, and keep as a PERMANENT CHANGE.

Usually, New Years’ Resolutions have something to do with diet, exercise, or overall health, including, but not limited to: eating less, eating healthier, getting back in shape, quitting smoking, and hoping to improve our overall health and self-image.

However, few people take on spiritual disciplines, and I think it’s a real shame, because the health of your body is very closely linked to the health of your soul. Sin and pain are always tied together, as are forgiveness and restoration to health and even LIFE. Improving the health of your soul ALWAYS improves your self-image, your relationship with God, and there-by the health of your conscience (less guilt), and of course, your actual physical well-being.

Gluttony and Lust are the most popular of the 7 Deadly sins (although Pride is the most prevalent sin), and usually, self-control and temperance are the most needed virtues among those who make their confession this time of year. Might I suggest that when you make your New Years’ resolutions and Lenten disciplines this year, you look more closely at them from a spiritual point of view.

If you want to truly fix a problem, you must follow these steps for the remedy to stick long-term:
1. Identify the Problem—if you can’t pinpoint the root problem that causes you to falter again and again, seek some spiritual guidance. This IS what I’m/We're here for! Ask your Priest for advice. If you’re afraid of the confessional, know that we’re just as willing to talk with you casually and keep your concerns private. We want you to get better--we don’t care to gossip, and in fact are forbidden to do so.

2. Pray for God’s Help—Once you know your problem, you should ask God to help you with it. Ask him for the grace to overcome your problems, and pray daily for his support. ow can God share your burden if you don't offer it to him to share?

3. Get an "Accountability Partner"—Ask a friend to help you. We often drop our promises to ourselves because we know that no one is watching. Ask someone else to keep you accountable and maybe even get them to join you in your pursuit of virtue. Get someone to workout with you, share meals, exercise, and yes….even PRAY! Our friends can be a big help if we share our burdens with them. St. Paul suggests this in some way in ALL of his letters: “Support one another, and pray for me!”
See: Romans 15:30; 1st Corinthians 16:13ff; 2nd Corinthians 13:5ff; Galatians 6:1ff; Ephesians 5:10ff; Philippians 4:4ff; Colossians 4:2-6; 1st Thessalonians 5:11ff; 2nd Thessalonians 3:1ff; 1st Timothy 6:11ff; 2nd Timothy 4:1-8; Titus 3:1-9; and Philemon vv.4-7 (“ff” means “…and following”)

4. Desire a Change—If you don’t have something to motivate you, you will have no goal and no real target to achieve, and thus, no way to know when you're strayed from your desired change. Give yourself a goal that you truly desire, and set up some kind of a reminder. Put a photo of a dress you want to fit into on the fridge, or pictures of your children (if you’re a smoker and want to quit and live longer), or write the goal on a piece of paper and look at it every day to check-in until you achieve it. Make it something you can reasonably achieve and stay-after-it! We all need motivations, and it's certainly acceptable to promise yourself a reward at the end of a journey....just make sure you actually reach your destination before you go enjoying that reward!

5. Behave as though you’re already doing it—Walk as you talk! If you want to eat healthier, just start. Make it one day, and then the next day, say to yourself, “I’ve already begun, I’m just continuing the good work.” Build one day at a time. Gradually you'll find that you are actually making progress in holiness or good behavior, and it will motivate you to keep it up.

These 5 steps will help you remedy almost any problem. If this doesn’t work, come see me, or Email me, and I’ll help you find the right solution!

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WORD OF THE WEEK: RESOLUTION

(Middle English Translation from Latin: "resolvere" = "to loose or release"

A resolution is a FIRM decision to DO, or NOT to do something.

Right off the bat, I can tell you my Star Wars nerd friends will quote Yoda: "Do, or Do NOT. There is no try." And this quote is a perfect example of what this word illustrates. This phrase was spoken in response to his young trainee Luke, who is lukewarm about his calling. Yoda asks Luke to do something, and his response is, "I'll try...". His master's pointis simply that it does one no good to aim for an expectation of failure, but rather to aim for an expetation of real success.

A resolution is a commitment to follow through or to give something our best effort. Many people in this world have a REAL HARD TIME with commitment. Especially in the USA, the people are becoming more and more of a "consumerist" society. "I'll take a little of this, and a little of that, and if it gets uncomfortable or challenging, I'll just move on."

ANYTHING WORTHWHILE you do in this life is almost certainly going to cost you effort, commitment, sacrifice, and require a firm resolution from you in order to achieve or surpass it! The same is true with love. Anyone or anything you love is going to cause you some heart-ache, and require a little sacrifice out of you. We must resolve to strive for the things which are good for us, and those whom we love...especially our families, and that includes GOD!

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I pray you ALL resolve to do something good with your life this year! We can all make a change for the better. Follow the steps, and get ready for a better life...but expect a few obstacles on the path.

Have a Wonderful Week!

Fr. Jon+

The 19th Dose: Eye-Opening Events

2010-01-07T17:52:00.007-06:00

Happy New Year dear people!

My Christmas celebrations at the Church were lightly attended due to incliment weather, but my family celebrations were very VERY GOOD! My Mom came over, as did my pop, and my brother not only bought me a gift this year, but he actually got it to me on Christmas Eve. Apparently NONE of them read my blog, so I didn't seen any argyle socks (except from my surrogate mothers), but Home Depot Gift cards are a staple, so it was a good Christmas for everyone.

Yesterday marked the end of the 12 Days of Christmas with the Epiphany of the Christ to the Gentiles, which most of you probably know as the arrival of the 3 Wise men, or 3 Magi, or 3 Kings. (p.s. it is now safe to take down your christmas decorations...or perhaps after this Sunday.)

A couple of years ago, one of my favorite Confessors and dear frineds, Fr. Jim Kaestner, sent me a card for Epiphany as a response to a Christmas card I sent him. Fr. K is a senior Priest, a little rough around the edges, like myself, and far more foul-mouthed than I admit I am. But he is a holy priest, and a good mentor. Anyhow, he said something to me in the card that has stayed with me for these last few years. He said, "Jon, you must remember that when those 3 men visited the infant Christ, they were irrevocably CHANGED."

Since then, when I read the lessons from Matthew about their visitation, I give more attention to the part of the story which says: "Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, 'Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him.'" (Matthew 2:1-2)

Then, when Herod heard this it troubled him, and it troubled many of the Chief Priests and Scribes. They began to ask where Jesus was to be born, according to the prophesies.

The thing that I've accented for you is what sticks out to me the most...those three Kings came to worship the infant Jesus--which means "Savior." It troubled Herod that these powerful men came to worship another King. Not to just pay homage, nor to merely give birthday presents [and Christmas Presents ;)], but to WORSHIP him.

Given the history of Israel's powerful kings, Herod had every reason to be afraid. Israel/Judah hadn't had a king for a few hundred years, since they were taken away to captivitiy. This child could be a huge threat down the line, which is why Herod tried to have him killed [look up the Feast of the Holy Innocents]. Herod ruled and occupied the territory that belonged to the King of Israel and God's chosen people. Everyone else who ever occupied that territory died in great numbers at the hand of a KING of ISRAEL.

But I think the Scribes and Pharisees were afraid of something else. Perhaps they were afraid that someone would usurp their power. Perhaps they were afraid that the King would find them taking advantage of the people in the temple (which Jesus did, turning over the tables of the money-changers). Or perhaps they were afraid that the return of the King would begin the last judgment. After all, they'd already heard a few apocalyptic prophesies about the Son of God coming to separate the righteous from those who oppose God.

At any rate, once the 3 Kings visited Jesus, they offered him gifts and worshipped him, and they were changed by his presence. That evening, after they honored the Son of God, they were warned by angels in a dream to depart without visiting Herod. After all, it is entirely likely that Herod would have visited his wrath upon them for not telling him where to find the child.

When we encounter the presence of Jesus, it CHANGES us. The same is true for the presence of God and the Holy Spirit. When we open ourselves up to God, or allow the Holy Spirit to flow through us, or truly meditate on the life of Christ and his sacrifice for our sins on the Holy Cross, it touches us, it moves us, it sanctifies us, and ultimately, it changes us.

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WORD OF THE WEEK: EPIPHANY (Greek: "epiphanein"= apprearing, enlightening)

Much like the words Revelation and Apocalypse, Epiphanies have to do with making things apparent that were not recognized before. Usually when we speak of epiphanies, we talk about things that were already there, but we just didn't realize their presence. All great epiphanies we experience are made the more suprising by the fact that once we realize them, we realize that they were there all along.

The Epiphany for all of Israel at the time of Jesus was not only the revelation of the Messiah, but the revelation that God intended to save all of humanity. Israel thought of themselves as God's "chosen people," which they were, but they were CHOSEN to do a task: to be a Priestly Nation to bring all peoples to the knowledge and love of God. This is also OUR mission as Disciples of Jesus Christ.

God reveals himself to his people through his actual presence, through angels or messengers, through prophets, through scriptures, through his incarnate Word made flesh--Jesus his Son, and then through Apostles, Priests, and even in the voices of ordinary people, from children to the elderly, all of whom share the news that God loves us, and he wants us to love him.

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BOOK OF THE WEEK: The Penny Catechism

Many of the truths of the faith are hidden from us because we don't know where to look, and/or we don't know the questions to ask when we have someone that can help us develop our faith.

Catechisms are wonderfu because they ask the question, AND give us the answer. A Catechism is exactly that: a way of teaching by giving you the question and the answer.

This book is great for anyone who wants to rekindle their faith, and develop their understanding of God's work in the world, and more importantly, in their lives. It's an "easy-to-digest" resource. If you buy this book, and hten want more, talk to me and I'll suggest the next step.

You can usually find The Penny Catechism for under $4, and this is a teriffic place to start in inspiring an Epiphany in our own lives.

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Have a wonderful New Year!

Make your resolutions something you can achieve, but don't be afraid to aim high. (For more on making good Resolutions see my article in the January parish newsletter at www.ChristTheKingFortWorth.com ).

Happy Epiphany!
-Fr. Jon+

The 18th Dose: Countdowns and Expectations

2009-12-17T16:45:00.018-06:00

Well, the count-down is ON, and it doesn't really seem to STOP!

What I mean is that the next couple of weeks seem to be all about ticking away the hours until SOMETHING is coming:

Only 7 days until Christmas...or as they say, 7 shopping days left! Then it's only 7 days until New Year's Eve. Then New Year's Eve has it's own countdown....10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Now drink some cheap champagne and give your sweetie a smooch! (And make sure it's YOUR sweetie...it's easy to make a mistake when so many people are smoochin' at once!)

Then the countdown continues, at least for most families...

...countdown until we have to go back to work,

...countdown until the kids go back to school,

...countdown until you have to take your Canonical Exams (for the Seminarians among my readers, THIS is the BIG ONE),

...and who knows what else?

The thing that sticks out most to me about countdowns is the relative aNxIeTiEs or pressures that come with countdowns, even for joyful things. The countdown can be so aggravating that when we actually get to the celebration, we're exhausted from even thinking about it!

It seems that the pressure builds and time moves faster toward the end...but the truth is that it doesn't. Time moves steadily, at an even pace, it doesn't go faster nor slower...it just marches ON! WE, however, perceive it differently based upon our expectations.

As we approach this Christmas, in expectation of the coming of Jesus into our homes, I ask you to examine your expectations with the following questions:

1. How is Jesus going to bless your Christmas celebrations unless you INVITE Him to come?

2. What is the BEST thing you expect to get out of Christmas? Is it a gift from someone else, a gift from God to your family, or is it a gift of yourself to God? [God is giving you a tremendous gift this Christmas...what are you giving him?]

3. Do you expect a stressful holiday, or a stress-free Christmas? (The only stress in the Church is the stress YOU bring there; but if you do bring stress to Church, be sure to leave it there with God to deal with.)

Christmas can also be a wonderful time of peace, if we let it be so. Remember that Jesus, the Messiah, was prophesied to be, among other things, the "Prince of Peace." We have so many stressful things leading up to Christmas, and I hope you can take a moment to let those things go, and enjoy your Christmas morning. If you can't manage to leave the stress at the Church because you're staying up late to wrap those last few gifts, give yourself a gift: wrap one more box, and pour your stress into it. Then open it last on Christmas morning. At that time I hope you find, when you unwrap it, that the box empty, and your home is full of joy, charity, and family.

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Then when it comes to New Years...

A. Are you expecting something special to happen just because the year is coming to an end?

B. Are you making any resolutions?

C. Are they things you can actually do?

D. Do you intend to start right away, or are you going to RESOLVE to begin something...a little later, when the conditions are right?

E. How can you expect to change unless you begin NOW?

The next couple of weeks are going to be busy times. There will likely be many parties to come: parties at work, at home, at Church, with friends, with family, with that special someone, with that special no one... and there are many occasions for joy and sorrow, overwhelming surprises and underwhelming disappointments. (Especially when it comes to gifts. "All I asked for was argyle socks and Home Depot gift cards...why does my Dad think that translates into an ugly sweater and something cheesy from the religious bookstore?"...or something like that...you know what I mean... [sorry dad, it was just an example, I swear...] )

All you can do is set your expectations on living each day in the presence of God, thanking him for all he provides, sharing with him your daily life, asking him to forgive what is past, and look to the future in EXPECTATION that you will work each day to fulfill his purpose for your life. The distance between EXPECTATION and REALITY is called STRESS!!!

EXPECTATIONS/\/\/\/\/STRESS/\/\/\/\/REALITY

The closer our EXPECTATIONS are to REALITY, the less stress we experience in our lives.

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I pray you all have a wonderful stress-free Christmas and New Years!!!!

I would recommend a book for you to buy, but let's face it, you are probably all tapped for cash, and don't have time to read during these next 2 weeks anyhow.

As the next 2 Thursdays are Major Holidays, and it is VERY unlikely that I'll be anywhere near the Internet, and so I wish you all a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I offer my sincere thanks for those who read this blog and offer their kind support. I hope it brings you some spiritual nourishment or encouragement, and I will write again to you after the new year.

With All Blessings,

-Fr. Jon+

The 17th Dose: High Scores

2009-12-10T16:43:00.008-06:00

I have a history of having "high-scoring" moments when no one else is paying attention, just God I suppose.... At least I'd like to think so.

When I was at East Texas State (...Texas A&M Commerce now...) I had one afternoon when I really had nothing else going on. In those days I was taking a lot of classes that spanned a whole day. One of my classes was at 8am, and I also had one that let out at 8pm. One semester I had a large bulk of classes in the morning, then around a 4 to 6-hour break in the middle of the day before my evening Sculpture class. Usually I spanned the time hanging out with friends, or getting ahead on work.

East Texas State (ET) was great. They had lots of cheap things to do to kill the hours. Cheap pool, cheap bowling, free workout center, and a 25-cent arcade. But for some reason, on one particular day, I had lunch, and decided to kill some of the time playing Galaga in the Student Union Building. So I began playing Galaga somewhere around 1pm. Before I knew it, I'd been standing there a while, and I happened to notice that my score was about to roll over 1 million!

I'd already had the high score for over an hour, but this was going to be the highest possible score! So I kept going. For those of you who don't play Galaga, or haven't become an expert (like me), Galaga only has something like 20 levels, so once you beat 20 levels it just starts over, but the score continues. Anyhow, I was about to break 1,000,000 on the score. It gradually inched up there. 900,000.... 910,000... 940,000... 960,000; 990,000!

And then, I DID IT!!!! I broke 1 MILLION on Galaga. But no one was there. I had no one to brag to. The only record was going to be my initials: JCJ. How would anyone know that was ME?!Then, as if that wasn't enough, I eventually had to go to class, so I just let my little spaceship get shot. I finally died. I was all set to let the record show that JCJ was the Ultimate Galaga Champion.

Unfortunately, just as the levels start over, so does the score. If you go over a million, it just assumes you've started over. [So if you ever find yourself at 999,900 on Galaga, just die. But don't run into another spaceship, it'll give you a score for killing them, and then you'll be over 1 million. Just let them shoot at you.] There was no proof of my achievement--just God smiling down at me saying, "Well done, good and faithful spaceship captain, now go to class!"

[I’ve had similar moments with Ms. Pac Man. I ROCK THE HOUSE at Ms. Pac man. I also have a theory about why she’s always just Ms. Pac Man and not Mrs. Pac Man…no one survives the game long enough to see them get married. He just keeps chasing her until her ghosts take her away…metaphor for dating-life....what do you think?!]

This last weekend, I went out to Camp Crucis to help Fr. Chuck Hough and Fr. Jeff Stubbs teach at Fall Rally. It was somewhat of a last-minute invitation, having only had about a week’s notice to get ready. But the Fathers and I pulled it together.

Anyhow, I usually make sure to take some time at camp to hear confessions. Usually, I hear a few, but they’re spread throughout the week. I always say that I hear more confessions at Camp than I do in my own Church, and I usually also hear more confession sitting at a bar than I do in the other two venues combined! But this year, that’s no longer true.

Due to the nature of our Priestly responsibilities, Fr. Hough, Fr. Stubbs and I all took parts of the weekend. Fr. Hough and I could only do Saturday. Fr. Stubbs could only do part of Saturday, and then Sunday morning. At any rate, the both of them had to leave early on Saturday, and I was left to handle the rounds of confession to be offered between our last afternoon theme-session and dinner.

Usually, when I “sit” for confession, and it is a lot of sitting, I just bring a book. Most of the time I spend improving my own spiritual life, and I’m occasionally interrupted to hear someone’s confession. This might sound a little dismissive, but I can’t MAKE people come confess, and I like to make good of my time in Church. Well, this time I forgot to bring a book…but I didn’t need one. I spent the ENTIRE TIME hearing confessions. I was there so long, that I missed dinner.

It didn’t even occur to me how long I was there until Monday when I ran into Fr. Stubbs who said, “I wish I could have sat and heard confessions for 3 hours straight!” I said, “I wasn’t there 3 hours, was I?” He said, “Well you started at 3:45 and dinner was at 6…and you apparently missed that entirely.”

It’s the longest I’ve ever sat and heard confessions, and in thinking about my high-scoring moments, it occurred to me that there are similarities. Every few minutes you start over, but the work (process) is the same. The score continues, but no one is there to count it, except God. He’s likely thinking, “Well done, good and faithful confessor…now move on to your next class!”

Some of our greatest achievements in life carry no bragging rights. We just do what we can, and do it well. And most of them aren’t nearly as fun as Galaga, or as important as confession. Usually they’re things like being a good parent, a good sibling, a good child, or a good child of God. You might achieve more than you ever have before, only there’s always more to learn about something else.

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WORD OF THE WEEK: PRIE DIEU (French. “Pray to God” )
[pronounced “pray-due”]

This is the name of that funny-looking kneeler that you’ve likely seen in your churches, which sometimes has a little shelf attached for books. This is also sometimes called a “prayer desk.” Some of them have confessional screens built in. When we spend some significant time praying before God, we often find our knees get sore or tired after a short time, and if you pray for a significant time, you might even find that your legs are asleep, and unable to carry you away. What a wonderful affliction!

There’s so much I could address about the act of praying, but I think the thing I want to point out about this particular term is the fact that it has no other purpose. Pillows and cushions can be used in other contexts, but a prayer desk or prie-dieu is only used for time with God which we designate to spend, usually alone, in a designated space away from the world.

To get good prayer time in, whether you’re at home, at work, or at Church, it helps to set yourself apart from the normal distractions. Churches are good places for this because the only things that are in the Church to distract you from the outside world are the things YOU bring into it. When you go somewhere to pray, leave behind distractions. Go in a different room, in the back yard, or take a walk around the block, and leave behind you phone, laptop, your ipod, and whatever else will take your attention away from a conversation with God. I find that EVERY time I do this, God shows me something I wouldn’t have seen or noticed with my usual distractions.

Set aside a time EVERY DAY to pray to God, and if you can manage, set aside a time soon to go see your Priest and make a good confession. Then, once you’ve let go of your sins, and left your baggage in the Church, go out and thank God for taking that load off of you. Start fresh. It’s the best gift you can give yourself for Christmas this year. Only 14 “shopping/confessing” days left before Christmas!

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BOOK OF THE WEEK: St. Augustine’s Prayer Book

This is a small affordable book of prayers that EVERYONE should own. As opposed to most traditional church prayerbooks, this one is meant for an individual, not a group. It contains within its pages, brief prayers for Morning, Noon, Evening, and Bedtime, as well as blessings over meals, and other specific prayers for special occasions.

It also contains pages on examining your own conscience before a confession, saying prayers to God by yourself before Mass, the Rosary, Stations of the Cross, and all kinds of little novenas and special prayers for certain occasions.

If you don’t own this book, BUY IT! I couldn’t find any copies available on Amazon, but check with your local bookstore, or you can usually find it (if you’re in Ft. Worth) at Stella Maris Books/St. Anthony’s Church Supply on McCart just south of Berry.

I use this book every day for my own personal prayer times, when no one else shows up for Morning Prayer or Evening Prayer. I find it to be somewhat schizophrenic to play the part of the Celebrant and the People to myself! The St. Augustine’s Prayerbook is meant for an individual at prayer, and it is a terrific resource to have, not on your shelf, but in your hand on a daily basis. Try it, you’ll see what I mean.
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INSERT COINS or

WAIT TILL NEXT THURSDAY TO CONTINUE

HIGH SCORE
999,000 JC

(Jesus Christ, not JCJ)

The 16th Dose: Rejection and Humility

2009-12-03T22:46:00.006-06:00

I hope you all had a fine Thanksgiving break last weekend. I had a great time hanging out with by Brother Sebastian and sister-in-law Lisa. I give special thanks to God for those who arranged my flight for me, and to my parish for giving me a few days of peace!

The day before I left town, I cooked dinner for my Mom, my Dad, and my Brother at my home. It was a great dinner, we and a great time sharing stories, however, I think something was afoot. I didn't recognize it at the time, but later, it made a difference.

My brother has a very large black labrador retriever named "Fenway," after the ball-park in Boston. Mom and Dad both refer to him as their "grand-dog." It didn't occur to me at the time, but they spoke to my fish Mikey, and yet neither of them referred to him as their "grandfish." I should have paid more attention.

In a last minute scurry to find someone to watch Mikey while I was out of town, I asked a few local friends, but it seems everyone had something going on. So in a last-ditch-effort, I had my Dad watch my fish. I took him in his travel bowl over to Pop's place.

Now, I should mention that I usually take him with me everywhere I go, when I travel. He's been to Camp Crucis several times, to a clergy retreat or two, and he even rode with Fr. Scott and I to St. Louis and back in September--always in his travel-bowl.

Anyhow, once I got back home last Friday, I received a call from my father that my fish Mikey was dead. The story was that he came home and found Mikey's bowl empty. At first Pop thought he'd jumped into the sink, and so he took apart the garbage disposal looking for him. Then, a short while later, Dad claims to have found him under a stool on the other side of the kitchen counter. He said he tried to put him back into his bowl, and he reported that Mikey revived for a few hours, and eventually went "belly-up." I'd like to think that Mikey defended the house from the attack of Chuck Norris (who IS likely limping somewhere in Texas). But my fear is that Mikey ended his own life.

"Why," might you ask, "would a fish have a motivation for suicide?" I think its because he thought my parents didn't accept him as a grand-fish. Maybe he thought it was because he was Asian. Rejection can be such a horrible thing.

Most of life's great traumas come at the hand of rejection of one kind or another. When we are not accepted, allowed to join the group, or welcomed into a family or a gathering, we feel slighted, hurt, and at times, without meaning or purpose. So much of our identity comes at the hand of love and charity from those who accept us, strange as we are. Even when we are rejected early in life by a parent and another takes their place the simple knowledge that we were once rejected or abandoned can leave lasting scars on the psyche, leaving a mess to be cleaned up later.

But rejection also forces humility. It forces us to look at ourselves, and to determine whether we are truly being rejected, or whether something really isn't wrong with us at all. Perhaps we really don't belong in the crowds we long to be a part of, and that might not be such a bad thing.

As we prepare for the coming of our Lord in this Advent season, my mind centers on the Holy Family, Joseph and the young pregnant Mary. They were rejected from having a place to rest as Mary was so very near to giving birth to Jesus. I always love the Advent plays performed by the children, but it seems in those plays that Mary and Joseph only knocked on one door, and then settled for a barn. I firmly believe Mary and Joseph knocked on more than a few doors looking for a place to bed-down and prepare for the birth of Jesus.

But rejection forced humility. Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords was born in a humble barn, and laid to rest in his fragile newborn state in a filthy feeding trough. But this humble little prince was made a most glorious king through the continual act of rejection forcing humility.

Jesus constantly encountered the feeling of not belonging, except when he was among the poor. Jesus was crowded by the humble and meek, and yet found that he didn't get much of a welcome among the rich, the prestigious, and the leaders of the temple.

And, of course, at the end of his life Jesus was forced to give his witness in the temple, forced to bear a cross, forced to humble himself in pain, nails forced into his hands and feet, vinegar forced into his mouth...and then in humility, just as he came into the world, Jesus faithfully accepts what life put in his path, and forgives those who reject him. and he continues to do so.

Jesus forgives us no matter how many times we reject him. He forgave his Apostles who abandoned him in his most desperate hours and spent time with them after his resurrection. So he forgives us and celebrates with us each time we bring him back into our lives. And in humility, we find potential for healing and even RESURRECTION.
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WORD OF THE WEEK: Advent (Latin. Adventus = "coming")

This time of year, we keep Advent, which is a preparation for the coming of the Lord. But how does Jesus come. or what aspect of his coming do we celebrate?

The way I see it, Advent is about the coming of Jesus in at least 3 distinctive ways:
1. The coming of Jesus in the Incarnation/Nativity
2. The Second Coming of Jesus as described in the Revelation to John
3. The coming of ourselves to Jesus.

In the Nativity, we recall each Christmas the coming of Jesus, the Word of God, into the world, "taking on flesh and dwelling among us" (John 1:14). This commemorates the great miracle of the Incarnation (in carne= "in the flesh"), the moment the Son of God begins the work of redeeming the world through humility and sacrifice--humility in becoming man, sacrifice in giving up his life as a sacrifice for all.

In looking forward to the 2nd Advent or the 2nd Coming of Jesus, we recall our need to be prepared with clean hearts and souls to be judged by the humble king who challenges us to love him by keeping his Father's Commandments (read the entire 17th Chapter of John, and quiz yourself to see if you even know the 10 Commandments [Exodus 20:1-17]). This part of celebrating Advent puts us to the task of checking in on ourselves and putting things back in order which might be going amiss. Just like Lent, Advent is a time of preparation and self-reflection.

This brings us to the 3rd aspect or perspective of Advent, the coming of ourselves to Jesus. When we find ourselves distant from our Lord, it's probably because WE have moved. Jesus constantly seeks us, seeks our voices, seeks our attention in our prayers. Worshipping God the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is our first vocation, or our 1st calling, 1st voice to be heard each day. Simply coming to God in prayer, letting him know that it is only by his holy will that we exist, and seeking first to praise him, without asking for things we want, is our greatest possible endeavor, and we all need a dose of it daily. It doesn't have to be long, but in those first few short minutes we set the tone for a day spent with God rather than a day on our own.

Jesus has come, and he is coming again, but we can close the distance between our souls and heaven so he doesn't have such a hard job of looking for all of us lost sheep...sheep who belong in the barn feeding from the manger.

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Well, I think that's enough for this week. I have a number of books in mind to recommend, but I think it'd be better if you all spent this 1st week of Advent preparing for the Lord to come into your lives on Christmas morning. Make an advent wreath, buy an advent calendar, and make each sunday an invitation to the Lord to come into your life, share your dinner table, and prepare in humility for his coming into your lives.

Happy Advent everyone!
Fr. Jon+

The 15th Dose: The "Black Friday" Blues

2009-11-19T16:50:00.017-06:00

36 shopping days left...or something like that.

I don't really bother myself to much about it all. When you grow up having so little, you learn to expect little, and still be happy. Most Christmases I got something new, but along with it, a box of used legos, or VHS tapes of cartoons taped by my grandmother who actually had cable and recorded them for us to enjoy, or the occasional new box containing hand-me-down clothes. I distinctively remember my little brother opening a box which contained a shirt that I was CERTAIN was in my drawer the night before. But it probably didn't fit anymore. We didn't have a lot, but we always enjoyed what we got.

Parents, take a lesson from ME on this one...your kids would much rather have YOU HOME for Christmas than to have you gone trying to make money to buy a lot of gifts they're going to forget about within a week of Christmas. If they break down crying because they expected more, you might start asking, "Who gave them that expectation?" And we all usually know the answer...either WE gave it to them, or they have a really close friend who is completely spoiled and has a lot of nice new stuff under the tree. And that really can't be helped.

One Advent, when my mother and I were living in a tiny little duplex in Oak Cliff with a stove that had no thermostat--only gas heat that was either ON or OFF (actually, the same was true of our gas space-heaters), we had very little money to go around. In those days, we did most of our regular shopping at a store called Mac Frugals, which has since been replaced by the Big-Lots chain of stores. However, Mac Frugals was very much the same: discounted close-out items, along with some food items, blended with what was essentially the birth of the 99cent store. We really stretched a dollar there, and found that we could live well if we lived frugally and lowered our expectations.

That year, we didn’t have a Christmas tree either. We just had a hanging-ivy (avocado plant) that was once a 7th grade science project of mine. So we hung Christmas lights on the planter, and put out presents on the floor under it. The lights themselves cost us no more than a dollar. Anyhow, for that Christmas, we agreed to spend no more than $10 on each other for gifts. The result was a very intentional selection of gifts. I could either get her ten $1 items, or one nice $10 item, or perhaps two $5 items. I’ve usually given my mother puzzles for gifts on holidays, so I found her a few puzzles, and perhaps a couple of girly things I thought she’s like.

I’ve always been pleased to get cheap things for Christmas that shoot little plastic darts, or discs, or really anything I could chase the cat around the house with. (This is still true. I don’t have a cat, but I’m pleased to have little plastic shooting-things in my office to shoot at the altar guild and random strangers who interrupt me when I’m busy working on something in my office.) We didn’t spend much, but were entirely pleased with our gifts, and found that we spent more time and intention thinking about each other without any real stress, only the challenge of keeping it to a limit. Limits are good, they keep us under control.

So I put the challenge to all of you! Think about what you are doing this Christmas as a family, and see if it wouldn’t be a nice year to just get each other a well-intentioned, well thought out, carefully selected $10 to $20 gift. I’ve found that a lot of people’s stress over the Christmas gift-giving comes from 2 factors:
1.) trying to match the value of what others are buying them; and

2.) freaking out over how MANY expensive things they have to buy for all of the various people they love.

Why not just buy something reasonable but well-thought-out with their personality in mind? And perhaps even leave some room for some charity this Christmas season. After all, the entire point of giving gifts is to show charity to others, as it was charity that was refused to Mary and Joseph who needed a place to stay in expectation of a newborn child that could come at any moment.

This way, you don't have to get up at 3-4am on the Friday after Thanksgiving ("Black Friday") to run around in haste and try to save a little money. Save yourself a lot of money, and just give reasonable gifts.

I'm asking my family to just get me argyle socks and, if necessary, Home Depot Gift Cards. (Mom, Pop, Seb & Lisa, the socks are in a special section at Target in the Men's Dept for $5, and the Gift cards can be picked up when you check out at almost any grocery store in the Unted States, except maybe the P.X.) The socks are warm and cozy, and every time I walk into a Home Depot, it's like a mini Vacation, even if I don't spend anything. Simple, cheap, makes me happy. Also, the gift cards themselves are often little gadgets like levels or tape measures. Who doesn't like gadgets?!

Now YOU try it! Tell your family NOT to go crazy on you, and you do the same for them.

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WORD OF THE WEEK: Charity (Lat. caritas, Gk. agape = Love)

Charity is love, but the greatest kind of Love...or so St. Paul says: "So faith, hope, charity abide, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." 1st Corinthians 13:13

You'll often hear this phrase translated "Love" instead of "charity." 1st Corinthians 13 is the most popular reading to be read at a wedding. We like the concept of love. We struggle with the idea of charity. But truly, charity is the greatest kind of love you could possibly offer. Charity is a selfless love, a self-giving love, a love (kind of like sacrifice) that usually costs us something and benefits another. Charity is something we GIVE AWAY without expectation of its return, although it usually makes us feel really good!

The textbook definition of charity is: the term for God's love placed by God in Human hearts; it is the greatest of the theological virtues (which are the virtues that come as the inevitable effect of the Holy Spirit present and working in our lives, and are also virtues which are increased by our soul's response toward them...which is to say, the more you behave virtuously, the more virtuous you become, and the more the Spirit works in you, which usually makes us feel happy!).

In the Greek vocabulary, which is the original language of the New Testament containing the bulk of the Christian Gospel of Jesus Christ, there are 3 words for Love: agape, eros, and philios.

1. Agape (which is translated into Latin as caritas, where we get the english word charity) is this love we've been speaking about: the selfless, self-giving, self-sacrificing love.

2. Eros is the love we show physically to a mate,or potential mate. Eros is a carnal love, a sexual love, a physical love. This is where we find the origin of the word erotic.

3. Philia is the love we show a friend, a brother, or a neighbor. This is friendship, companionship, fraternity. This is where we get the name of the city in Asia Minor (also Pennsylvania) named Philadelphia...philios= love; delphi/delphos= sibling, brother or sister.

Charity is the greatest of these loves because, as I said earlier, it is the most giving of all of forms of love. It involves sacrifice, and the benefit is always much greater to than the other loves, because it usually touches much more of the community, and is closer to the heart of God. When we see charity in action, we are usually also touched by it and inspired toward greater acts of charitable love ourselves. If we stop spending so much on gifts in expectation of gifts ourselves, then maybe we'll have a little more to share, to give away, and to find in that giving, the love that makes God truly happy.

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BOOK OF THE WEEK: A Coming Christ in Advent by Ray Brown

In anticipation of the coming Advent Season (and with anticipation that it will take you a week to order this book and get it in the mail in time to begin on the 29th), this book is one of several seasonal reading books I suggest to set your mind on Christ in the Advent Season. Ray Brown has a number of these books for seasonal reading. This one is a set of 6 studies to ponder on the Holy Scriptures related to the birth of Jesus as we approach Christmas.

These books are more of a study than a meditative sort of thing, although studying the scriptures almost always touches us inwardly and gives us cause for thought and meditation, but we must always increase our learning and understanding of WHY we keep these seasons if we are to get a full dose of the grace to be received by these celebrations.

This is an easy read, in that it is short, but it is a worthwhile study...especially for someone who is new to the keeping of Advent as a penitential and preparatory season. So much of our culture only hears the lessons about the birth of Jesus read at Church on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. The rest of the Gospel is absent until we come to Easter with the Resurrection of Christ. The great gift of the Incarnation of Jesus is so much more than his birth--it is his self giving and sacrifice that make the incarnation of value. The birth is only a beginning, although it is wonderful and most certainly an inviting starting point of the Gospel story.

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Have a good Thanksgiving everyone! I'll try to post next week, althoug it is entirely possible that I won't be able. I'm going to see by brother in San Diego, and who knows what will be waiting for me there next Thursday?!

Gobble, gobble y'all! ...ooh...I could have done GLUTTONY...maybe next week ;)

-Fr. Jon+

The 14th Dose: Sacrifice and Blood

2009-11-12T18:04:00.013-06:00

Today I gave blood, as I do whenever I am eligible. Over this last weekend, with the shooting that took place at Fort Hood, many of the blood banks have been calling for donors, and I was pleased to hear today that a vast number of new donors came out over the weekend to donate blood to support the needs at Fort Hood, but in the process also stocked the local blood banks with much-needed reserves. The men and women who serve our Armed Forces sacrifice a great deal of blood for us, which is the meaning behind remembering and honoring them on Veterans Day.

The gift of blood is something that is truly valuable, and can only be given in doses if we are to remain alive to give again and again. But if we all donated as often as we could, collectively we could do a great deal of good for those who have a problem that cannot be solved with money. It can only be solved with the sacrifice of another person who is particularly suited to give a specific type of gift. (To find a place to give blood click here. This is also a good way to monitor your cholesterol and overall health for FREE!)

Of all of the things you can give your fellow man, I struggle to think of something more virtuous to sacrifice than a part of your own livelihood. Jesus says in the Gospel of John: "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13). Fortunately, the blood banks don't ask for ALL of it! But I think there is something to be said for the gift of blood, and all the things that come from this one word, act, or thought: Sacrifice.

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WORD OF THE WEEK: Sacrifice (Latin. sacrificium, from sacer= "sacred" and facere= "to make")

We often think of sacrificing only in the sense of something that is "offered" like money or gifts, or something that is "given up" such as time or, once again, money. But I wonder if we think on what we are doing as an act that makes something HOLY.

A Sacrifice, definitively, is something of value offered as an act of worship or devotion to God. But we often speak of sacrifices as things done for our fellow man. When Jesus sacrifices his will and his life, he does so to save humanity (which receives the benefit), but His sacrifice is made to God, to be the perfect offering for our sins.

Most of the time we read of sacrifices made in the Bible, they are made as a payment to God for sin. In the "Old Covenant" or "Old Testament" way of looking at things, animal or fruit offerings were made to God as a payment to appease God for the sins of the individual, family, or the community. But what the people never seemed to understand (and we also struggle with this) was that these sacrifices were asked from them, not because God likes to watch us slay and burn goats or give up the first fruits picked from trees or from the ground, but rather, the point was to teach us to depend on God and show our trust that he would continue provide for us so long as we are faithful.

For a perfect illustration of this, read the book of the Minor Prophet Malachi (It's the last book in the Old Testament, so if you can find the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew, turn back a few pages, and you're there...it's only 3-4 pages). Malachi speaks of people's poor sacrifices, and the fact that they were offering to God those things which they planned on throwing away anyhow: goats born lame, or with 3 legs, or blind; fruit and grain sacrifices that were about to rot. God tells Malachi to warn the people: "Cursed be the cheat who has a male in his flock, and vows it, and yet sacrifices to the Lord what is blemished." (Malachi 1:14a)

Sacrifices usually cost us something we need, or we will miss, but good sacrifices are always a gift to God, and usually result in the gift and the giver being made HOLY in the process.

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BOOK OF THE WEEK: The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran Priest held captive in the Nazi prison camps during the 2nd World War. During his time in the concentration camps, he taught the faith, converted many of his captors (the guards), and wrote a few wonderful books. Among them is this book about the real COST of Discipleship.

In this book, Bonhoeffer speaks of the nature of sacrifice, but most importantly about how sacrifice is necessary to be a good disciple of Jesus:

"Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves...the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship. Costly grace is the gospel which much be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is race because it gives a man the only true life." -Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship.

Perhaps the most famous line from this book is: "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." This thought obviously echoes the voice of our Lord Jesus who said to his disciples: "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." (-Matthew 16:24-25)

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Take a moment this weekend to think on what it is you sacrifice or give to God so that you and your gifts may be holy. If you don't give anything, consider again that sacrifice involves giving up something comfortable, something that will cost, something that will require you to demonstrate faith that God will provide. But when you do, I promise you that you will gain something greater than you sacrifice.

"I will not offer to the LORD my God that which cost me nothing." -King David (2nd Samuel 24:24)

Make it a good and holy weekend!

-Fr. Jon+

The 13th Dose: Locked Out / Homecoming

2009-11-05T18:12:00.006-06:00

I've been locked out!

This morning, when I actually woke up early for a change, I awoke to the faint sound of a saw grinding or cutting something. I sort-of assumed it was part of the construction that has been going on a couple of doors down where a new house is being built. So I ignored it, fed the fish, took a shower, and got ready to go to work.

However, when I opened my garage to head out, I discovered that a construction crew was just about to jack-hammer a rather large hole right in front of my house. Fortunately, they'd just started, so they were able to move the rather large concrete saw out of the way, and remove a couple of the barricades to let me out.

After my exodus, most of my morning was spent as it usually is the 1st Thursday of the month: saying mass at a nursing home and making calls to all of my shut-ins. After I made my last call, I returned to the office to get some work done, however the Choir-room next to my office is being painted, so the air was saturated with that paint-fume smell. So I gathered a few things to get out of the office...but I couldn't go home.

So, I guess I locked myself out of my office, and based on the amount of materials laid out in front of my house this morning, I'm just assuming that I'll still be unable to get into my house until after-dark tonight. I suppose I could go home, park a few doors down, and walk across a few yards...but I probably won't be parking in my own driveway for a few hours.

But then again...despite the difficulties posed by both of these outside stimuli, neither of them has prevented me from doing what I needed to do today. Although, I could have just cancelled all of my calls this morning and stayed home for the day. And I could have shut the door in my office, turned on the fan, and continued to get things done. I haven't really been locked out at all...I've locked myself out.

I find that most people who haven't been to Church or talked to God in a while often feel the same way. They feel locked out, or have been influenced by outside problems to be lazy, or stay away from home, but in reality, it really comes down to the fact that they have chosen to lock themselves out.

There are many things that keep us distracted from God. There are plenty of harmful things that happen within churches, mistakes made by the people and by the clergy that can often drive us away from one church and discourage us from entering another. At other times, it seems as though we have real pastoral needs and the Church isn't meeting them. Sometimes people even feel as though God has neglected their needs or is deaf to their cries. These are all things I hear from people on a regular basis when I ask them why they don't go to Church, or why they've been slow to return.

Exile is an interesting word. People often throw that word around as though any time they are asked to leave someplace, or feel as though they ought to leave, they're in exile. But Biblically speaking, exile is something entirely different. Exile is when your enemies come to utterly conquer you, destroy your home, take your things, strip you naked, tie your hands behind your back, and put hooks in your skin (usually your chest) to drag you away to a foreign land at the end of a rope or chain. THAT's EXILE! At least, that's what the Babylonian exile was all about! St. John experienced a different kind of exile, where he was locked in prison on an island off the coast of Asia Minor (present day Turkey). But in either case, exile is the result of being carried away by another, rather than walking away under your own power.

But when you remove yourself from your home, your church, your audience with God...you aren't in exile. You've locked yourself out.

So what do we do about this?

God is always open to hear our voices. Mistakes are a common factor in human nature. The remedy to being locked out of Church or away from God might take several avenues:

1. If we feel as though God isn't listening, we must ask ourselves, "If we aren't talking to him, what does he have to listen to?" Start talking to God again in prayers, or in simply sharing your day with him, and perhaps you'll find that life is a little more blessed when we share it with God and ask for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in your life. I once heard someone say, "My worst day with God is better than my best day without him." I've always found that to be absolutely true.

2. If we've had a break with our Church, we might look at why it happened. Many times relationships can be re-built or reconciled when they've been broken. Many times our pride is hurt, and we're actually more afraid of apologizing or encountering those we've hurt than we are of whatever actually originally happened. Sometimes restoration to good graces can deepen a relationship because it has been tempered by struggles that have been overcome. But then, sometimes it is fine to let things go and start fresh, which leads to the next point:

3. We could simply seek a new church home. There are a lot of churches around, you know! Sometimes a fresh start can allow for more growth or swifter resurrection than trying to overcome old problems. This is not to diminish the wonderful benefits of renewing and repairing old relationships, but there are plenty of benefits in making new connections in a new place, with new people, and none of our old hindrances. Many things keep us from growing at one time or another. Often, when one person has grown up at a Church, or is a child of someone who attends that Church, they feel as though people will always look at them as “so-and-so's kid,” instead of being their own person. So sometimes it can be healthy to make a fresh start in developing our faith with a new Church family.

When we get ourselves restored to the Church, it can be like a homecoming. God is always there to welcome us home, and to hear our voices, even if we’ve been gone for a long time.

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Well, I’m going to try to head home now. Hopefully my driveway is restored and, who knows, perhaps the path home will be nicer that it was before I left. If you’ve felt locked out lately, I pray your path home will be smooth too!

Blessings,
Fr. Jon+

The 12th Dose: The Bishop is Coming; Everyone Look Busy!

2009-10-29T17:38:00.007-05:00

Since I've already addressed Halloween, I suppose now it's time to talk about All Saints Day.

This year, All Saints Day falls on a Sunday, and for me, it happens to be the Sunday Bishop Iker is visiting my parish. So please pray for good weather, good attendance, and a very happy visitation for my Bishop.

Ok, so All Saints....
All Saints day is a day to remember the Saints, or the "holy ones" of the Church--those who have come before us and endured struggles of their own. We like to think of the Saints as the celebrities of the Church who did great things and got lots of attention for it. But if, by attention, you mean MARTYRDOM, well then I guess you're right!

It can be dismissive to think of the Saints as extraordinary people who achieved things we cannot, or things we can only reach for and not achieve for ourselves. But consider that most of the major saints wouldn't have been able to read a menu at a restaurant, they never owned a car, a home, a pad of paper, a book or even a Bible (hard to imagine, I know), or any of the many other tools we now use to win souls for Christ.

In fact, most of them were just average people who heard about something good, and went and shared it. Some shared it as a career, while millions of unknown saints simply taught their families and worshipped God faithfully. In any case, sainthood is a matter of having a faith that you share with your neighbor, and a life that you share with God.

Now, many of them had the same problems as we do. While technology and wealth have increased over the years, basic human tendencies have not. They had temptations to gluttony, fornication, envy, wrath, sloth, complacency, and all-around self-indulgence and self-gratification just like we do. What we learn most from the saints is how to overcome these obstacles, remain true to our faith, pray for our families and our neighbors, and live as holy children of God.

On All Saints day, we commemorate their lives, and pray that God will likewise inspire, guide, forgive, and accept us into his kingdom as he did those stubborn, broken, human saints of old.

On All Souls Day, which is almost always Nov 2nd, the day after All Saints Day, we pray for all of the faithful departed, but also for those lost souls who may not have known God during their lives. We pray most especially for those who ended life suddenly without repentance, those who die alone, in poverty, or without knowledge of the Gospel. We also pray for all of the souls that have died in the past year, those who are buried on our Church grounds, and for those who were dear to us whom we miss.

This is why, on Halloween, we go to our neighbors and ask them to pray for our ancestors, and also ask for the names of their departed loved ones whom we might pray for. When we get into the habit of praying for each other, we come to grow closer to our neighbors, and bit-by-bit, they become a part of our prayer-family.

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WORD OF THE WEEK: Hearse (Ango-Norman French herce = harrow or frame)

Most of you might know of a hearse from the name of the car that carries a coffin to and from a funeral. However you might not know that the hearse was at one time either:

1. a triangular lattice-work frame or canopy that covered the coffin of a distinguished person, or
2. (probably first usage) the triangular frame which held candles that were placed on the side of the body during the requiem mass.

I know many of you don't attend near as many funerals as I do in a year, but occasionally if you look at the coaches/cars the funeral homes use these days, occasionally the sides of the back end of the hearse look like candle-stands with 3 candles in them. I occasionally attend a funeral where they use a hearse with a picture of an actual hearse on the side stylized in chrome, and I point it out to the funeral home directors. Usually, it's the first time they've ever heard the original meaning of the word.

Some of the older hearses simply looked like mobile canopies.

Granted, I know this doesn't come up much in the way of conversation, but it's something to learn since we're talking about dead people for All Saints and All Souls Day.

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BOOK OF THE WEEK: For All The Saints by N.T. Wright

Bishop N. T. Wright is the Anglican Bishop of Durham, England, but he's also quite a scholar, and this is his book on the Communion of Saints.

It's not a very big book or a difficult read. N.T. Wright's stuff is always manageable to read, and he's got a lot of other good stuff you should check into, especially books for Bible Studies. They're called ....For Everyone, i.e. Luke for Everyone, John for Everyone, ...just take the name of the book of the Bible you want to study, and add: For Everyone when you search, and you'll find it.

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Well, that's enough for this week. Be sure, if you haven't already, to print out the Halloween flyer I mentioned last week. It's available on my parish website (<--click) as a printable double-sided flyer. Let people in your offices know what Halloween is really all about. Who knows, maybe they might even give you a name or two to pray for. What a wonderful thing it would be if everyone prayed for their neighbors every day! Neighbors at work, neighbors at home...

Happy Almost All Saints Day!

Fr. Jon+

The 11th Dose: Trick or Treat Evangelism

2009-10-22T16:45:00.003-05:00

Well, Halloween is just around the corner, and since it's been a while since I've written about the meaning of it, and the correlation to All Saints Day, I've decided to post my newsletter article below. If you already receive my parish's newsletter, then you've probably already read my brief history on "Trick or Treating."

HOWEVER...how can you share this knowledge?

Last year, as I was passing out candy at my doorstep, I felt as though I was kind-of selling out to the commercial Halloween. I was giving out candy without asking the kids to pray for my ancestors and departed friends. (If you don't know what I mean, read the stuff below.) I thought to myself: "Self, why didn't you make a flyer you could hand out to the kids in your community to tell them about why we 'trick or treat?'"

So as a remedy to this situation, I created a front&back flyer about trick or treating, and resolved to pass it out to kids in my neighborhood who come to my door. And in the flyer, I explain the meaning of trick or treating, and conclude it with a call to go back to Church, whether it's my church or another. I simply ask the reader to think about going back to Church if they do not, and especially on All Saints Day to pray for their own departed ancestors, or friends who have died.

Then I decided I would make enough for the people in my parish to do the same. So I've copied off 1,000 flyers for my parish to distribute. Then it occurred to me, "Why not ask all of the parishes in the Diocese do this?!" So I did! Now I'm planning on emailing it out to other local Churches outside of our tradition, and then also share it with local morning radio personalities and see if this information can make it on the airwaves. It just drives me crazy to listen to morning radio guess at what Halloween is all about.

My whole goal is to remind all of the people of Ft. Worth (and maybe Dallas too) what Halloween is really about, and to remind them that God calls us all to worship in Church, and now is a wonderful time to get back into it if we've fallen away. why wait until Christmas? If you start going back now, they won't look at you as a stranger when you show up on christmas!

Anyhow, here is the article. If you like it, I say make a flyer of your own, print it, and hand it out to the kids in your neighborhood who come to your door, OR simply pass them out as you take your kids "Trick or Treating."

I'm also going to ask our webmaster of our parish's website to post the flyer as a downloadable document on our website ASAP, and that way if you want to borrow my format, you can do so. Feel free to share this information around! It's not mine to profit on, except to draw some good people back to Church. Post it at work, on bulletin boards, on your cubicle, or just email it to people you know and trust.

Enjoy!!!

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Trick or Treat ?
Do you know why you do what you do on Halloween?
Where did this whole idea come from? It has something to do with the “eve of all-hallows”… whatever that is, right? But why the candy and costumes? Let’s start with Halloween. What is Halloween, or All Hallows Eve? Just as we pray in the Lord’s prayer, “Hallowed be thy name…,” “hallows” means holy ones, or put more simply, the Saints. And we know what “eve” means, it’s the evening before.

All Hallows Eve, or the Eve of All Saints Day is a day when we prepare to celebrate the feast of All Saints, but what do we do to prepare? What is there to prepare for? November 1st has traditionally been All Saints Day, and November 2nd is All Souls Day. On these days, we typically pray for and honor the departed souls of those who have come before us. Even now, in some places, All Saints Day is when they pray for the Saints and departed Children, and All Souls Day is a day to pray for everyone else, known or unknown, who have departed this life.

So, people would prepare for these days of prayer by collecting a list of all of the departed souls they knew, recent deaths as well as ancestors. People would also pray for their neighbors’ departed relatives, and keep them in their devotions on these special days.

But what does this have to do with putting on a costume and going door-to-door asking for candy? Well, in preparation for gathering those names we just mentioned, and to teach their children how to begin/maintain this devotion, people would send their children door-to-door to ask their neighbors for the names of their departed relatives. And the children’s reward for their prayers was a small cake or pastry, often called a “soul-cake,” given in trade for a prayer for a departed soul—one cake for one prayer.

A custom also came along over the years where children would honor All Saints Day by dressing up as their favorite saint, so to learn more about those Christians that gave their lives to the service of the Lord, and to pattern their lives after the Saints. Somewhere along the line, these practices were combined, and we ended up with children dressing up as saints and going door-to-door asking for sweets and prayers.

Of course, like many other Christian days of devotion, All Saints Day was put in its current place on the last day of October to thwart the celebration at the end of the Pagan year, which was much like a New Year’s Eve celebration. Somewhere in this mix, we get the phrase “trick or treat?” as the pagans were reluctant to give up their holiday and participate in the Christian Holiday. Christian Children were likely saying “trick or treat” merely to ask if they were to be given a treat for their prayers, or to be tricked into praying for a Pagan God of some sort.

Naturally, time withers all kinds of things, and customs get lost in their public interpretations. So instead of seeing children dressed up as Saints such as, St. Laurence, St. John, or the Virgin Mary, we see St. Batman, St. Sponge-Bob, and St. Cat-in-the-Hat walk the streets asking for candy, and we give them no names to pray for.

So next Halloween, if you are able, or if you have the inclination, consider dressing your child as a Saint, or at least teach them to pray for the souls of your departed loved ones. The Saints pray for us daily, and we should return the favor! Also, if you don’t currently attend a church, call around and find a church to try on. God is always calling us back home, and the Saints continue to pray for us to find and serve God as they did, whether or not we pray for them.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN and HAPPY ALL SAINTS DAY!

This reminder brought to you by:
Christ the King Episcopal Church
3290 Lackland Road, Ft. Worth 76116
Worshipping in the Anglican Tradition
-The Rev. Jon C. Jenkins, Rector
www.ChristTheKingFortWorth.com

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That's all for this week. I'll return to the usual format next week, and I'll have more to say about All Saints Day!

Blessings,

Fr. Jon+

The 10th Dose: Bored-Again Christians

2009-10-15T15:18:00.031-05:00

Today, I confess, I'm a bit bored.

The weather lately has reminded me a great deal of my time in Wisconsin: weeks on end without seeing the sun, or even the sky; gloomy weather; lots of staying inside. All of this rain is tiresome, and it is as if our bodies tell us to shut down and hibernate.

(<--This picture was apparently the cover art for a Christian album for people who don't like Christian music. I don't know if it's any good, I just liked the picture.)

But isn't it funny how things we long for in one season, become boring and unwelcome in the next?! All summer long, and it was a LONG summer, we begged and pleaded God for some rain. We wanted cooler days, a relief from 100-degree heat, and perhaps a little rain to water our yards and fill the lakes, streams, and rivers for our enjoyment. Lately, we've had plenty of rain, cool days and nights, and no shortage of excuses to stay inside. I admit, I long for days to go outside and enjoy temperate weather again, even if it is in the 90's.

My personal and prayer life seems to work out this way too. Most of the time, I'm terrifically busy, and wish I just had a day with nothing going on so I could take it easy. When the easy days come, all I do is complain to myself that I have nothing to do. I'm a person who is generally good at taking advantage of a day off, doing a project in the garage, or just reading a book. But like I said, I'm just as guilty as any of you at wanting to do the opposite of whatever life is handing me.

The same can be true with prayer. There are days when it seems I have little to pray for, and I wish I had more to put before God. But there are times when things really are going pretty well, or at least I guess I feel I've prayed enough about a certain subject, and so I let off for a while...unless it's something I really want, then I hound God daily! Praying the same thing every day can get tiresome, and we are so quick to set prayer aside entirely, until we need something.

I guess it's just in our nature to be uncomfortable with the "status quo". Unless things are going perfectly, and we do find those nice moments from time to time, it seems we waste a lot of time thinking about what we wish we'd rather be doing: I'd rather be sailing, reading, sleeping, going to a museum, going out with friends, staying in with family, cooking dinner, eating out....the list goes on. We always want ot change things up, even if what we are doing now is exactly what we wished we were doing a week ago!

So how do we fight this? How do we recover from a doldrums of boredom?

I typically find that when I want to stop being lazy, all I have to do is look around myself, and I find something better to do with my time in my immediate vicinity. When I want more to pray for, I only need to open a newspaper, or open my parish directory and start talking to God about what's going on the world or in my parish, and before I know it I've spent a good bit of time in actual useful prayer, and it is refreshing.

When I'm at home, I look to those little projects I keep complaining that I'll never get around to. Changing light bulbs, repairing small things, or even simply vacuuming the house! I'm TERRIBLE about vacuuming my house! I sorta’ figure that since I'm almost never there, it doesn't get dirty. But it only takes one pass through my living room to fill the vacuum canister and prove myself wrong.

Possibilities for change, for improvement, for more meaningful prayer are all around us, we just need to look, pay attention, and GET TO WORK! The cure for boredom, at least for me, is WORK! It doesn't have to be difficult, or deep, or time consuming, you can just find something to make a little progress on. Start a journal of your prayers, work a puzzle, clean up a little, or call someone you haven't spoken to in a while. It doesn't take much to kick-start a good day.

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WORD OF THE WEEK: SLOTH (Old English. Slow + th)

Sloth is the refusal to respond to our opportunities for growth, service, or sacrifice. It is also the last of the 7 Deadly Sins. Somewhat similar to complacency (from an earlier post), sloth is typically rooted in two expressions: Laziness and Indifference.

Laziness can take all kinds of forms. Laziness can be a lack of interest in spiritual, mental, or physical duties, or a neglect of family, business, or social obligations. Usually what happens with laziness is we spend WAY too much time doing something like watching tv, sleeping, or just lounging around. Better options might very well be in reach, and we are aware of them, but sitting and doing nothing or as little as possible, sounds just that much better. The element that makes laziness a slothful act is KNOWING that there is something better to do, and REFUSING to do it. There are times when laziness is ok, and even needed. But when we KNOW that something better could be done, and we simply REFUSE to do it, that's sloth.

Indifference is a little different. Indifference is when we choose to not care, or not be concerned about things we see going on around us. when someone is being treated unjustly, or when someone is suffering, and we choose to do nothing about it when we are capable of lending them so much as a smile and a kind word, that's sloth. Indifference can also be about ourselves and our families. When we know we need to be in Church more, or to serve our fellow man, or when we know that someone in our parish is going through a hard time and could use some encouragement, but we choose to do nothing, to be indifferent.

When we have an opportunity to grow, but we choose to be lazy, sloth has taken hold.

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BOOKS OF THE WEEK
There are just so many good books on sloth, laziness, and boredom, but most of them are written for children. The Cat in the Hat; Jumanji; The Bored Book; and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe ...all of these are books that begin with a story about children who are bored. In each case, the boredom leads to exploration of their surroundings which always results in adventure, and sometimes in mischief.

In The Cat in the Hat, the Cat appears and brings fun which quickly becomes mischief, danger, trouble, and then miraculously at the end, everything is restored. There are many morals may be derived from this little book. Things such as: don't open the door to strangers, don't disobey your parents, and etc., but we might also notice that we often get into the most trouble as teh result of boredom. Often, when we could be doing something good, we sometimes allow ourselves to get into a little mischief. Mishief that could have been avoidedby staying productive!

In Jumanji (read the book, forget the movie), two siblings begin a game out of boredom, but quickly find themselves with more action than they can handle. The first time I read this book I was in the 4th grade, it was a rainy day, and I asked if I could go to the library to pick out a book. I piked up the first one I saw on the table as I entered, and it was Jumanji.

In The Bored Book, two siblings also start rummaging around in their grandpa's house, and find a door leading to an adventure not unlike the two in Jumanji mixed with the next book. I might also mention that this book has no words, just wonderful watercolor illustrations.

In The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe, a group of siblings are sent to the country to escape a war-ridden city life in London. When they arrive, they find extreme boredom staring them in the face, until a game of what we would call "hide and go seek" leads the youngest sister to discover a wardrobe that is a door to a magical world full of danger and excitement. The whole group quickly find themselves enraptured in adventure beyond expectation. This is perhaps the best book of the bunch to pick up on a cold rainy or winter day when you have nothing better to do.

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Well, I've just recovered myself from my slump, and I hope, if you feel as though you are in one, you will do the same. Pick up a book, pick up a broom, look around you and pay attention, and God will show you where you might be useful. All you have to do is get up and DO SOMETHING!

Blessings,
Fr. Jon+

The 9th Dose: Building a Fortress of Faith

2009-10-08T17:21:00.010-05:00

A very humid Thursday to you all!

I've had an extremely busy week, but one blessed by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit through the words of Archbishop Benjamin Kwashi! I first met Abp. Kwashi at seminary when he came to install one of our professors as his Canon Theologian. He is a short man, by my standards, but a GIANT in prayer, devotion, and spreading the Gospel, especially in the midst of such a great and tumultuous adversary.

Abp. Kwashi lives in Jos, Nigeria, and he is surrounded by Muslims who at times can be very violent. So violent in fact that the United Nations recommends that NO Americans travel there. His house has been burned down by them 3 times, and in one instance (as I recall it, so please forgive me if I am incorrect) his wife was raped and beaten and he was also assaulted. Despite this atmosphere, he has expanded the diocese 5 times over, and there are now 5 Dioceses where there was once one. Each time it splits, he takes the smallest one and expands it again, and again, and again.

He spoke to a group of men in our Deanery on Monday night, and then the clergy had a lunch with him on Tuesday. He spoke to us about having convictions to follow through on what we aim to do. He quoted Ghandi who said, "You cannot stop a man with a destination, you can only delay him." When we have no convictions, no committed and determined goals, it is very easy to get side-tracked and distracted and lose our purpose. But, when we have a goal, and are determined to reach it, we cannot be stopped, only delayed.

I wish I could share with you more of what he said, as it really fired me up to do some good things and encouraged me to continue my current work, but all I can do is share with you my passions for ministry that were rekindled by this little and most humorous man. In our final minutes of private discussion, he shared with me something I'd also resolved to understand. He said, "At the end of my ministry, I don't expect to enjoy a retirement or a pension. I expect the end of my ministry to come with my death, my martyrdom. Why should I expect a pension? Did St. Paul have one? Did Jesus have one? No...at least not on this Earth. I'm making my investment in eternity, the rest of this is just frivolity."

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WORD OF THE WEEK: Fortitude (Latin. fortitudo = "strength")

Fortitude is a firmness and perseverance toward righteousness associated with the fourth beatitude (Matt 5:6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." See also Psalm 71). It has been regarded as a Cardinal Virtue equivalent to courage. Some have seen its ultimate expression in martyrdom.

As the first half of the word suggests, having FORTitude is like living in a fort. When we have a strong faith built on a solid foundation and supported by strong bricks of experience, Holy Scripture, and the blood of the martyrs who came before us cementing it all together, we are more heavily protected from the assaults of the enemy. The act of fortitude is an act of remaining strong when the world around us challenges our faith.

We are often faced with moments when, for whatever reason, we are tempted to just back down. People will ask us, “Do you really believe that Jesus died for your sins?” or perhaps something smaller like: “Do you really believe that you have to go to Church EVERY Sunday?” And in those moments, you call up out of the well of your faith and say, “YES!” Even if you aren’t practicing as well as you wished you were, or haven’t been in a while, or have made a few major mistakes with your life. The first step toward resisting evil’s temptation is to call upon your fortitude and stand up for your faith, and for God.

The darts of the enemy often look more like spears or even missiles when we are weak in our practice of the faith, but the more time we spend reading the Word of God, being nourished in the sacraments, and spending time with God in our prayers and thoughts, the stronger, taller, and more FORTified out castle will be.

It is so easy to get discouraged, especially when we haven’t done anything to FORTify our walls in a while. Building a FORT from scratch can seem difficult. But FORTunately, for your sake, the castle has already been built. Jesus is the foundation, and he has even laid a few bricks to get you started. So have the Saints who have come before you! You can get an easy start by attending your local Church (it doesn't really matter to me where you go, so long as you go to a Church that is faithful), and join the others who will work with you to build a wall of protection around yourself and your family. It might seem scary at first, since we don't know if they'll look at us as an enemy, but I assure you that the more you go, the more assured you and they will be that you belong in the same FORTress of faith.

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!!! BONUS FEATURE !!!
MOVIE OF THE WEEK: "The Last Castle" starring Robert Redford

This movie wasn't highly advertized as it centers around the taking of a castle. When someone attacks your fort, the symbol for help and distress is to fly your flag upside down. In this case, the General (Robert Redford), along with some other military prisoners, are taking over an American military castle, so the flag to be flown upside down was the American Flag. When this movie was about to come out, the posters showed an American flag upside down, but then....9/11 came. No one wanted to see an American Flag upside down, no matter what the premise was, so all advertising for this film was pulled.

This is a terrific film about standing up for what is right in the light of persecution, and doing the right thing, despite the potential cost. There are likely other films which would accomplish this same purpose, but one week at a time!

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So, I suppose that's enough for this week! Keep your head up, persevere in your faith, and be ready to fight back when someone challenges your faith. You have a great and mighty defender who will reward you for your perseverance, perhaps here, but most certainly in eternal life. Just ask Bishop Kwashi!

-Fr. Jon

The 8th Dose: Forgiveness and Lessons of Love

2009-10-01T13:54:00.014-05:00

It has become apparent to me that it's a far more realistic goal to write these posts on Thursday afternoons instead of Thursday mornings. Thursdays go by quickly for me, as most Thursdays I help unload our food-bank order from a trailer, then either make it to a clergy luncheon or go say mass at a nursing home, then make a few house-calls.

Having been a priest now for 3 years (my anniversary was on Sept 23rd), I have begun to notice something peculiar about house-calls. Some people are indeed house-bound and are stuck in bed, or cannot walk more than 50 feet without sitting down, and truly have a need for me to bring the Church to them, and I love to do so. But from time to time, I get asked to call on someone who allegedly can't make it to Church, and when I call to make the appointment, they're out shopping at a mall, or getting their hair done, or something else frivolous. After failing to make an appointment following several attempts, I sometimes conclude that the reason they don't come to church is simply that they don't want to!

I feel as though I've been on a rant about this lately in all aspects of my ministry, but it concerns me deeply. I missed one Sunday a couple of months ago because I was on vacation, and during my vacation I took one Saturday night out on the town. It was the first time I've been out past 10pm on a Saturday night in a LONG time, and so I overslept on Sunday morning. I had every intention of waking, but my body simply shut down and I completely missed the alarm because I was out till 1 or 2am. During that night out, I felt completely out of place. I witnessed hundreds of people walking around, standing in line to pay to get into crowded smokey places. I stood in these places with my friends, in complete discomfort and without a desire to be there, feeling guilty about something I hadn't really done wrong. I simply don't get the attraction toward packing into a night-club, not being able to hear the person next to you speak, and likely spilling your over-priced drink on the people who bump into you, in pursuit of God-knows-what?!

I'm not sure why people like that, and I'm also not sure why they don't long for Church as I did. I felt absolutely useless on the next day. I didn't have something to refresh my week in word and sacrament.

But I think I might have figured it out! I think a lot of people don't go to Church because they feel like they don't belong there. Perhaps someone will notice them. There aren't many people to talk to. They feel guilty just sitting there. We often don't want to talk to God, because he knows something is wrong. Trust me, I know the feeling. It's the same when we've somehow offended someone we care about, whether on purpose or on accident, or even by neglect, and we can't bring ourselves to call them, let alone come and visit them.

We know what we'll hear: "Where have you been?"; "Look at what the cat dragged in."; "What do you think you're doing HERE!?"; "You've got a lot of nerve just showing up here considering I haven't even HEARD from you in a year...(2years...5-10 years, etc.)."

But the difference is that God is more ready to forgive than we are. We are far more likely to take offense, hold a grudge, and give someone grief over minor offenses than God is. Rather, God is hoping to see you each and every week. He hopes to hear from you every day, if only for a moment. He's ready to let go of the past, and move on to helping you achieve a grace-filled future.

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WORD OF THE WEEK: Forgiveness (Greek. aphesis, "letting go.")

You might think you know what this means, but I think it's good to look deeper into meanings from time to time. Forgiveness is the pardoning or remitting of an offense. It restores a good relationship with God, others, or yourself after sin or alienation.

As the Greek meaning demonstrates, forgiveness isn't just a matter of accepting an apology, it is more an act of truly letting your anger go after someone has truly come to you for reconciliation. I'm sure you all know people who have claimed to have forgiven you of an offense in the past, but the next time some offense comes around, the past is all dragged kicking& screaming into the present, and before you know it, you're answering for sins or offenses you've already tried to put away AND have been allegedly forgiven for!

To forgive someone else, as God forgives us, we must truly LET GO of our anger, our discontent, our malice, or whatever lingers as a result of the hurt caused us by another. It is so tempting to exact revenge, or to hang on to the memory of a past offense, because we think we can use it to defend ourselves from future attacks. Wrath, malice, vengeance--all of these things are vices that we cannot learn to handle by keeping them inside. The truth is that when we hang on to that malice, hatred, or even a small seed of anger, we do not choke them out, but rather they grow within us.

To use the illustration of a thorn-bush, if we were to accidentally prick our finger on a thorn of someone else's making, or even our own, it makes absolutely no sense to take a stronger hold of it once it has hurt us, let alone to drag it around with us. We have to let it go! Otherwise, the other thorns nearby will also dig into our skin and cause us further harm, and perhaps even harm those around us through our prickly dispositions.

When we return to God, he works not only to remove the thorns, but to close the wounds. It is God's desire to restore us to health and happiness, so we can live in peace. So let go of the thorns you carry, just as Jesus laid down the thorny crown to put on one more fitting a king who forgives.

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BOOK OF THE WEEK: A Lesson of Love by Julian of Norwich

The full title of this book is really:

A Lesson of Love: The Divine Revelations of Julian of Norwich

This book is a collection of the writing of Julian of Norwich, a woman of Norwich, England who was a monastic anchoress who received visions from God about his divine love for us.

An anchoress or "anchorite" is a person who is either locked into a room, bricked into a room, or someone who simply decides to stay in one place to pray for the needs of the world. They depend solely on the provisions given to them from people outside who come to visit. Julian lived in a little stone room with nothing but a window to connect her to the world. People would come from all over to see her, or really speak to her, through a curtain, and in exchange for her guidance and prayers they would provide her food.

During her time in this cell, Julian experienced several visions, and she recorded the visions, along with how they affected her, into a diary. Her writings have recently been collected, re-translated, and published in sections as a daily devotional by The Rev. John Julian, the founder of the Order of Julian of Norwich which is a monastic community in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Fr . John sat next to me in chapel while I was in Seminary, and even took a sabbatical one term and lived next door to me for 6 months while he was working on another book (also now available on Amazon.com).

I recommend this book especially for women's groups or for individuals who want to begin a daily habit of light holy-reading. People often try to begin reading holy books, but have a difficult time maintaining it because they feel they should read a chapter a day, or several chapters a day, and eventually struggle to find the time. This book is great because it is rationed into brief (1 page or so) readings to give you a daily dose of thought about God's love for us, and other holy revelations as were given to Julian. Pick up this book, and say a daily Prayer for Fr. John and his monastic order.

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Enjoy your weekend! Perhaps there is someone out there who needs a word of forgiveness from you. Or perhaps there is someone waiting to forgive you, maybe even God. Make an opportunity this weekend to get back in touch with someone. I'm sure they miss you!

Blessings,

-Fr. Jon+

The 7th Dose: Complacency vs. Proficiency

2009-09-24T15:38:00.022-05:00

My apologies to you all for missing a post last week. I was on the road travelling to a Clergy meeting outside of St. Louis, and when I returned home (Fr. Scott Wooten and I drove the whole way there and back), I had a pile of work waiting for me, and didn't manage to get the time to write a blog post. But here we are, back in business!

I have some good news for you! The "Second Sunday" Church service I began a couple of weeks ago was a success, although not as heavily attended as I had hoped for. We had a total of 17 people, including kids and baby-sitters, which was lower than the 20-25 I had committed to come (and the 40 maybe's), but the weather was really terrible on that night, and I can only assume that the thurnderstoms that plagued us last weekend were the real reason for the lack of attendance. But it was a great time, God was certainly praised, and we drew in a few people who don't normally go to an Episcopal Church at all. So I consider it a success. The next one will be the Third Sunday of this month, October 18th, because the A1-8 Fort Worth Young Adults Group is having a campout the 2nd Sunday of this month, and we didn't want to conflict with them.

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* * * * BONUS FEATURE OF THE WEEK * * * *

Since I didn't get an opportunity to post last week, I thought it'd be nice to have a speacial feature on The Top 5 Reasons People Don't Come to Church on Sunday according to what I hear most as a Priest. Perhaps your list differs from mine, but here are the top 5 excuses I hear from people as to why they don't come to Church: (I'll give their reason followed by my response)

5. "My kids play sports (usually soccer)"--Even Pope John Paul II said that it was ok to play sports and have recreation on a Sunday, just go to Church first! I often think that if enough of the parents said that they were willing to have soccer on Sunday, just not before 11am or noon, these leagues would get on just fine if they avoided a 4 hour time block on Sunday morning. But for those parents faced with the choice of Sports vs. Church, I simply ask the following: Which would you rather your child learn: a. how to aggressively compete against other children, against their neighbor, or b. to learn about God and to learn how to work with other children to praise him and love him and love their neighbor? Or another apprach: if you can make time for your kids to play sports, make time for God too.

4. "I don't want to miss the first part of the Cowboy Game"--Listen, I've been to many Superbowl parties, and I too, from time-to-time, like to sit and watch a footbal game with friends. I've never known anyone to really take an interest in the first half of a game. They usually end up talking through it, or making dinner, or lunch, or whatever, and then everyone watches the last half. There are also plenty of opportunities Sunday afternoon to catch highlights from the first half of the day. You won't really miss anything.

3. "I can praise God as much at home as I can at Church"--If you really know someone for who this is true, GET ME THEIR NUMBER! I want to see what they do and how they do it! I think I understand this sentiment, in the sense that those quiet times at home often turn into prayer for me. The same is true of those moments walking in a park, or going camping, fishing, or just sitting on my back porch watching the neighbor's cat chase squirrels. But I'm not praising God when I do these things. I appreciate God when I get a day of rest and recreation, but I'm not praising him. We praise God when we some to Church to worship him with voice, making our prayers forour community, and offering ourselves at the foot of the cross, leaving behind our sins in the Church, and going home cleansed and ready to enjoy everything I mentioned above.

2."I work on Sunday Morning/late saturday night"--I feel for these people too. But I was once a bartender who worked from 10am-4am the next day, and still made it to Church EVERY Sunday. And Church for me was at 9am! but for those who can't operate on 5-6 hours sleep like me (I can still do this), there are different options: many churches have Saturday and Sunday evening services. I also had a couple at my last Church who worked at the airport all day Sunday, and so they made Tuesday night their night fo worship. Just like the kids who play sports, if you work on Sunday so others can enjoy a day off, take your day off and use it as a day of worship and rest. Make time for worshipping God in your life.

1. "I need one day a week to sleep in"--Who doesn't?! That's why God gave us a day of rest. But honestly, 10:30am is the average time for a principle Church service in most Churches, and that's not really that early in the morning. But just as I mentioned above, there are Churches with evening services you can attend. I definitely like to sleep in on my ONE day off a week (Friday), and that is often interrupted with people phoning me with things they could easily ask me at another time. I crave a day to rest and sleep in. But i find there is also plenty of timme after Church to do the same. Almost every clergyman I know takes a nap, as does tehir entire family, from around 1pm-3pm on Sunday afternoon, then they get up and enjoy the remainder of their day of rest. So sleep in on Saturday, take a long nap on Sunday afternoon, or attend a later Church service, but by all means, make room for praising God in your life!

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WORD OF THE WEEK: Complacency (Latin. complacere = "to please")

Complacency is a feeling of smug or uncritical satisfaction with oneself or of one's achievements. Perhaps more commonly said, this is when we are satisfied with our laziness.

I KNOW you see complacency all around you at work, at home, and possible even in your Church. Complacency is that feeling we have when we know we could do better, bu we find satisfaction in convincing ourselves that "at least we're not doing as badly as we could be." You all probably have lazy co-workers, and if you confornt them or your boss about their laziness, you'll probably hear, "Well, at least he/she does something right." This is complacency.

If you imagine your relationship with God as a climb up a very tall mountain, and you know you can see the peak, even if it is far away, complacency is when we've climbed a while and usually found a reason to take a break. Perhaps we were climbing too hard or too fast, or took a difficult path, and we've stopped to rest. Some rest for a brief while to refresh themselves with some water or simply stop to look back at how much ground we've covered. Some then get up, look at the peak, and keep climbing. Perhaps others took a break, and instead of walking up or down, decided to circle the mountain where they are. Many others, however, are tempted to walk down-hill. Walking down-hill is really easy. Complacency is that zone where we have potential for progress, but also temptation to fall backward or take an easier path in a direction what will not lead to God.

So what do we do to fix this problem? Here's the secret: Turn and look at the peak, see your goal, and start walking! This is repentance! Repentance means re-pointing, pointing again in the right direction, and moving forward.

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BOOK OF THE WEEK: Christian Proficiency by Martin Thornton

There are many good books on the Christian life, but this is one of the classics that will help you become proficient at being a Christian. If complacency is being content in making no progress, proficiency is becoming an expert at making good progress. Proficiency is about aquiring skills or tools to be better equipped at doing something.

This book is about learning the basics of Christian doctrine and tradition, and then learning several ways to enhance your walk with God. Things such as: creating a Rule of life for yourself, seeking spiritual direction, learning new ways to pray, warning signs to look out for, and setting yourself up for success.

I recommend a number of books by Martin Thornton, but this one is the best to start with. It's been around since 1959, and you can find used copies fairly easily. If you've never taken a moment to evaluate your spiritual life and looked for ways to enhance your relationship with God, now is a perfect time to start, and this is a terrific resouorce.

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Well, that's enough for this week. I pray you all have a good weekend, and find yourself a place to worship on Sunday if you don't already have one.

Blessings,

Fr. Jon+

The 6th Dose: Nihilism and the Velvet Elvis

2009-09-10T09:26:00.008-05:00

A Toasty Thursday morning to you all!

I thought that perhaps our summer heat-waves were over, but apparently not. I always look forward to mid September because it seems that this is the time of year in North Texas when God finally decides we’ve had enough, and lets us return to the upper 80’s as the high for the day. But I guess we’ve still got around 5 days or so to receive his mercy. Patience my friends…by November, I’m sure we’ll have some kind of a fall.

Things are going well this week, and I suppose you could say I’ve been extraordinarily busy. I always find that when I’ve got a very busy schedule already planned, something happens to make it just a hair away from total chaos. This Sunday will be the first of our new once-a-month (for now) contemporary services, and I think we’re pretty much all set for that. We also begin Sunday School this weekend. I’m also hosting a Safeguarding God’s Children class this Saturday morning, an ordination was announced for Saturday morning as well, of course I have all of my regular duties, I lost Monday to a holiday (although it was fun sitting by that pool all afternoon), and I had a sudden funeral this week to throw into the mix, along with a couple of unexpected hospital calls. And it’s only THURSDAY!!!

Well, I can’t complain, that is the job. It just seems that busy attracts more busy.

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WORD OF THE WEEK—“Nihilism” (Latin. Nihil, “nothing”)

This is more of a philosophical definition than a religious one, but I think you’ll see in a moment why I think it’s a reasonable word to understand.

Nihilism is the philosophical view that rejects all authority, tradition, and morality. This philosophical view became especially prevalent in the 19th century, aimed at rejecting religious and moral values. I suspect that this view grew around the time of scientific discovery in Europe when many began to question the origins of man (Charles Darwin’s era).

When I’m out in public wearing clericals (Priest clothes—the blacks, the collar, etc.), people often confront me with questions. I love this! Total strangers will come over to me and interrupt me while I’m eating lunch or speaking with someone else to ask me a question, or a whole set of them. Usually, the question has something to do with faith or morality, but most often it is about some average ordinary life question. These conversations become longer when I’m by myself and they’re sitting next to me at a restaurant lunch counter and they know they’ve got my exclusive attention.

In almost all of these conversations I discover that the person I’m speaking with doesn’t go to Church. And so, I ask them, “Why not?” Occasionally I find someone who just moved to town and hasn’t settled on a new Church yet, but most often I hear something like this: “I don’t go to Church, but I consider myself to be a spiritual person.” I then inquire what they mean by “spiritual person” and how that is lived out, and I quickly discover that it means, “I believe in a god, but I don’t believe in his authority over my life.” Basically, “I think I’m ok, and I don’t need god to be ok, or to feel ok, so long as I can do what I want. But I think the idea of god is neat!” Basically, it means they don't really believe in anything, but reject most religious and traditional moral beliefs and standards; they are nihilists. (Although I suppose it is fair to say that some of them are not. Some of them know, understand, and believe in God and in moral standards, they just don't follow them. We call these people lapsed Christians or sinners.)

In the Bible, we don’t find atheism or nihilism except in people who are lost and simply don’t know any better. Most everyone in Jesus’ day believed in something: the gods of the sky, the earth, of fertility, of the wind, the sea, or what have you…and their understanding of deeper theological truths only came by revelation, which is to say, someone told them about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Once they had revelation, they had something deeper to believe in: the God who provides, who protects, who has promised us life as a family under him with everything we could need, so long as we learn to live by his commandments, which are pretty much about living a civil life together loving God and our neighbor.

But it seems that the number of these “spiritual people” are growing, because many of the Churches are shrinking. People seem to like the idea of doing what they want, and yet believing that God loves them. Meanwhile, they reject morality, commandments, traditional teaching, and all so they can satisfy the alleged “needs of self,” which are usually more wants of the physical appetite than needs of the soul.

When you believe in something, you are likely to grow in the knowledge of it. The more you know about God, the deeper your relationship will be with him. If you believe in nothing, I guess you will increase in your knowledge of nothing.

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BOOK OF THE WEEK—VELVET ELVIS by Rob Bell

The full title of this book is:

VELVET ELVIS: Repainting the Christian Faith.

I bought this book at the suggestion of a friend last year, and I completely loved it! For those of you who have a hard time reading long books, or big philosophical paragraphs, this book is for you! It is not written in a traditional style of writing, but rather in a style of breaking the paragraph at the completion of a thought. Some modern writers are afraid to do this, and paragraphs go on and on, so this book was refreshing.

This book is about a fresh perspective on faith. The author encourages you to question everything, even his book. But he invites you to do so with a purpose and with a true sense of examination. People, such as I mentioned above, so often question everything, in the sense that they are really just rejecting it, not questioning it. This book is a terrific text to invite you to actually question what you believe, but to do so under the guise of evidence and scholarship.

I began reading this book while I was getting two of my tires replaced last summer, and I nearly finished half of the book while I was waiting. It is a VERY EASY READ, but a very enlightening book, and definitely suited to the modern reader, which is to say, modern people who don’t read books that much.

If you find yourself somewhat convicted by what I said above, BUY THIS BOOK, and make your pursuit of the answers to life and faith with Rob Bell. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy the book as much as I did, and find a few answers.

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Well, that’s all for this week. I’ve got a full day of meetings to attend, and hopefully I’ll manage to squeeze in time for a haircut today. I’ve been trying to do this for a solid week now, and I’m starting to get shaggy!

Blessings to you all!
Fr. Jon+

The 5th Dose: Concupiscence and the Spiritual Life

2009-09-03T17:12:00.011-05:00

A Happy late Thursday to you all!

I had every intention of getting this done this morning, but this is the first Thursday of the month, and so this is the Thursday that I go say the Mass at a local Nursing home, so I was delightfully distracted with about 8 75+ year-old women! At any rate, I'm doing my best to get these done by the end of the day on Thursday, if not by lunchtime.

Returning from vacation is no picnic. I had a great time during my time away, but I was definitely ready to get back to work. In fact, I worked about half of my vacation on school papers and stuff for the Church, but I did it mostly from home. I did NOT, however, go anywhere near the internet, which was part of the goal in maintaining a vacation. I managed to completely destroy the end of a vacation last summer by checking email 2 days before I was to return. People always seem to get in trouble when I'm on vacation. but as they say, "When the cat's away, the mice will play."

Anyhow, I had a great time visiting family and friends and building stuff in my garage. I took my Mom to dinner (hello momma!), and went to visit my friend Fr. Joel in Breckenridge, TX to shoot shotguns. We were actually getting pretty good after the first 3 sets. I also managed to blow out a tire on my Jeep in the process, but thank God for full sized spare-tires! (NO, I did NOT shoot my tire. I backed into a piece of rusty pipe.)

Well, back to work I suppose. Things are going well here. I got caught up on almost ALL of my sick calls today, so I can spend the next couple of days clearing off my desk and getting ready for a busy week to come and the return of Sunday School!

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WORD OF THE WEEK--"Concupiscence" (Lat. con= "with" + cupere= "desire")

The desire of the self for the self, which is the human tendency toward sin.

When reading any theology texts on sin, we most often see the word concupiscence in the context of sins of the flesh, most of which fall under fornication, or adultery, or something of that nature. St. Paul speaks in Galatians 5:16-25 about the "Works of the Flesh" being against the "Works of the Spirit" and vice versa.

One of the greatest struggles in life and in trying to fight against sins is simply the fact that we are fighting ourselves. We are fighting our own desire to satisfy our own selfish personal indulgences. It can be very difficult to put away something we like, and even more difficult to give up something we love.

Back in my bartender days, I worked with a lot of smokers. These weren't people who were smoking because they had a stressful job and needed some chemical aide in relaxing. These were people who were for the most part simply bored and wanted an excuse to take a break all of the time. Anyhow, the point is that I've known a great number of habitual smokers, and when anyone would ask them why they couldn't quit, the response was simply: "I don't want to quit. I LIKE smoking."

It can be most difficult to give up a vice or a sin when the object of our trouble is something we really like. Whatever it is, be it: shopping for things we don't really need, smoking, drinking, fornicating, eating unhealthy food, or any kind of self-indulgence; when we truly enjoy and even desire that thing (or those things) which cause us harm, it can be very difficult to set them aside. This is concupiscence--having an evil or unhealthy desire that finds is source in ourselves seeking some kind of pleasure or gratification for ourselves.

The remedy to this problem is to remove the sin, and to put something better in it's place: i.e. quit smoking and start chewing gum; quit drinking alcohol and start drinking Dr. Pepper (that sweet nectar of life!); quit fornicating and seek a relationship that will endure on the merit of love in non-carnal passions (conversation, time together, fun activities, fun with other friends); quit eating fatty or otherwise over-indulgent foods and find good and tasty recipes for better nourishment, and etc..

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BOOK OF THE WEEK--

The Elements of the Spiritual Life by F. P. Harton

This book is an older book, but a very good book about balancing the spiritual life. First published in 1932, this text holds just as true for people today as 80 years ago. This book is a perfect source for diagnosing the troubled roots of our sinful natures and finding a way to remove them and replace them with better virtues.

For those Priests that may happen to be reading this post (or priest wanna-be's), this book contains a chapter on giving spiritual direction that is unsurpassed, and is absolutely necessary for anyone seeking to give spiritual guidance to another. I cannot suggest a better book on this subject! (There are also cheaper used copies on Amazon, but for some reason they didn't show up on this link).

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Well, that's all for this week. It feels as though this has been a shorter post, but as I said, I'm just back from vacation, so I guess this week is about "a little less conversation and a lot more action!"

Have a good week!

Fr. Jon+

The 4th Dose: Bibliomancy and Ineffectivity

2009-08-20T17:24:00.003-05:00

Good AFTERNOON friends!

I was all set to prepare your Thursday morning dose, and I got a call to the hospital, followed by a clergy meeting that extended for some time this afternoon. So, as it is, here is your slightly belated dose.

Life is pretty good this week. I’m on the verge of taking some much needed time off. My Secretary, Laurie, was just yesterday giving me some grief for taking my 12th vacation this year. It is true I’ve taken some time off, but all of it has been to do Church work: Nashotah Alumni business, Summer School, to run a session of Camp Crucis. So this will be my first bit of time off this year NOT spent doing some church thing.

The word of the week will NOT be vacation, as apparently it’s just not a word in my vocabulary. I tend to get bored of vacation fairly quickly. By the second day, usually all I’m thinking about is what I’ll do when I get back to work. I inevitably make a list or have a pile of post-it notes waiting to implement the moment I’m back in my office. Hopefully, at least this time, I’ll take some time for myself and discipline myself not to think about Church. I’ll let you know how that goes…

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WORD OF THE WEEK—“bibliomancy” (Greek. biblos = “book”, or Biblia = “bible” + manteia = “diviniation”)

This is the practice of opening the Bible at random and seeking guidance through the first verse one sees.

A couple of my friends used to do this when we were counseling at Church Camp. Sometimes they’d get bored with the sermon, or just make themselves distracted for no good reason other than their own lack of attention, and occasionally they would crack the bible at a random place, and just point to a random part of the page, and try to see if God was telling them something. The textbook definition of this word’s root, as above, includes the act of divination.

Divination usually means an act of predicting the future or seeking supernatural knowledge through the use of mediums, oracles, omens, or other such occult practices. (I guess this is your “Bonus Word of the Week”!) Throughout Holy Scripture we are warned against acts of divination. The Canaanites (and others) would do all kinds of things to try to predict their futures, or get into occult practices for things such as speaking to the dead, attempting to raise the dead, or just to get knowledge of God or the world.

They would burn incense and look for letters in the smoke, pour blood on the ground and look for letters or shapes to form in the blood. This might sound strange, but it’s no stranger than the practices of modern people, and perhaps you might know someone like this, who use tarot card readings, psychic readings, runes, chicken bones, or even their daily horoscope (astrology) to try to predict how their day is going to go, when their luck is going to turn around, or what lottery numbers might win that week. A few weeks ago my fortune cookie read: “Your lucky number is 7” and I flipped it over to look at the lottery numbers, and not one of them so much as included a 7!

If you were to open the Bible at random and it read something like, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 5:3), that might be encouraging. But if you opened it and it said, “And throwing down his money in the temple, Judas left, and he went and hung himself;” (Matt 27:5) you might not find much guidance in a thing such as that. The Bible contains wisdom for ALL of us to know, not just those who randomly open it and point to a certain passage.

Instead, if you seek guidance from the Bible, you might simply narrow your search. Perhaps try to read a proverb a day; there are 31 of them, and you could repeat this effort each month, and never stop growing in wisdom. Or just read a chapter of a Gospel a day. In the course of a study such as this, you might find a bit more guidance, provided you prayed for guidance, and gave God some of the silence in your day to actually guide you.

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BOOK OF THE WEEK— The 77 Habits of Highly Ineffective Christians by Chris Fabry

This is a WONDERFUL book about daily thoughts on how to be a terrible Christian. Of course, the premise is that you are to do or think the opposite. This book is very approachable, all of the readings take no more than a minute or two to read, and to top it off, it is very VERY funny! In fact, if you can find any other books written by Chris Fabry, I highly recommend picking them up. However, this one is my favorite.

There are other books that teach this way. This book is akin to the wit and method of C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, so if you enjoyed that book, you will deeply enjoy this one. He even offers at the end of each lesson: “ineffective exercises”, “things to ponder”, “scripture to ignore”, “Ineffective hymns”, “scripture to modify”, and so on.

The last time I purchased this book, I paid less than a dollar for it, and it cost me $4 to ship it. You might find such luck as well.

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Well, that’s all for this week. I appreciate your prayers, and I ask for your continual prayers as I take some rest this week. I’ll probably manage to do another post next week, because, let’s face it, I don’t know how to STAY on vacation.

Please check out my parish website as linked here and on the side of this page. The more people who view it, the more dominant it will be when people search for the Church in a search engine, and hopefully some faithful people will find my little Church and decide to try it out someday.

A lovely week to you all!

Blessings,

Fr. Jon+

The 3rd Dose: Nursery and Receiving God's Word

2009-08-13T10:30:00.009-05:00

Good morning friends! It's only supposed to hit 96 degrees today, so hopefully the 100+ degree weather is behind us for the summer! (Well, we can pray...)

I struggle at times over what to name things. I spend way too much time in thought naming pets, so I cannot imagine how long it will take me to name my children. Anyhow, coming up with catchy titles for these blog posts can be difficult, and so I've just decided to number each dose as we go along. 3 doesn't sound that impressive, but perhaps over time it'll seem more impressive. That, or I'll learn to come up with catchy titles.

As for my life, I've been VERY productive these last 2 weeks! School has not resumed for the rest of this world just yet, but I'm getting ready for it. Of course, having taken off 2 weeks in July to take some continuing education classes for my own development, I came back to a pile of work, both at my parish and homework from the classes I took. These last 2 weeks I've been seeking out Sunday School teachers, preparing for classes, visiting a LOT of sick and shut-in folks, and preparing to take some time off at the end of the month for an overdue vacation. But before I go on vacation, I've got to get my homework done and mailed in to my professors!

Another development in my ministry is taking place, and I've getting very excited about it. I've felt a call, within my parish and outside of it, to begin a new worship service. This is not because we're busting at the seams of my current services. It is rather a call I've heard for an evening service with a more contemporary setting. I've been asking my friends over the last few years about why some of them don't go to church. I hear all kinds of excuses: "It's too early on Sunday," "I have to work late Saturday night," "I have to work Sunday morning," "I don't like the liturgy; you guys don't pray anything that's not written in the book," "I like more modern music and a more casual setting." The list goes on.

So in praying about this and researching what it is I could do to remedy these concerns, I've begun to develop a more modern music-led liturgy which will have an inherent structure and design, but I doubt it'll be all that obvious. The one difference is that I'm including in this service a Eucharist, but it's not the typical Rite I or Rite 2, but rather an alternative option found within the typically unused portion of our prayer book. Anyhow, the overall goal is to have a more casual feel to the structure, more music to lead our thoughts and prayers, and a chance for people to come to the church with absolutely no knowledge of Church, liturgy, prayers, or anything at all, and still be able to worship God in a genuine way.

It's been a challenge, but things are coming together, and our first service will be at 5pm on Sunday Sept 13th. I'm going to provide childcare during the service, and a meal and fellowship to follow. Please pray for the success of this ministry. As per usual, I have no idea what to call it, but I'm open to suggestions!

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WORD OF THE WEEK--Seminary (Lat. seminarium, "seedbed" or "nursery")

I found this most amusing when I was looking for a word this morning. You'd think after having been in seminary for 3 years, and having been out of it for 3 years, even I should know what a seminary is!

A seminary is a school which educates and prepares persons for the Christian ministry through instruction in theological disciplines. It is also the name given to the building housing the school. This is the portion of the definition I was familiar with. I had no idea that the root of the word meant nursery or seedbed. But the part I found amusing, chuckling here to myself in my office, was the other sense of the word nursery.

Those who go to seminary often come with the sense that in their Diocese, they are "the best-of-the-best", kind of like the pilots who attend the Top Gun school in Miramar. But once they are all there at the seminary, they're just another seedling among theological giants. They're all just like newborn babies! And occasionally, some even behave like newborn babies! If you recall the movie Top Gun, you'll note that those pilots behave in very much the same manner.

Seminaries are varied and different in their structures. Some offer a more classical education rooted in the Early Fathers of the Church, such as is Nashotah House, my alma mater. But other seminaries are very free-form, and focus more on internship and being out in the world. But even in your own daily Bible studies, unless you go to a place of deep study where you seek to first find the truths and depths of God for yourself, how in the world are you going to bring someone ELSE to know God?

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BOOK OF THE WEEK--Receiving the Word of God by Robert E. Terwilliger
Receiving the Word of God (The Annual Bishop of New York books)

This is probably my most favorite book in the world! I love the clarity with which Bp. Terwilliger wrote! This is a terrific book about Receiving the Word of God through liturgy, bible readings, the sacraments, and so on. It makes us more aware of the presence of God in our worship and in our lives, and overall just a wonderful book.

This is not a book that is currently in print, but oyu can find used copies of it very reasonably. If you aren't accustomed to reading religious book because they're too deep, or too presumptuous, or simply because you don't like reading that kind of thing, give THIS book a chance. It will change your mind about studying God's word, among other things.

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So, that's all for this week. Please pray for the success of my new service at the Church. Also let me know if there is anything I can pray for on your behalf.

+Fr Jon

JonCJenkins@FWEpiscopal.org