Mary's thoughts

Somethings never change, damn spiral staircase

2011-11-16T00:29:00.001-05:00

I wrote this seven years ago and par for the course not much has changed as I am on that damn spiral staircase constantly going through and over the same old shit. Yes, I have "updated" it to add what has happened over those seven years but the sentiment is still the same.

I look around my room and see things and books that remind me of a faith I once had and wonder where it has gone. Where has my child-like-ness gone? I see "My Life on the Rock" and wonder how many rocks I have to climb and fall over. I see "Witness of Hope" and wonder where my hope has gone, and what could I possibly be witnessing to. I see "In the Presence of the Lord" and wonder where that Presence has gone. What was once so close seems and is so far away. I see "Lord Have Mercy" and "A Father Who Keeps His Promises" mutter a short prayer and wonder where and what those promises are knowing that God's mercy is there somewhere but is hidden to me. I see "First Comes Love" and think of all the different types of love out there and wonder if they are worth it. I see pictures of friends who are no longer friends and wonder was it worth it. Is it worth opening the wounds so freshly made to simply know you are not alone? Is it worth bearing one's soul and wearing one's heart on one's sleeve so that someone else does not have to go through or know the pain?

There are signs and glimpses of a faith that was once there, but they often fade away as quickly as they come. I am constantly reminded of what could have been, what should have been. I will forever be that black sheep who never seems to fit in. I am on the outside looking in trying to find my way back in and wonder if it will ever happen.

A Dark Night of the Soul is not something often if ever talked about because most do not and will not understand it. To know and see God, to feel His Presence and then lose it all only to see tiny glimpses of it return is not something easily forgotten or gotten over.

Questioning who and what one believes is normal. I believe what I believe because I believe, I just miss that child-like faith. One day I will understand.

Rome Day 2

2011-07-14T23:25:00.001-04:00

Day 2 was the by far one of the best days of the trip as it was Papal Audience day. Something that has changed since I was last in Rome is that tickets are needed for the Papal Audience and the airport security bag check before you get into the square for the audience has been added as well. Going through the metal detector with another person, literally 2 of us at the same time side by side, is something I would love to forget, but can't. The day began early with Fr. John telling us to be downstairs and ready to leave at 7:15am. Fr. John whom we met on Day 1 is what we call a Papal event guru, and very good friends with Fr. Geno. Fr. Geno originally said 7:30am Fr. John said 7:15 to get us out at 7:30, see I've known Fr. Geno for a fair bit longer than the others on the trip so I know that when he says 7:30 he really means about 7:20. Anyway, all of that doesn't really matter as the experience of the day far out weighs any discomfort of waking up so early and walking at a quick pace.

It didn't truly hit me as to where we were sitting until I was in the square and of course after fighting one's way into the square as seats are on a first come first serve basis. Considering myself to be a Papal Event veteran having been to a few World Youth Days and a Papal Mass not to mention the Papal Audience when I was in Rome in 2001 with Seton Hall, I thought I knew what was about to happen, but I didn't. I walked past where we sat with Seton Hall got to the "end of the columns" and realized that we were literally sitting on the steps of St. Peter's. The Swiss Guard who acknowledged my ticket had to hear me say "Holy Hell or Damn they got us up close" as I walked past and paused before finding my group. Fr. Geno and Fr. John basically ran ahead and saved 4 rows for the group as there was 30 of us, and a group of that size very rarely if ever gets the "front row seats." I don't remember much of what Pope Benedict said despite actually listening to him while there, reading it on line and watching the video of it. Which you can do here and you can see our group when we're announced as the camera panned over to us. (Pilgrims from the Diocese of Paterson)

Fr. John had given us instructions of "move your chairs over" and at the end get ready to move these chairs out of the way." At the end of the Audience, Pope Benedict drove past us as he normally, well he rode past us as someone else was driving the Pope-mobile as we all call it or the Papal Mobile as Fr. John, the official Vatican tour guide calls it. I for the first time in my actually put the camera away, as the official Vatican photographers were taking pictures and I figured that I'd probably get into at least one, but I didn't because there was this crazy Korean lady, that I deemed a bitch, though that might be a bit harsh, but she was crazy as was the nun who was next to her. The priests were complaining about them as well so I'm not along. The Korean Lady moved in front of me every time I went to move closer to the rail. Now for the audience this five foot three inch girl had four, yes four, six foot tall guys in front of her, so Fr. John, who was one of them, said Mary, get in front of me, so I obeyed. The pictures from the Audience do not do it justice, I was the closest I have ever been to the Holy Father. I know that I kept looking for the feelings I had when JP2 would drive past me and when I saw him in St. Peter's square 11 years before when I was with Seton Hall. I did not repeat those feelings, but I got something else. While I have the actual images of JP2, I do not have one of PB16, I did and still do get the feeling that most get when close to the Holy Father one of peace, and a feeling of being in the presence of a holy man. Benedict is not JP2 and never will be, but both men will be influential in my life for many reasons. I remember crying tears of happiness when Benedict came to that window, thinking to myself, oh thank God nothing will change. The seeds that JP2 planted and being watered and cultivated by PB16 and I know that evangelization and the "new evangelization" that Benedict is promoting will be a major part of my life.

The audience was by far the highlight of my trip and the rest of the day almost pales in comparison but I shall share with you the rest of the day. After the Audience we went to visit the North American College aka the NAC whose actual name is The Pontifical North American College which happens to be where the American seminarians study and live when sent to Rome for their studies for the priesthood. There's the link for more info and pictures of the place. The NAC is one of those places that yes I have visited before, but it's always weird for me, a woman, to be in place that is for men. There is a certain vibe of you belong here, but you don't belong here. Anyway, the guys were all on their break from school so we had the place to ourselves and we got a great "tour" of the place, mainly we were up on the roof taking in the amazing views of Rome. What will also be one of the favorite memories was Mass in the chapel, not the big or main chapel, but the tiny chapel in honor of the North American Martyrs. We had 5 priests, Fr. Geno, Fr. Paul, Fr. Daniel, Msgr. Rodger, and Fr. Derek, it was crazy and awesome all at the same time. I mean how many group gets to have 5 priests celebrate Mass for them and we had it happen twice, lol.

Anyway after the NAC we took a bus over to the Coliseum and the Forum. Having stayed by the Forum last time in Rome this wasn't that big of a deal, for us it's like visiting one of our classic touristy spots. Our tour of the Forum was cut short as the clouds were quickly turning gray and eventually opened upon us. We went back to the hotel and then went out to what would be the first of many awesome dinners. We went to Fr. Geno's favorite restaurant and were treated like kings and queens and drank a crap load of wine and it was wonderful. At dinner Fr. John would ask the normal questions of where did you go to college, what do you do, etc. The question, well more of a comment was made of "study over here" to me about my lack of a Masters degree of which I would love and like, but more on Fr. John and that comment and grad school later. Day 2 was by far one of the best days in Rome. I almost forgot here is day 2's album on facebook

Fr. Geno and I in the classic in front of St. Peter's shot, and also a typical shot for the two of us.

The Jesus statue atop St. Peter's. When you've got some time to wait, you find things to do.

Some of the detail on St. Peter's.

Something I never noticed before probably because there is so much to see.

Swiss Guards.. the Holy Father is near. :)

PB16 did not just appear he did ride up in the Popemobile or Papal mobile and this is when he was walking to his chair.

Our seats were amazing, and I still get chills just thinking about it.

After the Audience we went to visit the North American College, home of the US seminarians, of which none where there as they were on break, but we got a nice tour of the place and got to see some amazing views from the roof of the college. This happens to be their soccer field and the only picture I have that lays claim to anything NAC related.

One of the views from the Roof of the North American

US seminary of course the Patroness of the Americas is there. :) I was baptized on the Feast of our Lady of Guadalupe so she will always hold a special place with me. ;)

The Coliseum from the outside.

The Coliseum from the inside.

Some of the random hidden amazing pieces of art in the churches.

My random cool shot from dinner ... we had a fair bit of wine that night. ;)

My attempt at a artsy shot, it was well after a few glasses of wine, so it was much cooler at the time.

Our crazy waiters who kept bringing the awesome food and wine.

the classic night of St. Peter's.

Roma Day 1

2011-06-22T00:53:00.000-04:00

So day one of the Rome trip was a whirlwind. We got of the plane around 7am which was about 1am New York time so suffice to say we were all sorts of wacky. Most of us were tired but Fr. Geno had the we'll beat the jet lag by staying busy all day plan and that's what we did. We couldn't check into the hotel until the afternoon so the morning was spent on a bus tour of Rome. After the bus tour we stopped at St. Paul's Outside the Walls at that is the Basilica that the Evangelization Center is sort of named for. After Mass, which was ad orientem, meaning the priests faced the same way as the people, we spent time looking around St. Paul's and then went to a local shrine. The Shrine of Divine Love is just one of those local churches that people have left candles, canes, crutches, etc at as signs of the miracles that happened. The old shrine is your stereotypical old school church the new shrine is your stereotypical ugly modern in the round church. After the shine we went to lunch at a wonderful restaurant across the streets from the Catacombs of St. Sebastian, of which we would have gone into but we opted to go to the hotel instead. I've been to the Catacombs so it wasn't that big of a deal for me to miss it. I was impressed that my memory still worked after 10 years from the last trip to Rome. We go to the hotel, relaxed, showered, and went off on a walking tour of Rome. We got a taste of the speed for which the trip/pilgrimage would be moving at. Fr. Geno having studied over there took us over back roads and side roads to the Casa Santa Maria, which is where the American priests stay when they are getting their doctorate or second masters degrees. The Casa which I have seen before held a surprise for us, we were meeting Fr. John who had our Papal Audience tickets for us. Fr. John was the surprise, as he spent so much time showing us around Rome and giving us tours of pretty much every place we were. Not that Fr. Geno didn't but Fr. John was over in Rome for his seminary years and for his doctorate years and an official Vatican tour guide. "Nothing but the best for the Paterson Diocese." Fr. John gave a "tour" of the chapel in the Casa, I remember the SHU group having Mass at the Casa, but I honestly don't remember the chapel. After we left the Casa we walked back to the hotel. I say walk, but at the speed Fr. Geno and Fr. John walk at it was more of a jog back to the hotel. We stopped at the Fountain de Trevi, a must see stop when in Rome. We also stopped for dinner and gelato on the way back. In between Trevi and the hotel we saw the Pantheon and I remembered Fr. Holmes from SHU telling us about how amused he was that the McDonald's across the square from the Pantheon had a sign above that basically said something about not commercializing the place. I think he would be happy to know that said McDonald's looked like it was closed and out of business. We got back to the hotel and Fr. John revealed the suprise that was in the suitcase he was wheeling around, t-shirts for all of us. We were given t-shirts that he or someone in his youth ministry program had designed as a fundraiser. The t-shirts all revolved around John Paul II and his upcomming beatification that we all just happened to be over there for. Thus ends day one. What follows are a few of the pictures I took on day one, if you wish to see more visit my facebook album which has more details and comments. On our walk through Rome we saw many of the classic sites and a few others one. We went to a church that had the tomb of St. Monica in it and we had a nice little prayer service for our moms. Most of the trip is a blur and what stands out now will be what matters the most to me. Fr. Geno on Mother's day spoke about our side trip to the tomb of St. Monica so that's why I remember it more now, but the entire trip was simply amazing and awesome.

Starting the Day leaving the airport.

Fr. Geno leading us in prayer.

Why was the first thing I saw a McDonald's

The gas stations were literally on the side of the road.

We saw a Burger King too.

Me thinks there might have been something going on while we were there.

"Rats with wings" or pigeons as they are known.

CircusMaximus

There were literally signs for the Beatification every where.

Fr. Geno telling us about the Circus Maximus.

A classic Roman sign.

The Wedding Cake or the Victor Emmanuel Monument.

St. Paul's Outside the Wall.

Mass :)

Inside St. Paul's.

An old school confessional.

A Holy Water Font.

Part of the ceiling.

A somewhat modern window.

The classic St. Paul's shot.

The Shrine of Divine Love.

Some of the candles and signs acknowledging the miracles that had happened.

The old shrine with a funeral going on. There is a new shrine, but it's a modern ugly church. ;)

Castle San Angelo.

Bridge of the Holy Angels.

One of the sights on the walk/run through Rome.

The Mary Statue at the Casa Santa Maria.

St. Therese is my favorite saint and I almost always find a statue or some sign of /from her when I travel.

Our Lady of Guadalupe in the Chapel at the Casa.

Part of the ceiling in the chapel.

No trip is complete without a trip to Trevi Fountain

The Pantheon.

The ceiling, yes the one with the hole, in the Pantheon.

Tomb of St. Monica

Some of the painting in the church.

A portion of the ceiling in the church.

Our t-shirts from Fr. John.

Changes at St. Anthony's

2011-06-14T11:50:00.000-04:00

If you look back on my blogs you will see that I often blogged about the homilies that I heard. That stopped about a year ago when Fr. Brian was moved to a new parish. Congrats to Fr. Brian on being officially made pastor of St. Joseph's. The new assignments were in The Beacon this week.

Last Sunday, not the past Sunday, Pentecost, but the Sunday before, our current pastor Msgr. Martin told us at the end of all the Masses that he would be leaving. The speech, typed and read to us, not that I mind that, it just struck me as odd as the other priests to leave our parish did their speech off the cuff shall we say. It read like a "it's you, not me" letter and I can say while I am sad to have another priest leave, I'm not nearly as upset as I was when others left. Best of luck to Fr. Martin in his new parish. Onto the exciting news for St. Anthony's not Holy Family as they are losing their pastor, but we're getting Msgr. Raymond Kupke as our new pastor. While I do not know Msgr. Kupke personally I do know of him from Seton Hall and everyone who does know him is really excited for us. I am excited for us too as it will be a welcome change.

Msgr. Martin is a wonderful man and priest just not my style, he was a very hands off pastor as in you're in charge of the ministry you run it, I trust you, I don't need to be there. A very drastic change from the last pastor who was very much hands on.

Not only are we getting a new pastor, but we are getting a second vicar. We will now have Fr. Luis-Carlos (who's mom is in critical condition in Columbia, the country not the hospital in NY, she and he could do with some prayers) we are getting. Fr. Roberto, who is Cuban, and newly ordained. It will be interesting to have two "hispanic" priests in the parish. I hope that both of them stay for a while as it's nice to finally get to know Fr. Luis after what is almost a year and I do look forward to getting to know the new guys as well.

Oh well, to each his own, St. A's is about to change for the good and I'm excited. Please keep the parish and our priests in your prayers.

Rome

2011-06-14T11:22:00.000-04:00

So I have mentioned St. Paul's Inside the Wall the Diocesan Evangelization Center at Bayley-Ellard aka St. Paul's before. I am a part of their young adult group among many other "groups" down there. On Easter Monday about 30 of us from the center went to Rome with Fr. Geno. I should have known he was going over there for something other than to just show us Rome. Turns out FG as I affectionately call Fr. Geno was presenting to Archbishop Fisichella, the president of Pope Benedict's Council for Evangelization, on our lovely center. FG decided to have the young adults come along for a pilgrimage to Rome, so when I got the info on the trip I thought about not going for a few minutes and then made the ultimate decision to say how many times will I get the chance to go to Rome. Part of my hesitation was that I really didn't know most of the people going, but that changed as I forced myself to go to more of the young adult events down at St. Paul's. The trip was simply amazing. I will try to do it justice by sharing what happened.

This trip to Rome would be my 3rd and more than likely not my last visit to Rome. We flew out on Easter Monday and came home on May 2nd, yes the trip included the Beatification of John Paul the 2nd. Since coming home from Rome I've been doing a fair bit of thinking and reflecting. I realized that I don't blog nearly as much as I used to and I think part of that stems from having a smart phone where I can check facebook, twitter, and gmail at the blink of an eye. I also attribute it to the lack of stellar homilies I have gotten at the home parish, though more to come on that one yet.

Rome this time was bittersweet as every place we went I thought of my last two trips and who was with me and how I really only talk to one person out my set group of friends from that trip. My former, yes former, best friend is no longer talking to me. When I feel like giving those details I will, I'm not up for it yet.

So I have not fallen off the face of the earth, I've just had nothing to blog about so. So I'm going to turn the next few entries into photo blog entries. I'll do each day of the trip in it's own blog they way I did for my picture albums on facebook.

Some highlights of the trip... the papal audience, meeting Fr. John, being at the Angelicium, the JP2 vigil and being in Rome for the Beatification of JP2. I'll blog more on those later.

Catholic Media Promotion Day

2011-03-15T17:58:00.000-04:00

I don't know if anyone reads this blog anymore but I might as well promote those blogs that I read, when I get a chance and don't mind staring at a computer screen.

http://wdtprs.com/blog/

http://www.splendoroftruth.com/curtjester/

http://blog.archny.org/

http://catholicvote.org/discuss/index.php?show=papist

January 25th, yet another day I will not forget

2011-01-26T01:52:00.000-05:00

As I sit here having a beer or 3 and watching status updates appear on Facebook of "RIP", "prayers" all while typing up the Cornerstone team schedule, I am reminded of 13 years ago of when I woke to the phone call that would in essence change my life.

I remember it like it was yesterday, I had just gotten back from my first March for Life, and my first RCIA retreat(I was a sponsor in the program), which explains why I was on campus that infamous Sunday morning. The phone rang around 9am and I heard my roommate say, "she's here"; I picked up the phone and heard "It's Jacqi, Gary was killed in a car accident last night." I don't remember the full conversation, all I remember hearing was Gary was killed. I took it all in stride, no tears yet. Jacqi mentioned that Fr. Geno was having a prayer service that night at St. Anthony's so I called my friend Carol to tell her, and I remember that she called me back to make sure she wasn't crazy that I had actually said "Gary had died." I remember going out into the hallway so not to disturb my roommate to call my mom, I barely got the words to her when the tears came. I have never been one to wear my emotions on my sleeves, so the tears lasted probably while I said what happened. I remember walking to a fellow student's, who happened to go to high school with me, dorm and leaving a note on his door.

My dad came and got me so I could be home for the prayer service. I distinctly remembering getting to St. Anthony's that night and seeing people at the Church who had been at youth group, whom I had seen in high school, and I certainly remember some of them not being very religious. I remember being on the steps just hugging fellow former youth group members and high school classmates. We eventually went inside the Church, and Fr. Geno stared the prayer service and he told us at some point that "if we died because of something stupid he was going to come up there and kick our ass." It got us to smile and laugh and that is what mattered the most then.

I returned to Seton Hall confused, and obviously came home for the wake, my mother wouldn't let me go to Mass, some excuse of missing classes, but it didn't matter whether or not I was at the funeral Mass, it wasn't going to change anything. All it might have done was allow the pain, sorrow and reality to sink in slightly faster.

Like I said I returned to Seton Hall a very confused young adult. I did things that semester I never thought I would do, I pledged and joined a sorority. Thinking back on it, that was about all I did, I wasn't a drug user and I certainly didn't drink yet. ;) It was a drunk driver that killed Gary after all.

I was very active with Campus Ministry and I remember signing up to spend an hour a week at Adoration in the "main Chapel". I sat in the very last pew on the right hand side, this way I could see who was coming in next and what was going on. I sat there and ask questions of, "Why God, how could you do this, why G, he was one of the good guys." I sat there remembering our college ski trip, roughly a month before Gary's death, where at a Burger King a conversation took place between Fr. Geno, a Holy Cross alumni and lacrosse player, and Gary, a Holy Cross student and ruby player, about which sport was better. I doubt any of us thought this was going to be the last trip we would be on together.

Oddly and by God's strange sense of humor, almost always I end up teaching CCD and/or Confirmation in Gary's mom's class room. A constant reminder of the saint watching over me. 13 years have gone by quickly, the tears still come, but amid them come the happy memories of youth group and of watching baseball games, of which Gary was a member, after track practice. I know we weren't friends and didn't hang out, but at youth group it never mattered what group you were part of at school, we were all the same. Gary's death sent that fact home, we're all the same, we're all children of God and God calls us home whenever He feels like it.

Not a retreat talk goes by without mention of Gary's death, because it is the event that caused me to question my faith, to wonder what God was doing. It also allowed me to talk to a very wise priest who said "don't ask why, ask how, what, how can this help me, what can come from this." I never thought I'd get my answer 2 years later when the fire happened at Seton Hall and my friends were going through what I had already gone through. From Gary's death came me finding my faith, may my running home to the Catholic faith and Church. The questioning led to a switching of majors and that led to it's own set of challenges, but over all I learned that God does know what He's doing despite us not wanting to know or admit it. Gary's death prepared me for John, Frank and Aaron's funerals (SHU Fire), which in turn prepared me for John and Dennis' funerals (Sept. 11th), which in turn almost prepared me for Fiona's, Bernadette's, and Nicholas' funerals.

Time does heal all wounds, but the wounds don't fully heal, they reopen a tiny bit each time you remember, but then you also remember how awesome it is to have the Communion of Saints watching over you and praying for and with you.

In all the yeas that I have written and given retreat talks, Gary's death always comes up because it really is the first time that I questioned my faith, questioned God and wondered what He was doing. It would be through Gary's death that I could later minister to my friends and show them that time does heal, but that the wound is never fully healed and that it opens up a little each year.

I often think of Gary up in Heaven playing with Fiona, Bernadette, Nicholas and now Owen, because Heaven is just one big party. ;)

January 19th a day I will never forget

2011-01-20T00:33:00.001-05:00

It seems like only yesterday that a phone call woke my roommate and I up at 5am. The question from her mother of "there's a fire on campus, are you ok?" made us jump out of our beds after responding, yeah we're fine, to look out our window and there I saw a sight that I will never forget. I saw outside of Boland Hall firetrucks, ambulances, and other emergency vehicles and wrongly assumed everything was ok. I guess at that point everything was under control, but it certainly wasn't ok as I would find out. My roommate and I did the best college thing you could think of, we went back to bed as everything seemed under control. We got another phone call at 7am asking "what the hell is going on up there, I hear 3 people are dead." Well that was it, we were awake, we had no idea what was going on and immediately turned on the tv. My roommate like to watch Good Day NY, and I still remember how somber Jim Ryan was reporting the news of the Seton Hall Fire. For anything on Good Day NY to be somber was odd as they were usual a "fun" news set, so it stayed with me.

Now that we were awake we did again what any normal college kid would do, we went for breakfast, but not after a few calls were made and some information was found out. We managed to find out the fire was on the 3rd floor, the floor we used to live on. The third floor also happened to be where a friend from high school lived. This friend's brother was killed accidentally two years before, so my thoughts where "Oh God, no, not again, You're not going to do this me again." Thankfully that friend was one of the first people I saw when we out to walk to the cafeteria for breakfast. We weren't out of our dorm for 2 minutes before we heard "Pete can't find his brother." I knew right away that "Pete's brother" was one of the three who had died, but I held out every last bit of hope that he wasn't one of them.

We continued on to breakfast, because you had to eat. Everything on campus was cancelled. The day was spent going from the cafe to the Main Lounge for updates to the Chapel for Mass and prayer. Eventually we were told go home, go home and be with your families. So my friend Kelly, who lived in Albany and I decided that since I was on the way home for her, that I would drive to my house and then she would drive herself the rest of the way. Before we did any of that, we went to visit our friend Bridget who wasn't on campus that morning as she was a commuter. I don't remember much of that small trip to Bridget's. I do remember one of her oldest sister's kids was having a birthday party that evening, so she went over there and Kelly and I started on our way home. We made it onto the Garden State Parkway and around 7pm the names of the three young men who had died were released. All I heard was "John Gu..." and my fears from the morning came true, Pete's brother was one of the three. We turned around at the next exit and found Bridget at her sister's house, which is why I remember that someone had a birthday. We didn't go in as they knew why we were there. We went to Bridget's house, which was a block away from her sister's house, and somehow managed to find out the details about John's wake and funeral. Kelly and I then continued on our way home.

While I can never change the events of that day, I can think of how well the Seton Hall Community came and still comes together. Over facebook a good portion of my fellow Seton Hall Alumni, most of us there that day, and a newly minted alumn, changed our profile pictures to Blue Ribbons. Those ribbons were handed out 11 years ago for the prayer services that followed that eventful day, and the message of "Never Forget: you are always a pirate" still rings true.

John, Frank, and Aaron's,well John's wake and funeral brought back all the memories of just two years before when Gary died. I asked a very smart priest "why, why would God let this happen?" and he responded with, "Don't ask why, ask how, what can come from this." Little did I know that I would be the rock, the one who had been through something like this already, the one who knew the memories would never go away.

I remember returning to campus, and then going to John's wake and funeral Mass, and how crowded both were. I remember the media trying to get reactions out of us, the media crashing funeral Masses. I remember Seton Hall offering buses so that students could go to their fellow students' funerals. I remember returning back to campus the Sunday night after John's wake, and being at the 10pm Mass, as I had yet to go, and having Fr. Jim asking for someone to read, and somehow I was volunteered. I remember asking him, how do I pronounce Frank's last name, as I knew the other two. Somehow I made it through reading the readings, and petitions including the names of my fellow students who had died.

11 years ago seems so far away, yet the memories come rushing back every January 19th. I think of complaining about the snow, ice, and rain on the 18th and then laughing, because it always seems to snow around the 19th, but never on it. I remember someone once telling me that John loved snow, and I can't help but take the snow or winter weather as a sign, that John is up there with Frank, Aaron, Gary and all the other saints in Heaven watching over us and praying for us.

Gary's 13th anniversary is fast approaching, and I remember being on that 3 floor of Boland Hall, being a lost freshman, not knowing what to think or do. God's love is amazing when you think about it. He allows us to know what He felt by allowing His Son to come down to Earth and grow like us, and die like we will. What we forget is that God must have suffered watching His Son on that cross, all the while knowing it was what His people needed. There is great solace in the idea that Jesus' parents suffer pain and sorrow the way we do.

Réquiem ætérnam dona eis, Dómine; et lux perpétua lúceat eis, Requiéscant in pace. Amen. Rest in Peace John, Frank and Aaron.

My prayers go out to the Giunta, Caltibilota, and Karol families and to the extended Seton Hall family, that has not forgotten, nor have we forgotten the actions of those injured that day, my prayers as with them as well.

St. Paul Inside the Walls

2010-12-27T00:37:00.001-05:00

A while back I got an e-mail saying that the young adult group at St. Paul Inside the Walls, the Paterson Diocese's evangelization center, was planning a trip to Rome. I thought about not going for a few minutes and then said yes, and made a commitment to do more at the center. Granted Fr. Geno who is running the center was the priest who started youth ministry at my parish and I've known and loved him for years, 17 to be exact, and that is kind of scary, but still. So I decided to do more with the young adult group as it really was a petty reason why I wasn't down there. I opted for the young adult connection meetings as they fall on my day off and it's easier for me to get there on time for stuff. Yesterday's discussion evolved around the Immaculate Conception/Mary, laughter, and on an odd note the whole abuse scandal. On Sunday, the NJ Star Ledger, ran a story on the Archdiocese's so called handling of priests who have been accused. I had read the Archdiocese response before I read the actual article. I went skimmed the Star Ledger article and some of the comments (I don't know why I read those either) and it was filled with the same story we hear all the time. The church does moves them around, the church doesn't care.

Wrong Star Ledger, the Church does care and always has. The Church is made up of humans of which we are all sinners and not perfect. Priests are not perfect, I'm not perfect, humanity is not perfect, we just have to deal with it. I want to know when the Star Ledger will do a cover story on the countless "good" priests out there, you know the ones running Evangelization centers, caring for the abuse victims, the man who helps a family mourn the loss of a loved one, helping/counseling those in need. Yes the Church needs vocations, true vocations. Most guys know what they are getting into when they enter the seminary or so I hope they do.

In my 31 years I have met with and dealt with many priests, some I've liked, some I've disliked and others I have loved. Those that fall under the love category are those that have shown me what being a priest truly is. It is the priest who is happy in his vocation, the one who can laugh and cry with you, all the while still being human and above all a friend.

Where have I been...

2010-09-24T12:24:00.000-04:00

Seeing as it's been quite some time since I updated I might as well explain my absence. Working a full time job from 9-6 actually takes away a lot of time for me to sit and just stare at the computer screen. Considering our registers at work are computers, the last thing I really want to do when I come home is sit and type or play on the internet. I also tend to blog about the homilies I heard but since Fr. Brian moved I really don't have anything to blog about. I am taking on the task of co-directing the Women's Cornerstone retreat at the parish. I know I'm crazy, but it should be worth it. I'm also going to spend the next few entries discussing my photography skills and pics from the Paterson Diocese's pilgrimage to the National Shrine in DC and from the dedication of St. Paul Inside the Walls The Catholic Center for Evangelization at Bayley-Ellard, the center is the first of it's kind and will hopefully be a wonderful investment and growth for Paterson Diocese. For the most part I have spent my days working, evenings watching TV and sleeping, some nights are spent watching tv at a friend's apartment, and some others have me at meetings for Church.

Priests

2010-06-21T01:30:00.000-04:00

So we got the news today that Fr. Brian is being promoted to pastor of St. Joseph's in Newton. It's a bittersweet promotion, for him and us. I fully understand why Bishop Serratelli would promote Fr. Brian as he is a great priest and is traditional and conservative, which is what a Catholic should be. I have yet to put into words what Fr. Brian has done for me over his 4 years at the parish. His transfer did inspire me to write about those priests in my life that have really stood out and touched my life more so than just being the guy who says Mass. I've often said there has been one priest in my life at certain times too see me through that time, and it does seem that way. I'm privileged to know as many priests as I do and to be able to count on them for their prayers and ability to answer my wacky questions. On that note I need to ask Fr. Brian a question about Women's Cornerstone as I've been asked a few times to run the darn thing. I just don't if I'm up for it. Oh well that question will have to wait until later today after the Extraordinary Minister Training meeting, oh I think I need to blog about those too.

Diocese of Paterson's Chrism Mass

2010-03-31T00:46:00.000-04:00

I finally made it to the Diocese's Chrism Mass. I borrowed a camera from work and got some pictures but most of them are fuzzy as either I or the priest was moving and the flash was off. Oh well, it wasn't about taking pictures it was about the priesthood and good, holy priests. The Mass was bilingual of course Bishop Serratelli preached in both Spanish and English, with the English portion getting the bulk of the homily, though I'm pretty sure that basically the same thing was said in either language. As usual I don't remember much of what the Bishop said in his homily, but I do remember thinking as I sat way in the back of our Cathedral, "he's preaching to his priests." He did not let his priests, himself or his people off the hook. He called all of us to be true to the Church, to not be afraid to be Catholic and to speak out. He reminded his priests and his people, that the priests are called liked St. Peter and how much like St. Peter most begin their priesthood with enthusiasm and vigor and slowly they begin to ask questions, be it, where do I get the money for all our programs, our school, our buildings. Bishop Serratelli went on to speak on how we need good holy men, like those there tonight and I couldn't help but think he's preaching to the choir, but our priests do need to hear thanks and good job because so often they are put down and ignored because they are speaking the truth.

The homily was geared towards the priests but that doesn't mean the lay person can't take anything away from it, as basically the priest is called to teach and defend Church Teaching as are the faithful members of the Church and Bishop Serratelli said as much. At the end of the Mass we got the short "second homily" as Fr. Brian calls it or as most others would call it the comments before the close of Mass. In this short but forceful commentary the good Bishop reminded the people that it was our duty to pray for and defend Church teaching especially now as the Freedom of religion is being challenged and how laws are against what we teach. I remember actually saying "Rock on Serratelli!" as I stood at the back after Communion so I could position myself to take pictures of the priests and deacons walking out.

The Chrism Mass is one of those that is often said to be the priests' Mass as they are renewing their commitment to the priesthood and to the Diocese as is the Bishop. One of my favorite parts of any con-celebrated Mass is when the priests all chant the "through Him, with Him and in Him" at the end of the Eucharistic prayer. I don't know why but I have always liked that. I also remember at the beginning of the Eucharistic prayer and I'm sure it's actually in the prayer but it was nice to hear "Holy Mother Church", and to have the Church referred to in the feminine pronouns.

What also strikes me is how happy the priests are, I knew a good few of the men there, but the ones I know personally and with whom I still keep in contact with, Fathers Brando, Brian, Martin, George, Kevin, Geno and of course the Bishop all had smiles on their face. Fr. George had his classic ear to ear grin on. Fr. Kevin was very happy to see me and actually waved to me which was odd, but Fr. Kevin actually me recently. Fr. Brian and Fr. Martin see me all the time as they are my parish priests. Fr. Geno was in classic Fr. Geno mode of just happy. Fr. Brando was typical of himself, a huge smile to greet me along with the classic you look great comment, he will always be one of my favorites just for that. ;)

I don't know if my parish priests saw me or not, but when I went to Mass on Tuesday Fr. Martin came back into the Church and said "Mary nice to see you" and gave me the usual kiss greeting. While not overly out of the ordinary it was not at all how he normally greets me, makes me wonder if either he's finally gotten used to the parish or if he actually saw me at the Chrism Mass but opted to not say anything.

Anyway Bishop Serratelli gave a wonderful homily and reminded us that we need to pray for and defend the Church now more than ever and that we need to give our children to the Church for vocations. I've often said to myself and God, "you can have all my sons, just give me a good holy Catholic man to have some with." God can have the girls too, but I've always felt like the sons should I have any would be priests. Oh well, that's not happening anytime soon.

As usual the Chrism Mass was beautiful and a great way to start Holy Week. Hopefully I can participate fully in the Triddumm this year and not just Friday and Saturday, but that's up to the Holy Spirit.

Lent workout

2010-03-02T22:58:00.001-05:00

I finally started on my "giving up being lazy" thing for Lent. I've used my treadmill 2 times which is more than I have used it in quite sometime. The first time I used it was for 15 minutes and my right knee, which happens to the one with a repaired ACL was sore as Hell. I did go out for a walk on Sunday as I borrowed a camera from work to take pictures of the snow. I figured I did not need to use the treadmill as I was out for 2.5 hours. Tonight I opted, after watching Biggest Loser, to get my ass on the treadmill for a total of 17 minutes of which 5 total were running and the rest were walking, in total I ran over a 1/4 mile which was nice. Now the plan is to improve from there otherwise known as get back to what I used to be able to run and one day run the Disney Marathon.

Lent

2010-02-17T08:55:00.000-05:00

Somethings I'm thinking of for Lent...

Give up being lazy when it comes to the treadmill as if it's for Lent I have a better shot at actually doing something.

Daily Mass which is more like weekly Mass as I can only go on Tuesdays.

Maybe a weekly Rosary for the unborn.

I do like Fr. Philip's idea of a holy hour and reminded us that it doesn't have to be adoration, but just simply sitting in the Church... I remember Bishop Serratelli saying that at one point.

that's a good start, lol.

blogging from me phone

2010-01-19T16:25:00.001-05:00

Seeing how easy difficult it is to blog from my new droid eris. so far it does not seem too bad, but there is a lag in the touch keyboard.

Walk to Run take 2; day 1

2010-01-10T15:19:00.004-05:00

Since I finally got that treadmill I've been asking for it's about time I make use of it. As I have mentioned before I have an iPod which I got for one simple reason to use with the Nike+ stuff. I am fully aware that Nike supports Planned Parenthood, but so do a lot of companies and while it annoys me that some of my money goes to PP, I know there are other ways to help the unborn.

Anyway, I have once again started the Nike+ coach plan titled walk to run, and I figure that if I have to upload the info to their page that I also might as well blog about it as it hold me accountable to whomever might actually read this. So day one, which was today went wall, then again walking 15mins isn't that bad.

The Walk to Run program is a 12 week program that is supposed to bring me from walking to running 30 minutes straight or 1.86 miles. My goal is to run in 2 races this coming Spring and Fall. The first one is the Dennis P. McHugh 5k walk/run in May. Though if it is on a Saturday, like I think it will be, I may not be able to participate as I usually work on Saturdays, but it's a goal none the less. My dad went to school with and worked with Dennis' (who was one of the 393 firefighters killed on Sept. 11th) father, so it would be nice to run in it for that reason alone. The second race I would like to partake in is the "Tunnel to Towers Run" This run retraces the steps of Firefighter Steven Siller who literally ran with his equipment on his back from the Brooklyn tunnel to the Twin Towers, who also is numbered in the 393. This race is on a Sunday, so it's doable. It's also in September so I have plenty of time to "train" for it.

So thus begins my journey to get my lazy ass running again. It's also a good excuse to start losing weight. Here's hoping I can stick with it this time around, being able to run and or walk inside the house will help alot with that.

Anyway, day 1 went well and we'll see what the rest of the program will bring with it. According to nike+.com I was supposed to walk .62 miles and I walked .83 miles, so I'm already ahead of their target for me. For those who care this the info as the iPod gives it:

Distance: 0.83 mi

Time: 15:13

Pace: 18:15 min/mile

Calories: 111

and the big number aka my weight is somewhere around 175lbs, I know I can't believe I actually admitted how much I weigh as well, lol.

There are slight discrepancies between the treadmill and the iPod, I'm following the iPod as it spells it out for me.

All Saints and All Souls (another late one)

2010-01-10T14:11:00.000-05:00

I went to type and blog about this at the actual feasts of All Saints and All Souls, you know back in November, but for one reason or another I managed to forgot about it and am now revisiting it. I'm not editing it to fix the grammar to fit today's date, so I'm just going with what I have written.

Seeing as I wanted to blog about Fr. Brian's All Saints homily yesterday, and since we had our Mass of Remembrance tonight for All Souls I figured why not just blog about both. I look at All Saints as the celebration feast and All souls has the more somber remembrance feast. That being said I do like both celebrations but do realize that they are different yet very similar.

I was Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion at the 6pm Mass so I got to hear Fr. Brian's homily. It was a good homily filled with correct theology, as in he told us point blank many times during Mass that we are all to be saints and to live like the Saints. It is refreshing to hear someone say you'll be a saint and not oh you'll be an angel. No angels are creatures created by God to worship Him and praise Him. Saints are awesome people who have gone before us and show us the way to get to Heaven.

So Fr. Brian's homily if I remember correctly has a few pointer in how to live like the Saints. He listed off ways to be a saint or things that the Saints have in common and those are joy, radiate the Light of God, being sinners, listening. He went on to elaborate on each point, but I'm going to put my own spin on it as I don't remember fully what he said. Fr. Brian spoke of how each saint is to have joy, that there are rules of engagement and that there's no cheating, I no longer remember what he was talking about; oops, but that is what happens when you let 2 months pass by without blogging. He did speak about radiating the Light of God as in a happy marriage leads to a happy family or being a happy priests. He spoke about how the saints are sinners, that they were not perfect and I think that most people forget that and stick Saints on a pedestal and expect them to be perfect, fact is that the Saints were human just like us and that means they were sinners just like us and made mistakes just like us too. The only sinless people are Jesus and Mary, and I mean really how can anyone expect to be perfect. ;) I made a note on here that listening was mentioned twice, which means that was probably the point I needed to hear. The saints listened to God and tried to live out what He had planned for them, no matter what it cost them.

All Saints Day reminds us that we are all called to be saints, not angels or some other being, but a saint, who spends the rest of time with God in Heaven.

On All Souls day we had our annual Mass of Remembrance and I remember Fr. Martin, our pastor who normally isn't very fast with Mass. Which amuses me as in Ireland, where Fr. Martin is from, Mass is beyond fast. Fr. Martin was very deliberate and slow with Mass, nothing was rushed, which is not to say that is what he normally does, it was just slower that his usual Masses.

I happened to serve as Extraordinary Minister as they needed more as we got a bigger crowd that expected, I was there as a member of the Hospitality Committee, as in I stood at a door and welcomed the people as they walked in; we also distributed the "Mass books" as in the handouts explaining what was going on . I don't remember much from the homily, but what I do remember was him saying the fest of All Souls is a happy occasion and the whole Mass at the graveyard and the blessing of the graves back in Ireland. I found this strange as my mom earlier that morning that mentioned that as well. Fr. Martin and my parents are from roughly the same part/section of Ireland, different counties but same area. What has mainly stuck with me is that I could see the tears on his face when I went up as EMHC. I didn't expect that as while our priests are allowed to show their emotions like most men (and some women) it's rare to actually see it.

Both feasts All Saints and All Souls are celebrations of life, life with God. The saints are all (hopefully) where we hope to be; in Heaven with God. While the aspect of death can be scary it's nice to have something to look forward too.

Respect Life Sunday relfections

2009-12-30T00:43:00.000-05:00

I started to work on this a while ago in October and just remembered that it was here in the edit pile, so I'm attempting to see what I remember out of it.

This past Sunday was Respect Life Sunday, it also happened to be the annual Communion Breakfast for the Rosary Society of which my mom is a member. So when she greeted me with, "but it's Fr. Geno" I couldn't really say no. Fr. Geno was the priest who ran the youth group while I was in high school and he has been quite influential in my life. FG, as he is more commonly known to me and others, happened to be saying the 8:30am Mass so I opted to go as breakfast followed Mass.

FG began Mass by talking about Msgr. Joseph Brestel, who served St. Anthony's as pastor and the Diocese on some level as well, though I am not 100% sure in what capacity he served on the Diocesan level. Msgr. Brestel who as Fr. Geno said "no matter how he felt or what his health was would get up and say Mass, this Mass each week." I had the privilege of becoming a reader and read at the 8:30 Mass and even in high school noticed how traditional Msgr. Brestel was, as in he was "old school" and said "pray brethren vs. pray my brothers and sisters" and even back then I liked that. Now I can see the graces that God gave me by placing this man in my life, and maybe I should start asking him for some prayers for the success of the new translations.

Knowing it was Respect Life Sunday, I was interested to see what the priests were going to talk about. Fr. Geno surprised me as I was expecting the classic younger priest with a soft hitting homily, and that is not what I got. I don't know if it's because FG and I have gotten older or if I just pay attention more to what is said than I did in high school. Fr. Geno's homily did focus on marriage and that is between one man and one woman. I don't remember the homily anymore, that's what happens when you let 2 and a half months go by with out blogging.

I picked up a fellow young adult and brought her to the Rosary Society Communion Breakfast, we were a touch annoyed that seats were assigned so that we couldn't sit next to each other but we worked around that. Fr. Geno was the guest speaker and spoke of how looking around the room he was reminded of how many people had lost loved ones since he was last at St. Anthony's. He mentioned that it is always hard for a priest to come back to a parish he has been at, as you're worried about who will be offended if you show up to something or not show up to something. He spoke about his new project that Bishop Serratelli lined up for him. It was a good explanation of the vow of obedience. Long story short Papa Arty sent Fr. Geno over to Rome for his doctorate and now Fr. Geno is in charge of the Diocesan office of Evangelization and the first and only Catholic evangelization center St. Paul Inside the Walls, a nice play on St. Paul Outside the Walls.

During his speech Fr. Geno reminded me of why I was attracted to him and youth group in high school. He knows how to reach out and bring someone to the Church. Maybe not in the traditional manner, but it works. More on FG in a later blog.

I might have been on as Extraordinary Minister at the 6pm Mass so that could explain why I was back for a second Mass. At the 6pm Mass Fr. Brian gave an excellent homily and I told him as much after Mass too. Fr. Brian had typed his homily and did not seem like his normal self, but that didn't stop the usual homily. (i know now why, all I'm saying is say a prayer for his overall health, nothing major, just a few extra prayers. Said health issue has been resolved, but he could still do with some prayers.)

Fr. Brian focused more on the marriage aspect than respect because as you know with marriage brings kids. Both priests mentioned the two becoming one though I think Fr. Geno focused more on it than Fr. Brian did. Fr. Brian does win for best line: "it's like chocolate and peanut butter, you put two different things together and get a resses peanut butter cup... chocolate and chocolate is still chocolate, it doesn't change or make something new" I paraphrased, but you get the point. He gave a few other similar examples. I thanked him after Mass for his homily and said, it's nice to hear it from the pulpit. He responded with something that I can't remember now, but it was along the lines of being a heavy hitter with the truth vs. being soft.

What stayed with me is that Fr. Geno seemed stronger in his defense of the Church than I would have expected from him while I was part of youth group. Granted he was newly ordained back then and I wasn't nearly as don't mess with the Church as I am now. Fr. Brian has only been ordained 5 years or so to Fr. Geno's 16, but both are around the same age and maybe that's the difference. We're all older, I tend to pay attention to what the priest had to say and making sure it's correct. ;) Either way I was happy with what I heard on Respect Life Sunday. :)

Prayer for Priests

2009-10-06T00:22:00.000-04:00

My parish handed this out a few weeks ago when the relic of St. John Vianney came to visit the parish. People have complained that it's too long, but I think it's fine and beautiful when you thing about what is being said.

Prayer for Priests

Father, we praise and bless Your Holy Name, for by Your Holy Spirit, You have anointed Your only Son, born of the Virgin Mary, our great High Priest of the new and eternal covenant.

In Your love, You graciously give to all the baptized a share in His one priesthood.

And, from these, Christ Your Son calls some men to share in His priesthood in a special way, making them stewards of the Mysteries of God.

We joyfully thank You for our priests who answer His call each day with their lives of generous service to all of Your children. They are a most precious gift of Your Divine Mercy.

Strengthen them in their ministry of Word and Sacrament. Lift them up when they are cast down. Forgive them when they fail.
Enlighten their minds with the Truth of the Gospel. Inflame their hearts with love for Your Holy Church, and fill them with the overflowing joy of Your Grace.

Through the intercession of St. John Vianney, patron of all priests, we humbly ask You to make our priests true shepherd, each one willing to lay down his life for his flock after the example of Your own Divine Son who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

Most Rev. Arthur J. Serratelli

September 11th

2009-09-11T00:03:00.002-04:00

The above picture is one I took at the St. Patrick's day parade in March of 2009. It's at an odd angle as I was trying to take the picture of all the flags, which never really happens. Each year I tend to blog about the same thing, my memories of Sept. 11, 2001 and the days that followed afterwards. This years brings some interesting memories along with it. 10 years ago we all getting ready for my brother's wedding, as he decided that since 9-1-1 was a Saturday, it would be silly and no one would forget their anniversary; 8 years ago in August my family and I were in Ireland. This year we are preparing to celebrate my brother and sister-in-law's 10th anniversary, and this past August my family and I returned from a vacation to Ireland.

I remember 8 years ago flying to Rome in May for a class with Seton Hall and then flying in August for the vacation to Ireland, my gradfather was 90 years old that August, while I was happy to with friends and family, I couldn't stand being on the plane or flying. That was not like me I never had any issues flying or being on a plane. I could never place my finger on why I was so nervous about flying, but I got my answer looking back, somehow, someway I had a feeling deep down that something bad was going to happen.

Sept 11, 2001 went like this:
I was in my last semester at Seton Hall, long story short I was 12 credits short for graduating in May of 2001 like I was supposed to, so I had an added semester of classes, which became me just showing up for classes as I was commuting. So that's how 9-11 begins, I was at home sleeping like most college students would have been, when my mom came in to say " a place hit the twin towers." I thought what dumbass hits a building, assuming it was a little plane, not a jumbo jet. So I took my time getting up and decided to wash my car. What I think really happened was the Holy Spirit took me away from the tv, so I didn't have to see the towers fall, I've watched the replays and it always makes me cringe and cry. I turned on the radio in the car and turned on WPLJ. Scott and Todd, who are the morning DJs, were very somber in their broadcast, normally they are goofballs trying to help the drivers cope with their commutes. I will not forget how somber and solemn they were, it was strange and not normal. While I was washing my car, PLJ allowed ABC to break in and the news that a second plane hit was given. Almost every one in America and probably around the world saw that place hit, I can see the tv coverage in my head as I type this. My neighbor came out shortly afterwards and said, "one of the towers collapsed." That was it, I went inside, watched tv, tried to get on the internet to find my friends, of whom most were at Seton Hall.

Most of my family lived in NY at the time, and my father worked in the Bronx and my brother in Manhattan, both no where near the towers. It would take my dad nearly 4 hours to come home, as the George Washington Bridge was closed, so he had to figure out a way to get home. I don't remember how my brother got home as he usually took the train in. Thoughts ran through our heads as to who worked where and wondering if they were ok. All the family members were fine, and eventually we learned of friends of the family that had near misses that day, and eventually we heard that John and Dennis were among those that had died. More on them later. ;)

I remember finding my "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do" shirt. Again a prompting of the Holy Spirit. My parish had a prayer service that night as we found out one of our parishioners had died in the Towers. I remember my mom and I walked over and I remember sitting in one of the pews, and watching Fr. Kevin go to a few people asking them to read, each said no. Before Fr. Kevin could get over to me, my mom said, "you're next, don't say no." Honestly, being a lector and having read in public quite a few times, I said yes, and I also thought, well at least people will read my shirt. What was done was an evil act, but those men were lead to believe that what they were doing was correct, it is not my place to judge them and yes we are called to forgive. Anyway I read at our service and eventually went home.

The next few days played out in a normal manner of going to school, retreat meetings, and other such things.

Driving to Kearny from SHU, prayer service, John's Mass, Dennis's wake.. all these things are to come, but alas I must get some sleep as I have to work in the morning.

Obama's speech

2009-09-08T20:07:00.003-04:00

My issue is not with the president giving a speech, it was attaching lesson plans to it. Seriously, was there a mention of saving the babies, yes if kids stay in school they will learn, but what are they learning. My mom thinks I'm crazy when I say I don't want my kids, if I have any in public school and I don't want them in a Catholic school that doesn't know how to be Catholic. Oh and Obama probably did change his speech, but hey if he simply said "stay in school." so be it.

go vote...

2009-09-02T23:26:00.002-04:00

As Fr. Z asked to have it placed on blogs, I shall. I also posted it on facebook we shall see what happens.

Go to Fr. Z's blog for the story or straight to the page to vote.

Walk to Run

2009-09-01T23:23:00.003-04:00

Since I own an iPod and I got it to use with the Nike+ stuff, I've finally started using it again. I've started a "coaching program" on nike.com and it's guiding me through a 3 month or 12 week plan to go from walking to running. So far so good, two 15 mins walk and one walk some run are done. As long as I actually stick with it, it should work. The only thing I miss is a treadmill so I could do it at home later at night vs. having to rush, well run, out when I get home from work. I guess I could always do it before work too. We shall see how running works this week and possibly add in daily Mass next week. :)

Ireland

2009-08-09T23:23:00.003-04:00

So my parents and I spent 3 weeks in Ireland, we were gone from July 13th - Aug. 3rd. I had a wonderful time, and it's nice when you cousins actually do stuff with you. Granted the cousin that did most of the entertaining was the cousin that was out visiting with his family last October and was in essence returning the favor, but I have a feeling he would have done it anyway.

We spent most of the time visiting family, and as my dad got a standard shift car, I couldn't drive. I don't blame him as it was cheaper, but he doesn't like to drive at night, so that can put a damper on things despite it not getting dark until 10:30pm. He also didn't want me driving on the roads over there, which maybe I wouldn't have been so damn freaked out if my father didn't have me thinking my side of the car was going to be in a wall every time he pulled over. I had to laugh when my cousin drove over there and didn't budge when the on coming traffic came. Long story short despite not seeing the Guinness factory like I wanted to, again my dad won't drive to Dublin, and any relatives that live in Dublin were away, but if I had the car I might have ventured it, oh well, I will just have to add that to the plans for a future visit.

My family always asks me would you live in Ireland, and I almost always say, no, I'd need a city, considering where I come from. Though I have thought about this question since returning and maybe it's just the memories of drinking in my cousin's living room and laughing and having a good time, but I'd venture to say I would try it. I don't know how long I'd last living over there, but at least it's an English speaking country.

Last time I was over in Ireland I was in my last year at Seton Hall, so I got asked the what are you going to do question, I don't remember how I answered it, but I was a religion major after all, so that probably stopped any further questions. This time I had to deal with the "what do you do question?" and I usually answered teacher,babysitter/nanny. Which is what I was doing, I stayed away from the oh the kids are going to school full time in September so I don't know what I'll be doing answer. I felt bad as I was in essence lying to my family, but I wasn't, however I noticed that most of then could really care less. I am for the most part "more educated" or shall I say further educated than my cousins. I speak of the older cousins as the younger ones and those my age have probably had a University education, though I could be mistaken.

My cousins Brendan and PJ are a carpenter and a mechanic and I noticed that despite the schedules they keep, Brendan who works for himself has added on 2 weekend jobs and PJ has a repair shop on the side are happy and their families are happy. They make time to go out with each other, granted it's for a few pints, but it got me thinking. I began to think it would be nice to have what they have, a family that doesn't seem to judge them. I mean so I have a BA in Religion, what am I going to do with it, who knows. Everyone is so relaxed and laid back over there, there was no rushing out the door to get somewhere, no one trying to better the other. Maybe it's because of where my dad's family is from in Mayo, and that's where we spent most of our time, but even in Galway City they didn't seem to be rushed, granted Dublin might be a bit different, but it's still not the NYC area.

For so long I've sought that youth ministry, religion teacher, church ministry job and I've watched it slip away or seen it go to someone else, all the while I'm thinking "there I go again being too conservative for the Church." There is something wrong with that statement, I'm not too conservative for the Church, just some of her members and you know what I'm tired of that. I'm tired of being the one who follows the Church, who knows she will be judged more harshly by God than those that didn't know. I want to work for the Church but find that most of those positions are taken by "liberals." When my parish got our new deacon, whom I met once and haven't seen since then, I saw myself thinking, oh there goes my shot at this position, and then it hit me, he's the one who should be doing these jobs, he's the one about to be ordained. It's nice that the laity can work for the Church, but after a while, there gets to be too many people running the Church.

Now I find myself accepting a new retail job at a camera store, and it seems like a great opportunity for me. As I can work for a year or 2 while going to school for my Master of Arts in Teaching from a local school, I am leaning towards Montclair State, but one never knows. I've found myself the more I try to pull away from teaching the more I get sucked into it. I enjoy teaching the CCD classes that I have, and I like the idea of summers off and other such days. I realize that had I actually gotten an education major I probably would still at the 1st school I worked at. All that is missing from me teaching religion is how to make a lesson plan and discipline. I know I'm a softy, I don't like yelling at people. I will tell a child to behave if I see them misbehaving and maybe that's what I'm called to do, to teach the little ones.

This blog turned away from Ireland fairly quickly and into something else. I'm off to go look at local colleges and Post Baccalaureate education degrees. :)

It's probably the beer talking...

2009-07-09T00:34:00.003-04:00

or the fact that I don't feel like going to be yet. There's honestly nothing I want to blog about, unless I get on the topic of the transitional deacon my parish has received. He is AWESOME! He was officially introduced to the parish over the weekend and he preached every Mass. My parents come from the 8:30am Mass (I usually go to the 12pm) and my mom said "I don't want to tell you, but you'll like him." Now when Mom says that I'm going to like the guy, she's usually right.

Let me tell you, I nearly cried tears of joy during his homily. A young man with a few years on myself came out swinging, talking about No Salvation Outside the Church, which threw me a little, but we do have the fullness of truth. He compared the questions asked about Jesus and His "brothers" to people asking about the Church and what they don't like about the Church. The homily was a tad heavy with theology, but I was in love. He spoke about Mary's perpetual virginity, how abortion is an intrinsic moral evil (he won me over with that one, and I had an ear to ear grin and tears in my eyes)and how brothers in the Gospel meant cousin or friend, and how Faith without works is dead.

It was refreshing to hear that from the pulpit. Another thing that struck me was his "conservative" behavior. I use conservative, but it's probably more traditional than conservative. Our new deacon studied at the North American College in Rome and it's easy to see his influences. I know he's a good 20 if not more years younger than our permanent deacons, so to see him kneel at the altar vs. stand next to the priest for the Consecration was a change. I also noticed he received Communion on his tongue. He also sings which is a change from our two priests who don't. When this young man is ordained at the end of August, I pray that he keeps his fiery spirit and runs with it. I hear rumors of him returning to Rome for his Masters for two years and then returning to our parish, however those are just rumors, but it would be a blessing for our parish to have him.

It was a refreshing change from hearing people on the liturgy committee complain about how conservative things are. When our new pastor first arrived he commented on how "more conservative" our liturgies were compared to what he was used too. I don't want to know what went on at his old parish, but I see nothing wrong with our liturgies, as they are from the actual rubrics, which is how it is supposed to be.

I just don't like being lumped into the category of conservative because I like Mass the way it's supposed to be said. I like that our Tabernacle is back in the middle of the altar. Yes it's at the back altar, but it's the focal point of the Church as it's supposed to be. For years it was off to the side and people didn't even know it was there. It was at the "Sacred Heart altar" but it was on the side and most people weren't respectful of it. So our last pastor took the initiative from Rome and moved it back. Someone was complaining that the laity can't go near the Tabernacle any more and blah blah blah. Guess what, the laity shouldn't be up and near the Tabernacle, as an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, I an very conscious of how special a ministry it is. I know that I am not worthy to distribute Communion to people, but God has let me, Jesus lets us eat Him, enter into our skanky bodies. I'm not afraid to go near the tabernacle, but we need to remember that the Blessed Sacrament is in there and that we should take care when going to it and in all honesty why would the laity being going near the Tabernacle. I am a woman in the Church and I do not feel powerless because I am a woman, rather I try to model my life after the great disciple, Mary, the Mother of Jesus.

I do not want to be or feel the need for woman priests, and it pisses me off when I hear priests talk about how one day maybe women will be at the altar. NO, as our new Deacon so nicely preached and said, in persona Christi, in the person of Christ. It is no longer Father whatever, but Jesus back there, hence why he says and we hear, this is MY body... this is MY blood. Jesus was a man, I am a woman I can not be in persona Christi. Rather I'd love to find a good Catholic man to marry and give birth to sons who enter the priesthood. I often laugh when I hear Bishop Serratelli say, pray for vocations, give us one of the boys of the parish, give us one of your sons, I often thing to myself find me a Catholic man to marry and you can have all the sons you want. ;)

Oh well, I think our new deacon will be a wonderful addition to our parish and I wish him all the best for his upcoming ordination and subsequent priesthood. He will be one of the good guys, he sticks me as the type who would learn how to say a Latin Mass, which would be interesting. :)

Back but not for long

2009-06-28T15:59:00.002-04:00

I spent the past two week teaching at my parish's "Summer Religious Education Program." I love being able to pass on the faith, but it breaks my heart that a 4 year old knows the "rules" of being Catholic better than most of the 6th graders that I thought.

All that has been on the news over here is that Michael Jackson died, mind you Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and now Billy Mays all died too, but MJ is all over the news. I get that he was a great influence to music and the MTV generation, but I'm not in tears over the man's passing. He was strange to say the least. He needs prayers has he did live a strange and troubled life. Farrah seemed to live a normal life as did McMahon, and well Billy Mays despite his infomercial personality seemed to a private and decent man. May they all rest on peace.

In roughly 2 weeks my parents and I will be off to Ireland for 3 weeks, that means the next two weeks will be spent shopping for stuff, like transformers, clothes (there's apparently a heat wave over there), and other such stuff. It's also the 4th of July over here, which means BBQs and fireworks, if your town isn't too cheap to have them this year.

Oh well that's where I've been and will be. ;)

Where oh where have I been...

2009-06-04T20:13:00.003-04:00

Life has been a bit crazy for the past few weeks, meaning I'm not on my normal/regular schedule for babysitting. My mom's sister-in-law (who lives in Ireland) died unexpectedly last week from a massive brain hemorrhage so that threw everything off. I helped my dad with babysitting my niece and nephew. Kerri and Sean, my niece and nephew, loved it as they always love when I do stuff with them. Mom got back from Ireland this evening. She started talking to me about the funeral and the Mass and other things on the way home and I half paid attention.

It's only 5 weeks before I join my parents for a 3 week vacation in Ireland and my brother, sis-in-law and the kids are joining us for the last week. This week should be just as crazy as I'm babysitting tomorrow and Tuesday and on Wednesday I take my Nurse Entrance Exam aka the SAT for nursing school. Then it's the parish feast, which means I spend most of my time, more so this year than in the past, with the youth ministry Ice Cream booth. "The Feast" is the parish's biggest fundraiser with carnival rides, booths and of course the food, the food is mostly home cooked or as close to it as possible. A lot of work goes into it including the time spent behind the tables in the booths.

So I might go missing for a while again, but I'm working on it. ;)

2009-05-31T12:17:00.001-04:00

I wonder if this works to blog about stuff from my phone.

Life in General

2009-05-18T14:16:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I've blogged about myself, that's because not much has been going on. I've been babysitting and am now looking for work on a part time basis as I'm thinking of going to nursing school in September or late August depending on when the program starts.

I'm confused, perplexed and in essence disappointed that I haven't been able to get job in Church ministry. I'm tired of being too Catholic and conservative for the Catholic church and school. Seriously, I'm upholding the teachings of the Church, going to Mass like I'm supposed to and I get shafted for someone who's more ecumenical.

I'm torn between Masters of Theology studies and nursing studies. It's too late for most programs for Theology and I'm very picky about where I would go. Only a traditional Catholic school, by that I mean the likes of Stubenville or Christendom, will do for me. I'm sure I'd fair well in another Catholic school, but I don't know if I'm up for it. I dealt with Seton Hall for the 4.5 years that I was there and I'm honestly getting tired of having to defend the Church to the Church. I don't know the harder I try to get away from ministry the faster I get pulled back by Cornerstone Retreats, teaching CCD over the summer or something else.

Sometimes I wish life would just lay itself out the way you planned after college, but alas that is not how it works.

Bishop Serratelli's weekly column from 05/14/2009

2009-05-18T10:03:00.001-04:00

Bishop Serratelli kept his political but not political streak going this week, it really makes me wonder what next week's will be on, I doubt it will be on Notre Dame, but one never knows.

Prayer: Power Beyond Politics

Storefront churches, stone cathedrals, synagogues, temples and mosques break the secular landscape of the United States. Their presence stands as a witness to the voices of believers raised to God in prayer. In fact, recent polls claim that 92 percent of Americans believe in God or an Ultimate Being and nearly six out of ten Americans pray every day. (Jacqueline L. Salmom, “Most Americans Believe in Higher Power, Poll Finds,” Washington Post, June 24, 2008).

Traveling to the Holy Land aboard his Alitalia charter jet on May 8, Pope Benedict XVI spoke on the power of prayer. He said, “As believers, Christians are convinced of the power of prayer. It opens the world to God, and we are convinced that God listens and can work in history. And I think that, if millions of believers pray, this is truly a force that can have an influence and advance the cause of peace.”

In the United States, this belief in the power of prayer gave birth to a national day of prayer. In 1952, President Harry Truman first established it. Then, President Reagan signed a resolution in 1988 to make the first Thursday in May as the National Day of Prayer each year. Every president thereafter has done the same. This year, President Obama proclaimed May 7 as our National Day of Prayer. He called “upon Americans to pray in thanksgiving for our freedoms and blessings and to ask for God's continued guidance, grace, and protection for this land that we love.” (I don’t know how I feel about this considering yes I do want our military to come home from Iraq but at what cost to the people over there. I don’t get how people can say Iraq was better under Saddam, I just don’t get it. I don’t get the feeling that Obama is a huge fan of our troops, don’t ask me why it’s just a gut feeling.)

Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush used to mark the day with a White House observance. Under previous administrations, the White House hosted an interfaith service. Protestant, Catholic and Jewish leaders were invited for an event at the East Room. This year, the President chose not to have such an event. (Not too much of a surprise, so what type of event did he have for National Day of Prayer, no prayer at all?)

Some people found this decision an occasion to praise the President for distancing himself from our National Day of Prayer. The prayer service at the White House offends some because it is a public act of religion. (Isn’t Mass or any type of religious service a “public act of religion:, is my saying a Rosary in a park, or across the street from an abortion mill (clinic gives the idea of them actually doing something good, mill sounds more appropriate in my crazy brain.) a “public act of religion, how about when I make the Sign of the Cross when I walk or drive in front of a Catholic church, isn’t that also a “public act of religion.” I know I’m being petty about it, but really it makes me think.) It disturbs others because it is not inclusive enough. (Inclusive of what, the major religions are there, there was no mention of Islam, but that could have been an oversight. Do people want Satanic worship and Wicca included, really come on, people can be so strange.) On the other hand, there were those who expressed disappointment that the President did not seize the opportunity to unite people of so many different faiths in a common act acknowledging our need for help from God.

Lost somewhere in the cross fires of the discussion was another decision that the President made. (Bishop seems to refer to our President as President more than President Obama, I just happened to notice that, I wonder why.) Near the end of Bush's second term, members of the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Madison. They petitioned the judge to put an end to the custom of prayer proclamations issued by presidents and governors. They view the day as disenfranchising the millions of Americans who do not believe in God or do not pray. Obviously, they do not follow the polls about belief and religion in America. (Nice little zinger in there at the end, considering Bishop Serratelli mentions said poll at the beginning of his column.)

The Obama administration has asked U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb to dismiss the case against proclaiming public days of prayer. As the President said in his proclamation, “Throughout our Nation's history, Americans have come together in moments of great challenge and uncertainty to humble themselves in prayer.” His words ring true at this moment of challenge and crisis for our country. (Obama’s doing something good and right, wow! He, Obama, might as well have tossed in the whole there are no atheists in fox holes when speaking of great challenges not to mention all the prayers being said for a change of heart for him.)

The real discontent with our National Day of Prayer is much wider than opposition to a public display of religion. The day is too cozy a relationship between Church and State for those who wish to put a chasm between the two. (From what I’ve heard the separation of Church and State was to keep the State out of the Church not the other way around, but I wasn’t around when this started and don’t know if it’s true, but I like the sound of it.) In a word, the opposition to the day springs from the desire to silence the voice of religiously committed individuals from the public discussions of major issues.

Since 1978, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a group of 12,000 atheists and agnostics, has been working to keep Church and State separate. Nontract #6 of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc. states: “ Fundamentalist Protestants and right-wing Catholics (honestly, just say Catholics as if one follows Christ’s teachings one would realize that one should be conservative on certain issues.) would impose their narrow morality on the rest of us, resisting women's rights, freedom for religious minorities and unbelievers, gay and lesbian rights, and civil rights for all. (I always find this one amusing as all should also include the pre-born but obviously it does not as they mention “women’s rights” which if the fancy way of saying, “allow women to suffer as they let someone kill their baby”) History shows us that only harm comes of uniting church and state.”

Such a strong characterization of religious people fails to see that, when it comes to Catholics and the Catholic approach to common good, Catholics offer the wisdom of a 2,000 year tradition of ethical reflection. When speaking to the issues of public concern, Catholics bring their contribution based on the natural law. The natural law knows no religious boundaries. It is open to all. It is gross misstatement of truth to label arguments based on reason as simply the religious convictions of the narrow-minded.

We cannot let some make religion today the dividing social issue that race was in America in the past. We are religiously more diverse today than in the last century. Presently there are more American Muslims than there are American Episcopalians, Jews or Presbyterians. Los Angeles, with more than three hundred temples, has welcomed the largest variety of Buddhists anywhere.

With such religious diversity, a National Day of Prayer is a blessing for our country. Prayer places our country in the hands of the God “who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4). Prayer that opens our hearts to God also opens our hearts to others, whatever their religious beliefs or lack thereof. Prayer is truly a power beyond politics. (It does, and I need to start saying some more prayers, not just for our President and country but for other things as well, such as good holy bishops and good holy men to enter the priesthood, and good, holy women and men to enter religious life and marriage. So much to pray for more than likely not enough time to do it.)

Bishop Serratelli's weekly column from 05/07/2009

2009-05-18T09:46:00.003-04:00

Bishop Serratelli has taken the past few weeks to make his column not necessary political, but along those lines. He never came out and said Notre Dame was wrong and I am surprised and disappointed in that, but then again maybe he waited to see the whole thing play out and that is what the 5/21/09 column will be about, then again I have not read the column from 5/14/09. From the topic I see that the Bishop has kept the political, but not political stance. As usual my thoughts are in red and I have added my emphasis to it as well.

President Obama and Lady Justice: The Supreme Court and its Judges

In the Old City of Berne, Switzerland, there stands the famous “Fountain of Justice” (Gerechtigkeitsbrunnen) . From the 16th century until modern days, Hans Gieng's statue of Lady Justice has graced the fountain. It is the oldest representation of Lady Justice blindfolded.

This image of Lady Justice traces its origins to Themis, the Greek goddess of divine order and law, and to Justitia, the Roman goddess of justice. In her left hand, Lady Justice holds a scale. This signifies duty to measure the strengths of each case, weigh the evidence and then decide the case. In her right hand, she wields a double-edged sword. This signifies her obligation to execute her judgment with precision for one party or against another.

Coins from the days of ancient Rome depict this image of Lady Justice without the blindfold. Her eyes are open and she sees all the evidence before her. But ever since the Renaissance, Lady Justice has appeared with her eyes blindfolded. In the dispensing of justice, there should be complete objectivity. Blind justice. No cowering before the powerful. No trampling of the weak. No favoritism to any party. Complete impartiality.

This symbol of Lady Justice blindfolded is found in our courthouses and halls of justice. Could this symbol lose its meaning? (I think it already has considering most times it’s guilty until proven innocent vs. innocent until proven guilty.) Should the very notion of justice in an era of change be redefined?

With the retirement of Supreme Court Justice David Souter, our new President will have his chance at appointing his first Supreme Court judge. Other appointments will surely follow. The President has made clear his own understanding of the qualifications needed for the post. The President has reiterated the tried and true requirements of extensive legal training and experience as well as a devotion to the rule of law and a sound ethical record. But he also has added another prerequisite.

In July 2007, at a conference of Planned Parenthood, the President, prior to his election, had said this about future judges: “We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges.”

On Friday May 1, 2009 during the White House press briefing, the President said, “I will seek someone who understands that justice isn't about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a casebook; it is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives, whether they can make a living and care for their families, whether they feel safe in their homes and welcome in their own nation… I view that quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people's hopes and struggles, as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes.” The President once again is remaining true to another promise that he made during his campaign for the presidency. (Obama’s consistent at least, he mentioned empathy both times. However he doesn’t know my struggles, the pain I have watching him and other politicians drag this country down by allowing abortion to happen. Yes I am a one issue voter I’ll admit that a person’s stance on abortion is what makes me vote for him/her, but I believe that life is one of the most precious gifts we can give someone and it shouldn’t be taken from the most defenseless, the pre-born. Yeah another promise that hurts the babies even more.)

For centuries, Western civilization has tried to achieve equal justice under the law. Does the requirement of empathy in a judge mean Lady Justice must now take off her blindfold? Is this a change for the better or not?

The President’s insistence on empathy as a quality in a good judge can claim biblical precedent. When Solomon began his rule, he prayed at Gibeon. He asked God not for riches and wealth, but for “an understanding heart, to govern [his] people and to distinguish between right and wrong” (1 Kgs 3:9). God granted him his request for empathy and his judgments became legendary. (Of course the Bible scholar would find something to quote and compare it too.)

In 1 Kings 3:16-28, the Scriptures relate an example story of Solomon’s ability to judge because he was empathetic. One day, two prostitutes came before Solomon. They both had a son, but one son died. Each woman claimed that the son that was alive was hers. Solomon was empathetic to the feeling of the true mother. He knew that she would prefer her son to live. And, so when he proposed cutting the live child in half and giving each woman half, the heart of the true mother was revealed. She preferred the other woman to have her son alive rather than each to be given half his dead body. (And he chose a story that most people will know.)

Solomon as a judge was empathetic. It was his “understanding heart” that saved the life of the child of a marginalized woman who was a true mother. “The wisdom of God was in him to do judgment” (1 Kgs 3:28).

Is Solomon the appropriate paradigm for the role of judge today? It is good to remember that the empathy that served Solomon well was not something he acquired on his own through training or experience. It was a gift that God gave him in answer to his prayer. Furthermore, Solomon was not limited to one role in governing his people. He was king and legislator as well as judge and last court of appeal.

Centuries have passed. Today in our democratic society, many people would be very uncomfortable in trusting to one individual, no matter how wise or spiritual, all the power that Solomon wielded in his day. We are in an imperfect world. In such a world, we have a system where the legislator is separate from the judge and where rights are guaranteed by law. ( Only the rights of some are guaranteed by some, the pre-born are forgotten by some laws; not the killing of a pregnant woman, then they are acknowledged. This country is so strange.)

Courts decide between the guilty and the innocent. Courts do not make the laws. They make their decisions on the basis of rights guaranteed in the law. Therefore, in a court of law, economic condition, sexual orientation, educational background can never be the determining factors. If a judge is to give special consideration in his decision to his own empathy, the question then arises, to which party in a case should he be empathetic? Would this be the death knell to impartiality? Will we suffer the tyranny of the courts where judges refashion our society according to their own opinion or political agenda?

Legislators elected by the people make the laws. Judges appointed by the government apply them. The distinction works. Lady Justice is blindfolded. But if the blindfold is going to be removed by a President who makes empathy a requirement for Supreme Court judges, will we have judges like Solomon? Will we finally have judges, as in the case of Solomon, with “an understanding heart,” judges who recognize a true mother always safeguards the life of her child? Will we have judges who protect the life of children, even those not yet born? Without empathy to those most vulnerable, there is no justice for all. (I don’t think I could have said it any better, that last sentence is quite true.)

Bishop Serratelli's weekly column from 4/30/2009

2009-05-12T15:30:00.002-04:00

The second part of Bishop Serratelli's 2 part series on Tolerance. I've been slacking in posting because the pollen and the trees have been kicking my butt.

Tolerance: The Trojan Horse of Secular Liberalism- Bishop Serratelli’s weekly column from April 30, 2009 with my emphasis and comments.

In today’s society, the principle of tolerance has become the clarion call for people of diverse views, moral convictions and religious beliefs to live together with a sense of civility to one another. By its definition, tolerance is inclusive. It seeks to embrace all individuals in a society that does not condemn individuals simply because they are different. In terms of liberal secularists, tolerance is based on cultural diversity. It is a pragmatic way to keep the peace.

Yet, tolerance alone does not always work. The drive to equate same sex unions with marriage and to give them the same legal definition as marriage has also become an occasion for intolerance. Those who are committed to marriage as an institution designed by the Creator for a man and a woman are labeled discriminatory and unjust. (That we are.)

Most recently, this type of attitude surfaced during the Miss USA 2009 pageant. On April 20, 2009, one of the judges, Perez Hilton, who is quite open about his views, asked Carrie Prejean, Miss California, her view on legalizing gay marriage. Miss Prejean was not unaware of the trap that was being set for her. (Of course she wasn’t, this wasn’t your typical “beauty queen” question.) After affirming the freedom of choice (interesting choice of words, then again I’m on high alert with Obama being at Notre Shame next week.) that Americans enjoy, she went on to say, “…I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody there, but that's how I was raised and that's how I think it should be, between a man and a woman.” Some in the audience booed her response, but others applauded even louder.

Miss California did not express an outrageous conviction. But Perez Hilton believes that her answer cost her the contest. His subsequent name calling of Miss California clearly revealed the inability to allow someone to disagree with the agenda that is behind the move to redefine marriage. (These so called promoters of equality for all, are so prejudiced it’s not even funny.)

Miss Prejean should be commended for her honesty and integrity. (I totally agree, God bless this young woman for standing up and not conforming to what society says she should believe and be.) Not everyone agrees. The Executive Director of Miss California USA/Teen USA has stated that he is “personally saddened and hurt that Miss CA USA 2009 believes marriage rights belong only to a man and a woman.” In a word, there is no room for disagreement. Is this not a form of intolerance? (I dare to say it is.)

The issue of tolerance and intolerance on the issue of marriage is not an academic question. If society labels those who oppose the legalization of gay marriage intolerant and discriminatory, the trajectory is set to curtail religious freedom. Anti-discrimination laws can then be invoked to monitor and control churches in the areas of sex education in the schools, the hiring of employees, the use of church facilities and in many other areas. (Unfortunately, even in our own diocese, this is happening, because children and their parents are in the public school frame of mind and CCD or Religious Education programs leave a lot to be desired when it comes to teaching Catholicism. Often times I feel that I’m too conservative for a Catholic school or church or as I like to say I’m too Catholic for them, which is sad, as I do nothing other than my duty as a Catholic, go to Mass on Sunday and uphold and teach the teachings of the Catholic Church.)

In our culture, tolerance has come to mean different things for different groups. But it certainly does not mean neutrality. This is clearly the case in growing confrontation between the secularist agenda and the Catholic Church in terms of health care. (Yes, which makes my decision to attend nursing school an interesting one, however it is at a hospital affiliated with the Catholic Church. I have yet to hear about my application, in case anyone was wondering.)

The Church has always favored responsible parenthood and has taught natural family planning as the moral means to achieve this goal. (While I am not a fan of natural family planning, I understand why it is used by some, but it is to be used to plan a child not to say we don't want a child right now so we're going to use NFP to not have children.) Based on the objective nature of human sexuality, the Church teaches that artificial contraception contradicts an authentic expression of marital love between a husband and a wife and, therefore, is morally unacceptable. For this reason, Catholic institutions do not include contraception in their health insurance for their employees. (I remember wanted to call him, Bishop Serratelli with an issue I had with my coverage when I worked for the Diocese of Paterson, but I don’t remember off hand what it was. I know the Archdiocese along with Oxford offers Catholic care which falls under this, maybe things have changed since I last had health coverage.) Up until recently, the laws included exemptions for conscientious objections clauses and protected the freedom of Catholics to live according to Catholic teaching in this area.

Today, however, secular liberals are experiencing great success in removing this freedom. At least eighteen states have enacted "contraceptive mandate" laws. The laws bear names such as The Women's Health and Wellness Act or The Women's Contraceptive Equity Act. These laws mandate health insurance plans to cover the costs of contraceptives. Any failure to do is punishable as discrimination.

Without the freedom to express one’s views and not be punished for them, without the freedom to hold to one’s moral and religious beliefs and live according, the dignity of the human person is denied and the common good of society itself is diminished. Government does not have the right to treat believers as a “divisive minority whose rights must always yield to the minority secular agenda, especially when religious people are overwhelmingly in the majority” (Cardinal Pell, “Varieties of Intolerance: Religious and Secular,” Divinity School of Oxford University, March 6, 2009).

Both Homer in the Odyssey and Virgil in the Aeneid relate the story of the Trojan horse. After a long, unresolved 10-year siege of Troy, the Greeks built a huge figure of a horse. Inside the horse, they left their warriors and sailed away. The Trojans took the horse into their city as a trophy for winning the war. During the night, the Greek warriors stealthily crept out of their hiding place, opened the city gates for the rest of the Greek army that had returned under the cover of dark and destroyed the city. What, at first, was seen as the sign of victory actually became the cause of defeat.

Today, our society has happily overcome many prejudices that divide us. We have managed to live in peace with people whose views and religions differ from one another. Secular liberals, however, market a truncated tolerance that leaves no room for those who oppose their secular agenda. If society welcomes such tolerance within its city gates, will it not be the Trojan Horse that brings the demise of a free society? (Oh it probably will be, this country is so far away from where it was with morals, and the sad part is that we, America, are not as bad as other countries.)

Bishop Serratelli's weekly column from 4/23/2009

2009-04-27T22:59:00.010-04:00

As is usually the case for when I actually read the Bishop's weekly column I usually enjoy it and agree with what he has to say. The bold and italics are my additions for the most part there are a few I tried to bring over from the article. My comments are in the parentheses and are red.

Tolerance When Politics Reign Supreme

In 1878, President Hayes and his wife Lucy officially opened the White House grounds to the children for an egg roll event on Easter Monday. Except during the two World Wars, weather permitting, all the Presidents after Hayes have continued this tradition. Each Easter Monday, thousands of young people show up for this fun-filled event. Not only is it one of the oldest presidential traditions, it has become the largest annual event held at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

In any event held at the White House, politics is never far from sight. This year, the first egg roll of the new administration was not any different. The souvenir egg was deliberately designed to signal concern for the environment. This certainly is part of the President’s agenda and not without merit. We are caretakers, not simply consumers, of the goods of this earth. (Exactly, we should care for the environment, but you don’t need to go overboard, God did create the Earth.) But there was a second innovation this year that carries with it a message that the White House wishes to give to the country. (One can only imagine what is it!)

The President enthusiastically welcomed the crowd. Mrs. Obama said, “Our goal today is just to have fun. We want to focus on activity, healthy eating. We've got yoga, we've got dancing, we've got storytelling, we've got Easter egg decorating, and we've got basketball, soccer as well.” But there was more to the event that just fun. It was a political statement made in bright colors. (Of course it was!)

The Washington Times (April 14, 2009) reported that same-sex parents wore rainbow-colored leis to the event. They were clearly drawing attention to their sexual orientation. What a sad situation. An event in which people of different religions, ethnic backgrounds and diverse moral convictions come together to have fun with the youngsters became a moment for some to push their agenda of changing the culture. (I wonder what would happen if I showed up wearing a Rock for Life or other Pro-life shirt, stating that abortion is murder, or one saying Proud to be Catholic, or even better one that said I’m a heterosexual, don’t know how much they would like that.)

But this was not a spontaneous demonstration on the part of the participants. It was orchestrated by the White House itself. (How sad, that the White House orchestrated it. I guess people would bitch and moan if something promoting a respect for life as in stopping abortion was started by the White House.) In a studied effort to make a statement about the future of marriage in this country, the White House allotted tickets for the event to gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgender couples. Representatives from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and other groups that promote same sex unions as equal to marriage reported that they had been encouraged to have their members come out to the event. (How disgraceful, and I know I’m going to sound bigoted and homo-phobic, but I’m not, you can live your life as you want, just live it chastely as all people are called to live and celibate, like all single are called to. Marriage is a sacrament and we need to start teaching it that way again and looking at it that way, it’s a calling, it won’t be easy and it’s all about just living with each other.)

Events like this are staged, organized and executed on the principle of tolerance. Today’s secular liberalism has espoused tolerance as its foundational truth. But secular liberals do not apply tolerance to every situation with equal zeal.

In the same week that the White House made a point of showcasing its gay- friendly agenda, the White House also issued a request to a Catholic institution that violates the very concept of tolerance. Before the President made his first speech as President at Georgetown, the prestigious Jesuit University, the White House, according to the Los Angeles Times, asked Georgetown University to cover all religious symbols (Guess Obama doesn’t like competition, or just can’t admit that he’s human, and that it doesn’t matter what is written above his head.) at the scene of the President's economic speech.

When President Obama gave his speech on economics on April 14, he spoke on a stage in Gaston Hall. Behind the place where the President stood, there is normally seen the monogram IHS. These letters are the first three letters of the name of Jesus in Greek. For the President’s speech, the university covered the letters. (It’s just sad how “Catholic” Universities have forgotten how to defend Christ and His Bride.)

Why is it acceptable that the President of the United States can be seen one day with gays and lesbians publicly displaying their convictions, but on the very next day cannot be seen in a Catholic institution with a symbol of its faith on display? (I wish I knew Bishop Serratelli, I wish I knew. It’s a good question that the Bishop puts forth, seems ironic that Obama can’t be tolerant when it comes to the Church.)

One can only wonder about the courage of an institution that hides the symbols of its own faith. Has the symbol lost its meaning? Does the institution value faith as the life-principle of its intellectual pursuit of truth? (This reminds of the first homily I heard Bishop Serratelli give. Seton Hall have the Bishop the honor of saying our Mass of the Holy Spirit, the opening Mass of the year. During his homily, Bishop Serratelli came and said WE NEED TO BE CATHOLIC, not just in our actions, but in how we teach as well. I am paraphrasing as the homily was a good nine or eight years ago, but I do remember how forceful and how poignant it was that the Bishop a professor at SHU was basically telling off his co-workers, and I was proud to call him Bishop then and still am today.)

The White House’s request for a Catholic university to hide a symbol of Catholicism in order to accommodate the presence of the President is a gross example of the intolerance that has infected the relationship of the State to the Church. (Quite true!) At the least, the university’s compliance with the request missed an opportunity to make a statement about a right understanding of tolerance. When partisan politics reign supreme, tolerance for opposing beliefs will quickly vanish. In a just society, tolerance cannot be a one way street.

+Arthur Serratelli

Well said Bishop, well said. He’s been quite on the Notre Dame situation but I’m thinking that might come out next week as I think this is a 2 part series on tolerance. I’m hoping he says something about Notre Dame, it’s not like him to be this quiet about something in the pro-life movement or something that can be used as teaching moment, he’s done it before.

Trip to Madison

2009-04-20T12:39:00.005-04:00

Myself and two other adults took 6 of our "youth group teens" to visit our former pastor. I managed to meet the pastoral associate from St. Vincent as Fr. George had her come on our Women's Cornerstone retreat. With her help we were able to keep it a complete surprise and he had no clue to expect us. Samantha, one of the adults, and I were planning our own trip down to see him, and said to him in our recent e-mails hope to see you soon.

As Sam and I walked in first he wasn't too surprised, but one the 7 others came in the smile that came across his face was similar to one he has on in the above picture. I don't remember the last time I saw him smile like that, about a month after our Jubilee Mass for our 100th anniversary at which the above picture was taken, Fr. George was told he was being moved, so November, December, and January were not happy times in the parish. By a complete twist of God's insane humor Fr. George was actually coming to say the 12pm Mass at St. Anthony's, the Mass that Jerry, the other adult, and I are normally at. Fr. George laughed when I said, did you see that I took myself off the EM list for today.

To see his face go from, the classic emotion less face to a smile that couldn't be wiped off as well worth the trip down even if we knew he was coming up to us. He told us where he distributes Communion and that the 1st 4 rows for for the Communion kids, so we sat in the row right behind the Communion kids. Fr. George went to put his alb on and then came back to us. I think we honestly left him speechless and I'm pretty sure with tears in his eyes. He welcomed us as he does all who visit his parish, but we got the special greeting of "a delegation of youth from St. Anthony's." Despite focusing much of his attention on the teens and typical of myself I do the work and get no credit, it was well worth it. Fr. George is missed and most certainly will be for a while. We all commented on how strange it was to not have a deacon at Mass, our parish has 4, Fr. George's has none, and it was also strange to have a priest who chants. Fr. Martin and Fr. Brian both do not sing so in the idea of rather have it spoken than sung badly, they speak the normally chanted parts of the Eucharistic prayer.

Samantha and I happened to be walking around St. Anthony's after we got back, and happened to see our new pastor twice and he said hi girls, and Deacon Dick asked, what are you doing, as he had seen us in the Jubilee Garden and then again as we walked back. We said we were down in Madison this morning visiting the man saying Mass right now. Fr. Martin our pastor laughed and I was glad to see a smile on his face, it hasn't been an easy month for him. My goal now is to bring a smile to Fr. Martin's face. I want to finally have my "we need to talk" meeting with the pastor. With Fr. George leaving I didn't want to bother him with petty issues in the parish he was leaving, and Fr. Brian was just temporary administrator, so I waited to see the new pastor. Now I'm planning on asking/telling I'll take over running the Confirmation program and take young adult ministry from our youth minister, who just had her first child, and I'll take pro=life ministry over too, I just need a pay check. I'll gladly take a part time position so I can go to school courtesy of the Diocese of Paterson. We shall see what will happen and if I have the nerve to say anything.

I forgot to add that at the end of Mass someone turned to us and said "thanks for your pastor." We joked about it and said, yeah yeah it's not like we gave him up or wanted him to leave, you guys stole him from us, we did keep our comments to just our group. But it was nice to hear someone say thank you, I think I shall do the same for St. Ann's.

Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday

2009-04-18T23:51:00.000-04:00

So now that it's almost a week away from Easter, I'll sit and blog about the homilies I heard. So I finished out the Triduum with the Vigil and was quite impressed with my new pastor. While not Fr. Brian's passionate take on the Eucharist and the Priesthood from Thursday night, it was a good homily. Fr. Martin and Fr. Brian are similar yet totally different.

Fr. Martin has seemed semi subdued in his homilies since arriving at the parish, however his homily from the Vigil caused me to remark "I think we got a glimpse of the real Fr. Martin tonight." It can not be easy for a man to pack his bags and leave everything he knew to come to a new country 41 years ago as was asked of Fr. Martin when he left Ireland to come to the States to serve the diocese as a priest, to be asked to do the same thing again shows how much the man loves the priesthood and reminds us of the vow of obedience. As I say the bishop says "jump" the priest responds with "how high?"

Fr, Martin started out his homily by telling us that he was strengthened in his own faith by us, the community of St. Anthony, coming out in great numbers on Palm Sunday, and the amount of people who came for the Triduum. The Church was not packed as it has been in the past but we did have a decent crowd at each of the sections of the Triduum. (Our parish is also 3 times the size if not 4 times the size of his old parish) Fr. Martin went on to thank those that help make the parish beautiful, the staff, Frank (who is in charge of the flowers and decoration of the church), music, servers, readers, Eucharist Ministers, and hospitality. Saved him from having the mention everyone at the end of the Mass, and it was nice to hear in the homily.

Fr. Martin went on to talk about those who have lost a loved one and how Easter is what reminds us that we are buried as a tired body, no soul... that death is a door way to the next life. He went into this by telling us a story of a 4 year old boy who was visiting the cemetery with his grandmother. As he started the story I turned to my friend Jerry and said oh "like Sean" as Fr. Martin mentioned that the young boy was running ahead of his grandmother. While running ahead of his grandmother the young boy stopped by a tombstone and started asking questions, "what's that, what does that say" The boy's grandmother explained that one part was the person's name, the other the date that person was born and the other date the day that person died. A bit further up the graveyard the young boy stopped at another tombstone and asked the same questions, the grandmother responded with the same answers expect this time, there was no date of death, this person was just thinking ahead. The little boy went home and was asked by his mother how he day was and the little boy answered with, "we went to the cemetery and there are people buried there that aren't even death yet." Of course the congregation laughed and
Fr. Martin moves on to how losing a loved one is hard and never easy but that we should remember that we are just a tired body when we are buried, that our souls go to Heaven to be with Jesus, Mary and the Saints, and saints.

Fr. Martin told a second story. He mentioned that we may not know but that he's a huge football fan and he spoke of how a few years ago, when the Giants weren't doing so well, some people took him to a game. He told of how he sat at the game surrounded by Giants fans and how he heard the Giant fans behind him cheering throughout the game. It was strange as the fans would cheer as the Giants would fumble the ball, which is of course not something you normally cheer for. Turns out that the fans behind Fr. Martin had their headphones on and were listening to the Yankee game and the Yankees were playing well in the playoffs. The church erupted in laughter. Fr. Martin finished up his homily with "in the same way that these fans were pumping their fists for their teams, we are to go and pump our fists for Jesus and proclaim that He is Risen."

So when Fr. Brian walked into the gym pumping his fist, I turned to Jerry and said, oh someone took last night's homily to heart. Fr. Brian looked at us like we were crazy but when we said, homily last night fist pumping, he laughed along with us. Easter Sunday was no different for Fr. Brian, he gave another kick ass homily. Like Fr. Martin he spoke of death and resurrection. Fr. Brian spoke of how Easter is reason death isn't bad. He started by having us take a moment of silence for those whom we knew who last in the last year, he had happened to lose his godmother this past year and his mom within 5 years. (Which makes me think that his mom died shortly after he was ordained, he speaks of how her proudest moment must have been when he was ordained, so she was alive for that.) Anyway, both homilies caused me to think of my friend, Katie, and how this would be her first Easter without her son, and then it made me think of her two aunts who had also lost children in the last two years.

After that reminder that Easter is what makes death not so bad, Fr. Brian focused on the Eucharist and that we should be there 52 Sundays not just Easter. He told us that Easter was the time to either commit or recommit to attending Sunday Mass. It was a very nicely put, get your ass to Mass, comment, and that is why I love Fr. Brian, he very nicely said to come to Mass, like you are supposed to. He tells you as it is and is offended if you don't agree.

He went on in his homily to speak about how at Easter "as the risk of sounding like a woman, I buy a new pair of shoes every year at Easter." Fr. Brian's shoes were nice and shiny so I assumed they were either polished or brand new. He spoke of how we should go get new shoes so that every time we put those shoes on we say, I'm going to be a better... priest, son, daughter, mother, father, friend, person. Fr. Brian then added in well in this economy maybe you can't afford new shoes, so get a new toothbrush and pray while brushing your teeth. Saying let no gossip or evil come out of my mouth.

The passion with which Fr. Brian speaks amazes me, like Archbishop Dolan (he's in my head because of his installation.) he is a happy man, a happy priest and that shows. With a last name of Sullivan, I'm assuming there is a fair bit of "Irishness" in him so he can be feisty you can say, but he always preaches to himself first and then the people. You will always hear him say, make me a better person, a better priest, us better people before he says ." make you a better person."

Fr. Brian's priesthood and personality have a tremendous gift to me, I just wish I was able to put it into words. I'm sure that Fr. Martin will have some influence on me in the coming years. I pray that both Fr. Brian and Fr. Martin are granted many years at St. Anthony's and that they continue to be great priests.

Archbishop Dolan

2009-04-16T15:09:00.007-04:00

I'm working on my Easter Homilies post but for now I'm going to comment on Archbishop Dolan's installation.

Thanks to American Papist for the link to the picture stream from Archbishop Dolan's installation ceremonies.

These are in no particular order as there was no set order to the way the pictures came up on Yahoo.

In the first picture that comes up, Archbishop Dolan reminds of Cardinal O'Connor. Having lived 14 out of my almost 30 years in the Archdiocese of NY, Cardinal O'Connor was my bishop. I never truly realized what I had until after he died. My mom lays claim that Cardinal Cooke is from the same area of Galway that her family is that that quite possibly we are related. I was honored and grateful to see Cardinal Cooke be mentioned in Archbishop Dolan's homily. Cardinals Cooke and O'Connor were champions of the respect life movement, and it's nice to see their successor seems to have come out with guns ablazin'.

Watching the local New York media coverage of the Mass annoyed me, as I hate when the "reporters" talk about something when I just want to watch the Mass. They talked over the Psalm reminding us that the Hispanic population is growing with in the Church in NY. Channel 5's (the local fox station) annoyed me by not knowing the difference between a catherda and a cathedral. My mom pointed out that it could have been a simple mistake, and I said yes then the priest who was there could have said, it's the seat, the catherda, that allows Archbishop Dolan to speak laws, not the cathedral. I know that I know more than most Catholics so I caught that mistake, but again talking over the Psalm, not translating the readings that were not in English (maybe that was an oversight at the Mass booklet was available on line.

Anyway, having read Archbishop Dolan's homilies and seeing the press releases via the Archdiocese's web page and seeing AMDG and JMJ on the top page of the press release, makes me smile as I have hopes that Archbishop Dolan will not be quiet on matters of a "political" nature and that he will stand up for and defend Holy Mother Church, and I think he will do just that. I switched over to EWTN's live stream on the internet as I just couldn't take the talking over Mass, it was a beautiful ceremony and what I remember is how thankful, humble and sincere the Archbishop was. My mom and I watched the first 30 minutes of the replay on EWTN last night (we only get EWTN for a few hours a day) before it cut over to the Protestants and their "Praise You Jesus, send my church money" show. I had watched these 30s minutes via the local media and you missed a lot about Timothy Dolan. What you saw and heard was the new Archbishop standing watching nearly 900 priests walk past him and you heard him say time and time again "thank you brothers, thank you for being hear, I need you, pray for me." He even commented "what priest shortage" all this was missed because the local media cared about his fancy vestments, things he as to worry about, and commenting that he called the Cardinals and Bishops by their first name(really I don't hear my parish priests calling each other "father", they call each other by their first name, the same way we do with our family, yes it sounds strange to us, but really it was not worth pointing out.) I was deeply moved by how easily the Archbishop said thank you to his priests and how happy he is. He says that he wants to be a happy bishop and I think the pictures below show him to be just that a happy bishop.

The Archbishop asked in his editorial in the New York Daily News for us to pray for him. He asked parents and teachers to have children say a Haily Mary for him daily as he knows children's prayers are more powerful. I will attempt to pray daily for Archbishop Dolan and for the rest of the bishops including my own bishop, Arthur Serrateli, and the many priest who have entered and touched my life over the past 30 years.

In one of these pictures you see Archbishop Dolan reaching out to help the priest who happened to trip up the stairs, I think that speaks for the Archbishop's demeanor and character. I also notice what seems to be a very devout man who loves the ritual and traditions of Holy Mother Church.

WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD ARCHBISHOP DOLAN! May God bless you and grant you many years as the Archbishop of NY, and may that fiery Irish spirit that is within you hearken to the likes of Fulton Sheen, Terence Cooke and John O'Connor.

Archbishop Sheen, Terence Cardinal Cooke, John Cardinal O'Connor... pray for us!

Happy Birthday Holy Father

2009-04-16T14:45:00.002-04:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY 82nd PB16 :)

It does not seem like a year since Pope Benedict was here and I was at Mass at "Old Yankee Stadium" May God continue to bless Pope Benedict with good health and energy for many years to come. :)

Pictures of St. Anthony's during Holy Week

2009-04-13T01:37:00.009-04:00

I decided to take pictures of the church during Holy week, mainly Palm Sunday and the Triduum. Our decorations for lent are what you see for Palm Sunday, just take away any thing red or that is a plant. Maybe next year as long as I have permission from my pastor and vicar, maybe I'll take more pictures during the actual services. Most of these shots were taking in my rather quick, let me get the picture and run type attitude. Our church is always decorated wonderfully no matter the season, and Frank puts an awful lot of work and thought into it. It's a large post, feel free to click on the pictures to see the larger image. It amused me to no end that I managed to find 5 pictures from each service to put up here, as that is all I was allowed to upload at once.

Some shots of St. Anthony's on Palm Sunday.

Shots from St. Anthony's on Holy Thursday. Since it was during Adoration that I was taking the pictures I took them without the flash so as to not disturb anyone. The second picture is of the altar stripped, it struck how beautiful our altar is without anything on it. I doubt the picture will do it justice. The forth picture is our Garden of Gethsemane and is always beautifully set up. The last picture was from where I sat during Adoration, pretty much the last pew of the church, and I don't know but my eyes kept going over to the cross vs. the tabernacle that was in front of me.

Shots of St. Anthony's on Good Friday. I took the pictures without a flash as so to not disturb anyone. The last picture was the set up for our Tenebrae service.

Some shots of St. Anthony's at Easter. The last picture is the altar in the gym. We have an overflow Mass at 12:15 this way the church crowd isn't out the door at teh 12pm Mass.

Good Friday 2009

2009-04-13T00:44:00.003-04:00

Fr. Martin gave our temporary vicar Fr. Marek the Good Friday service. Fr. Marek gave a very nice homily, but I don't remember it. All that means is that it didn't touch me the way other homilies have and part of that is the Polish accent Fr. Marek has. In the 2 months that Fr. Marek has been at the parish we have been truly blessed to have him and Good Friday reminded me of this.

Fr. Marek is ordained at most 5 years, he was born and raised in Poland so the traditional Catholic shows. He says Mass with the utmost reverence and care. I happened to find out that he could chant when he chanted some of the prayers on Palm Sunday. In my mind since he can chant it made him the logical choice for Good Friday. Hearing Fr. Marek chant the general intercessions brought me back to the days when my family would go to the Liturgy of the Lord's Passion at our parish in the Bronx. Fr. Dervin would always do the chanting at our parish in the Bronx so it brought back some good memories.

It was nice to have the Good Friday service done simply with no extras attached to it, it helped one to focus on what really happened on Good Friday. Fr. Marek's chanting is what touched me that day, because it has been nearly 16 years since I've heard it done correctly if at all. By extras I mean our former pastor, Fr. George, and our cantor Cindy singing the intersessions or whatever they used to do. It was nice to have the simple traditional old school style service.

Our parish has been blessed to have Fr. Marek for these past few weeks, and I understand it is up to Fr. Martin whether or not Fr. Marek stays. If he stays he stays, if he goes he goes, but I'm glad I was able to meet him and get to know him. It's nice to see a young priest who is so traditional.

Holy Thursday 2009

2009-04-13T00:42:00.002-04:00

My former pastor, Fr. George, and my current pastor, Fr. Martin, seem to be similarly minded when it comes to the Triduum. They each hand different parts of it to the vicars at the parish, both gave Fr. Brian the Mass of the Lord's Supper, Fr. George last year, and Fr. Martin this year. Much like last year Fr. Brian did not disappoint.

I have always liked Fr. Brian, and he just keeps getting better and better, I said many times I love him, and I truly do. Fr. Brian aka FB is one of the "later vocations" as in he was ordained at age 40 vs. age 25. He speaks simply and sincerely and doesn't hold back, he tells you to get your ass to Mass, not in those words but that's what he means,and he will say point blank this is what it's about, Mass is important.

It's been a few days since the homily so here's hoping the homily pointers I left myself will jog my memory. Fr. Brian started his homily by reminding us that Holy Week calls us to be holy, and that it allows us to ask what makes us holy, how can I be holy, why am I Catholic, what makes me Catholic, and how can I be Catholic. Each question can be easily answered by the Eucharist, and that's what Fr. Brian told us. He mentioned how do I stay Catholic, considering that we became Catholic at our Baptism, and I all I could think of was my Top Ten Reasons to STAY Roman Catholic t-shirt. I kept thinking is he going to mention my shirt, but he didn't he just answered all the questions with The Eucharist is what makes us Catholic and we need to live the Eucharist.

How does one live the Eucharist he asked or how does one be Catholic; by doing more than just showing up. Fr. Brian came right out and said how about you send a letter over to Fr. Jenkins at Notre Dame and tell him it's wrong to have a person speak at a Catholic college who think abortion is right. It goes against what we stand for. Fr. Brian put it much better, but the smile that came on my face as soon as he said send a letter to Fr. Jenkins had to be seen by him. If it would have been appropriate to stand up and cheer for a homily I think I would have. But Fr. Brian didn't just stop there he went on to tell us to defend marriage, true marriage between a man and a woman, and to defend traditional family life.

As I said last year the passion with which he speaks is amazing, and it's heartfelt. Fr. Brian went on the give examples of the priesthood and how our former pastor Fr. George gave of himself in many ways, most notably by giving a kidney to his sister Jeanine (who was at Mass that night with us vs. being at her brother's new parish, and by saying yes to the bishop. "It broke his heart to have to leave this parish, but he said yes like he has done throughout his priesthood." Without missing a beat Fr. Brian pointed out that Fr. Martin did the same thing by saying yes to the bishop and accepting the position at St. Anthony's. After 27 years Fr. Martin left his parish family and came to us, Fr. Brian of course added his humor into it by saying, he does have to live me with now and that's not easy.

Typical of Fr. Brian he does what the rubrics calls for, he preached on the Eucharist and the priesthood. He pointed out that each of the deacons have taken their own ministries up, be it baptismal prep, feeding the hungry, visiting the sick or welcoming people into Church and how they too are living their vocations.

Mass continued as normal for Holy Thursday. Fr. Brian likes things simple as he has pointed out to us, so that is how the washing of the feet happened. 12 people came forward after the 12 chairs were placed for them, Fr. Brian took of his chasuble and stole got down on his knees and washed feet. I don't remember if it was during his homily or if I read it somewhere, but I think it was during Fr. Brian's homily, where we were reminded that the King of Kings, the 2nd Person of the Holy Trinity got down on His knees and washed dirty smelly feet and we are called to Christ to others, we may not have to wash feet, but we need to be Christ to others. It was during Fr. Brian's homily that I heard it because I can hear him saying it.

It was a beautiful start to the Triduum, and I am truly blessed and quite happy to have such wonderful priests at my parish and in my life.

Happy Easter

2009-04-12T00:39:00.000-04:00

An Interesting Conversation

2009-03-25T23:57:00.003-04:00

As I type the title of this blog I have the voice of the "polish priest" from my parish in my head. Fr. Marek came as a temporary vicar while we awaited the arrival of our new pastor. Msgr. Martin McDonnell came to be our pastor this past Thursday, the feast of St. Joseph. Fr. Martin, is off the boat Irish as in was born and raised in Ireland, in the county next to the one my mom is from, which means dad's county isn't too far away either. Oh the "million dollar" question is how long will Fr. Marek be with us. So far he's still here, and it's honestly strange to have 3 priests in the parish again. There were originally 3 priests at the parish when my parents and I moved in and shortly after that just two which is what we have had for a while now. Fr. Martin said the 12:05pm Mass on Monday and Tuesday, and I was beginning to wondering of Fr. Marek was still around, well he is, he said the 12:05pm Mass on Wednesday. He was greatly amused that Mary, myself, was reading on the feast of Mary. He gave a very short homily, with his accent and sitting in the first pew of the church, it was hard to understand it fully. For some reason our microphone system causes hearing issues, well more being able to understand the speaker fully issues, in the first 5 pews.

Anyway, I was walking out after Mass and Fr. Marek stopped to say hi and then asked about the retreat (our Women's Cornerstone retreat was over the weekend) how it went, how team is picked. Then he asked what I studied, and I said I was a religious studies major at Seton Hall and that I was thinking of going back either for theology, nursing, or taking a campus ministry position. Somehow the topic of me taking over youth ministry at the parish came up, I pointed out that our youth minister, Jen, is quite capable and does a good job. The topic of young adult ministry came up as well and I said Fr. George, our former pastor knew that was my soap box issues, I said I'd talk to the new pastor once he got settled instead of bombarding him with the issue right now. We continued on with how I was a part of the youth ministry program under Fr. Geno who is now in charge of Evangelization for the Diocese. The main point of that conversation was that Fr. Geno might know his stuff, which he does, but how with the letters STD (from Rome) after his name his statements hold more clout. I mentioned that I run into that all the time by not having my Masters degree. I was told to go study and get the letters after my name and that I should get young adult ministry started at my parish.

The rest of the conversation involved Fr. Marek asking me "who's the young strapping man that sits next to you at Mass?" I said oh that's Jerry, we do youth ministry together. Fr. Marek responded with, "oh just youth ministry, nothing more." I said no, Jerry's a junior at Seton Hall and has a girlfriend. Fr. Marek very quickly offered a "we'll have to get rid of her." I said no, I like her, she can stay. I nearly added that there is a young man closer to my age that I like, but I didn't. I went out to my car and texted Jerry because that story was just too funny.

However Fr. Marek's comments got me thinking, and my drive out to Harrisburg almost 2 weeks ago, a nearly 6 hour drive total will get you thinking, especially when you usually take that drive with your friend and discuss your life with her. It got me thinking of do I ask Fr. Martin to create a position for Confirmation and Young Adult Ministry or do I just let Confirmation fall under religious education. Our youth minister is currently the confirmation director as well, but she's a week away from having her first child, so I'm pretty sure she's only coming back for youth ministry next year. If I could somehow manage a way to get the Confirmation director position, added in with young adult ministry and well pro-life ministry, it could warrant a "full-time" salary with benefits, and maybe the diocese could pay for my Masters degree. My only issue is how do I ask my parish to pay me.

I always come up with great scenarios and then just let it bypass me or settle or something else. The more I try to get away from ministry the more I get pulled into it. After the retreat, and then having 8th graders ask me questions about the Passion of the Christ (Mel Gibson's version) and being able to answer then without missing a beat and just having the other "teachers" stare at me reminded that I do know what I'm doing. I just hate having to use a damn textbook to teach it. I don't want to settle for a DRE position, I'd kill the majority of the parents out there for not giving a damn about being Catholic. I don't blame the kids, it's hard to when Mom and Dad don't do crap to show them how to be Catholic. I have 8th graders who hardly know the traditional prayers of the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be.

I hate when I get into this mood and don't know what to do with it. I'm reminded of how I wish to take the vocations stories of the priests that affected my life and put it into a book similar to Called by Name: The Inspiring Stories of 12 Men Who Became Catholic Priests by Dr. Christine Anne Mugridge, Jerry Usher.

I've been told I have a gift of writing. Fr. Brian heard my talk on the retreat and the first thing he said to me was "Catechism and personal stories, wow!" I've been giving retreat talks since I was in college, well high school, so it's almost second nature for me. I know it's a gift, I just wish I could use it more than I am.

Oh well I'm off to bed as I am going to visit my friend and her family in Albany today, about time my goddaughter got a visit from me.

Notre Dame part 2

2009-03-25T20:27:00.003-04:00

God Bless these organizations and the students involved in them. Some of the student organizations at Notre Dame have issued their own statement in regards to Obama being picked as commencement speaker and honorary degree recipient.

I only skimmed the letter, but what stuck out the most for me was this section.

"Additionally, Fr. Jenkins has placed some of his students in a moral dilemma as to whether they should attend their own graduation. Many pro-life seniors, along with their families, are conflicted about whether to participate in the commencement ceremony. The lack of concern for these devoted sons and daughters of Notre Dame, who love this University and the Catholic principles on which it was built, is shameful."

As someone who fought with Seton Hall Administration for certain things, I know the place these students are in. For me to have to decided to not go to my own graduation would suck. I had my graduations from Seton Hall. I watched my friends receive their diplomas without me, while I walked the next year. I often took no notice as to whom the speaker was for the year. I was simply there for my handshake as we didn't even get our "piece of paper" at our ceremony. However I did not have to make the decision to not attend my graduation. I know if I was a student at Notre Dame that I would be one of those students not attending their own graduation. That's totally unfair for the families who sent their child to Notre Dame for a good education. Really who's the graduation for if not for the students.

Oh well, at least this is finally in the main stream media and who knows what will come from it. Maybe Obama will say "you know it's probably better if I don't come" but I don't see that happening.

Oh well I am off to finish crocheting a blanket for Baby Matthew.

Notre Dame

2009-03-24T10:52:00.003-04:00

The past week I've been busy with Cornerstone and other things, so I'm just catching up on reading some blogs. Apparently Notre Dame had decided to toss all of it's Catholic identity out the door and have Obama as their commencement speaker this year.
Here is the link to sign the petition to stop this insanity. Go sign it and pass it along, the numbers are growing quite quickly.

In case the link doesn't work, cut and paste this:
http://www.notredamescandal.com/SignthePetitiontoFrJenkins/tabid/454/Default.aspx

Discernment

2009-03-10T10:19:00.002-04:00

Discernment is normally a word associated with vocations and trying to figure out what one's vocation. Interestingly enough I did just e-mail the Vocations Offices of the Archdiocese of New York, the Archdiocese of Newark and the Diocese of Paterson for info for work. I'm planning on making my last large group session for Confirmation on Vocations. The kids want me to talk about Heaven, God, and abortion. All three topics and work themselves into vocations and I'll find a way to do it. The title I'm planning on is CCD is over, what now! Expanding on the idea that Confirmation is not CCD graduation that it is a sacrament and an important one. So many of the students are so misinformed when it comes to abortion, and the faith that there is no way I can completely undo the damage of the past 8 years of their lives, I can attempt to correct it and I have, but it's not enough in my opinion.

I am in the process of leaving paid Church ministry as almost every time I have worked for a church, I've been disappointed with whom I am working with. So often I find myself as the lone conservative or traditionalist on the staff and I'm tired of it. I'm looking at nursing schools which amuses me as look at the Bishops threatening to close Catholic hospitals should FOCA pass and because I started at Seton Hall as a nursing major. I know I've probably blogged about this before, but it's what is on my mind at the moment.

Oh well, the child I babysit needs help getting dressed. I'll be back later after I've done my CCD plans for tonight.

Cornerstone "09

2009-03-04T10:57:00.002-05:00

So later on this month is the Women's Cornerstone Retreat at my parish and I've been asked to give one of the talks. I have no problem with the retreat or being asked to give a talk. I think a retreat now matter how "good" or "bad" can affect your life. What I don't get is the phone call asking for me to cut my talk down. I get that my talk is a little long, but I was never given a time limit or hell even a topic until a few weeks before I was to give my practice talk. I'm used to having my talk from the beginning of being on team, not just being told, "tell your story." I don't get the petty comments of how this is our retreat and blah blah blah.

I love the ladies of the parish, but seriously if you want it to be a good retreat allow me to help fix it. I've run many retreats and yes I am biased, but I've seen retreats work and I've seen retreats fail. I'm fully aware that my theology knowledge way beyond those that are on the retreat with me, but that doesn't mean we can't up the God knowledge.

Oh well, maybe I just need some food and caffeine. Back to "work" I go.

Lent- how am I doing- week one

2009-03-04T10:45:00.003-05:00

So far so good, I guess. I missed saying the Rosary on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, so I just said a full one on Tuesday. I didn't get to Mass on Saturday, but that's to be expected as it hard to find a parish that Mass at anytime other than 7am on a Saturday. I have yet to use my phone for the internet and games. I actually deleted the games from my phone, hopefully this will save me some money on the cell phone bill.

I easily could have fallen into the Sunday doesn't count and used my phone for the internet while I was at the Archdiocese of Newark's Youth Fest, but I opted to not use it, and I'm glad I did.

As for less procrastination, I'm working on it, but it's not as good as I thought it would be.

Ovbiously I went to Mass on Sunday and since I had a snow day on Monday I went to St. Anthony's at 12:05pm on Monday and Tuesday. Which leaves me wonder where I want to go this evening. Either Queen of Peace or Immaculate Conception as they have a 5:30pm Mass, it will all depend on what time I leave my babysitting job. If it's at 5 or later I'll just skip Mass and go to the Holy Hour at St. Anthony's tonight.

Not to bad. I type this as I babysit so it may not be too coherent as I'm tying to make sure the 3 year old doesn't steal my cell phone which is sitting on my lap, and I have to pay attention to all the commericals he said "I want that" to.

More to come later

Pro-life Activism

2009-02-28T13:21:00.000-05:00

Some of the things I plan on telling the teens at YouthFest about.

1. Pray, it's the easiest thing to do.
A. Rosary (with pro-life meditations)
B. Spiritual Adoption program (usually with a baby shower at the end)
C. Simply pray for an end to abortion and a respect for all life
i. ask your priest/pastor to add an intention in "we pray for a respect of
life from natural conception to natural death.

2. Rock for Life and Stand True activities
A. T-shirt day/week
B. Pro-life Memorial Day
C. March for Life Weekend
D. Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity

3. Local events
A. Salesian Pro-Life Rally at SHU
B. RCAN Respect Life office
C. Diocese of Paterson Respect Life Office
D. protests (praying outside a clinic)
E. Expectant Mother/Frontline in NYC

4. National events
A. Fight FOCA
B. Writing to Congress
C. Red Envelope Day/project

That's what I have for now I'm sure I'll think of other things as the day goes along. Off I go to find red tape and envelopes

Lenten Checklist 1st Thursday and Friday

2009-02-28T02:50:00.002-05:00

Daily Mass
Thursday: I didn't go as by the time I left my babysitting job it was after 5 so
there was no way to make it to a 5:30pm Mass that is 30 mins away. I did
however look for places with evening Masses.
Friday: I walked over to St. Anthony's, I was testing how quickly I could walk,
I made it there in a little over 10 mins, but less than 15 mins. It's nice to
have a parish that close.

Less time on facebook, the internet, and games on my phone
Thursday and Friday: so far I haven't touched the phone for the internet or
games, it was actually easier on Friday than it was Thursday or Wednesday, so
I'd say it's working. Oh the temptation to use it is there, but I'm fighting
it.

Daily Rosary for the unborn
Thursday: said while watching TV, I took a break from the TV and said my Rosary
Friday: was said on my way home from my friend Bridget's house.

Holy Hour at my parish for Respect Life
Holy Hour is only once a week, but I did get my reminder about it, as I walked
into Church today and saw the sign for it. I'm going to try to stop by it for a
little while this coming Wednesday.

less procrastination
I have gotten some paper for the presentation on Sunday, I still have to find
the red envelopes, though I did see them I just wasn't sure of the price. I
will have to look at another Staples for them. I have stuff printed out for
the presentation, I just have to put it all together.

So far so good, but it's only been 3 days and I highly doubt I'll be awake in 4.5 hours for daily Mass at St. Anthony's but like college I looked at Saturday as the day when I wouldn't be at Mass as no daily Mass was offered at Seton Hall with all the weddings that took place there and the fact that most priests were off-campus saying weddings or some other Mass.

Lenten Checklist- Ash Wednesday updated

2009-02-25T12:03:00.005-05:00

I figure if I have to keep myself accountable for Lent I might as well blog about it so that I really am accountable to well at least myself.

So here's today's check list, well star list as I don't have a check mark key.

*less time on the internet via the phone
This one shows how much I am addicted to facebook and checking my e-mail. So far
so good. I didn't check it before I went to bed (it was after midnight
therefore Ash Wednesday) or when I woke up which is what I normally do. Oh
trust me I wanted to, but I didn't and that's a good start.

*Daily Mass
Mass went well, the 7:30pm Mass was packed and the homily was decent. Fr. Marek
(more on where he came from in another blog) spoke about taking inventory of
our lives and seeing what is taking me away from God. I'm not 100% sure on
what else he said, I liked the taking inventory of your life aspect and that's
what I went with.

Holy Hour
I didn't get to do this one this, week the parish had none as a result of
having Mass, but I can always find another time and day to spend an hour with
Jesus as He sits in the Tabernacle.

*less procrastination
I didn't get the supplies, but I did manage to actually print out some things
and I hope to work on it some tomorrow. I can take the children I babysit out
to the store if I need anything. I actually went food shopping with my mom,
and that was not easy on a day of fast, but surprisingly I didn't put too much
junk, actually the only junk I put in there was iced oatmeal cookies, and I
could have easily put "worse" cookies in the cart.

*Daily Rosary
I'm about to say it before I go to bed.

Not too shabby for the first day. I must say it always amuses me how many people you see in Church on a day like today, that's not a Holy Day. Oh well, I'm the one who will be held to a higher account than they, I know my rules and I know what is expected of me and I try to pass that knowledge along.

Lent '09

2009-02-24T14:27:00.002-05:00

What I am thinking of doing for Lent this year

daily Mass
less time on facebook, the internet, and games on my phone
daily Rosary for the unborn
Holy Hour at my parish for Respect Life (including the 10-25 I can stay on the nights I have retreat meetings)
less procrastination

I say less time because then the OCD side of me won't be mad when I use my phone for the internet, and I hope to not be mad at myself when I may not necessarily get to daily Mass or if I miss saying the Rosary.

That's what I'm thinking of. Usually I am disappointed with myself at the end of Lent because I feel like I haven't done as much as I could have. I also tend to set my sights high, so here I have more prayer, and somethings that will help me and others. Having 5 things that I want to do for Lent is typical of myself and we shall see how I do. As Fr. Bill said to me once, it doesn't matter if you do it for Holy Week or just a few days of Lent as long as you do something. He also is the one who has influenced me to add something to Lent, such as more prayer vs. giving something up.

Of course my usual eating better will also come to light during lent, maybe I can do a Rosary Run/walk so that I can kill to birds with one stone.

Where oh where have I been.

2009-02-24T08:44:00.004-05:00

I haven't been missing, just busy or something like that. So Lent is practically upon us and NYC has a new archbishop. From the comment I saw about the Mets, I think I'm going to enjoy the new archbishop. Anyone who responds with I love the Mets is a winner in my book. Archbishop Dolan seems well able to handle the NY media and from what I have read, what NYC needs. Granted Cardinal Egan wasn't there long, and he came out swinging when he was installed, but I was used to Cardinal O'Connor, and had moved out of the Archdiocese of NY and into the Diocese of Paterson.

I don't know what to do for Lent, I do plan on daily Mass on the days that I can, thankfully my parish offers a 12:05pm Mass and I've been asked to read at a few of the Thursday Masses, so I'll be there for those days at least.

I've been busy writing my retreat talk and being lazy and watching tv, and looking at nursing schools as I am thinking of returning to school. For now I'll be working an a 45-60min pro-life activism presentation for the Archdiocese of Newark's youth ministry office this coming Sunday.

March for Life 2009

2009-01-23T12:38:00.003-05:00

Pics are forthcoming, but over all it was great day. The warmest I have seen in my 11 years of going (granted I missed one maybe 2 in there) and from what I heard the largest crowd they have had. They, the march organizers, has those of us with cell phones send a text saying "march" to a number so I'm interested to see what the actual number was. It was quite funny as we were staring to march they asked those under 30 to make some noise, and then asked us to take out our cell phones and then asked us to send a text. I did as did my friends around me, so we're all interested to see what the number is. As usually the only media coverage was EWTN and someone mentioned a Fox News camera.

Oh well I should get back to actually watching the kids I babysit for, as one of them is "yelling" at me for taking the computer out of it's "spot" They just got a macbook so I have it on my lap so I can type and watch them, and the oldest (who'll be 5 in March) looked at me and said "Mary the brand new computer doesn't come out here." I said I'm an adult, I don't think you're mother is going to be worried about me and the computer.

Pictures to come later.

Apparently Pres. Obama waited a extra day to lift the ban on our money being sent overseas to fun abortions.

President Obama's first action

2009-01-21T17:48:00.000-05:00

The first thing he does is this

Americans have no money, but let's send money overseas to help kill babies. We can't cry being poor and then send money out to murder people. ARGH!

It's creepy how fast things change

2009-01-20T23:09:00.002-05:00

The agenda on women according to Obama's White House page...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/women/

Things that drive me crazy

2009-01-20T22:46:00.003-05:00

I don't understand how and why the news media is still bashing Former President Bush. He's out of office now, your boy is in. At least Fox was man enough to start talking about what Pres. Obama will and should be doing. I wish just one sliver of this infatuation over Obama will be given to the March for Life on Thursday, but alas it won't be. It will be left to the "right-wing conspiracy" bloggers and other such "right wing nut jobs"

I know my camera will be with me and I will be blogging about it. At least the temperature is supposed to warmer on Thursday.

As a Fox commercial says "the party's over" I hope and pray that Obama will have a change of heart.

Inauguration 2009

2009-01-20T11:52:00.005-05:00

"The American Heart will stir this day with pride and home as the powers of the presidency of the United States, magnificent in their promise, terrible in their burdens, are vested in a man of groundbreaking heritage and grand aspirations. At noon today, Barack Hussein Obama will become he 444th leader of the Republic, sworn to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, as were Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln before him and others great and obscure. May he prove to be great in these troubled times."

That is what is on the cover of the New York Daily News, my response to the first comment of the American Heart stirring is this, yes my heart is stirred with pity and sorrow, for the lack of respect of life in this country.

I did watch some of the coverage, but I turned it off just before Obama's speech. I know myself and listening to it would just aggravate me. I decided to start praying the Rosary as Joe Biden was sworn in, seemed appropriate to me. I said a full Rosary, mainly because I had some catching up to do on my Rosaries for the FOCA novena. I half listened to the oaths and couldn't help but think of all the defenseless babies that being ignored.

Joe Biden's oath reads "I, Joseph Robinette Biden, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God." I remember thinking as he said "enemies foreign and domestic" that he himself is one of those enemies. I do not understand how someone can stand up there and say he will defend us, when he doesn't defend the most defenseless in the country.

Barack Obama's oath reads "I, Barack Hussein, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God." I was laughing at the fact that is seems Obama had his oath memorized, and really it's not that hard, but he did accidentally cut off Chief Justice Roberts at the beginning. Again, I don't understand how a man can get up and say I'll protect and defend the Constitution while ignoring and out and out promising more deaths via abortion.

I do find it greatly amusing that Chief Justice Roberts was the one swearing Obama in, as Obama voted against him. Alas Obama is the President, while I do respect the Office of President, I am fully aware that I do not have to respect the man in that office. Obama scares me, even Bill Clinton didn't scare me as much as Obama does. The idea that Obama promised to sign FOCA is just frightening. There is no choice in that Act, no what so ever, there is just a lack of laws to keep you from killing your baby.

Mary, patroness of the US, pray for us. Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the unborn and the Americas, pray for us.

Cardinal O'Connor, Archbishop Sheen, Mother Theresa, St. Therese, Dorothy Day, and the many other pro-life activists up in Heaven pray for us. I miss Cardinal O'Connor and his ability to say what needed to be said.

Some old posts from 2 years ago.

2009-01-20T02:13:00.005-05:00

2 years ago while I worked at a local Catholic high school I went to Rock For Life's training and activism weekend. Being in DC for a few days surrounding the March for Life offered some interesting things for me for to do and see. I originally posted these on my myspace blog and decided to post part of them here. In particular I want to post my reactions to the Silent No More talks I heard, to this day these talks have stayed with me and I try to use them when speaking about abortion and how it hurts woman. This weekend rekindled the fire inside me for defending the babies. I know I've been slacking, but I have said more Hail Marys and Rosaries in this past year than I ever have. It still disturbs and disheartens me that some Catholic schools don't get it, they don't get that you need to teach what the Church teaches and that you need teachers who actually believe and uphold and live out what the Church teaches. I won't get into that topic as that just opens a wound I'm not ready to re-open yet.

Anyway, my thoughts from two years ago with my comments from today as well. Let me preface the following with this: a major part of the weekend was the activism aspect of the weekend, most of it was done before the March but a fair bit of it was done after the March too. We were asked to be a sort of "security force" at the Silent No More Vigil and then we moved over to our protest of a PP fundraiser. Which was after the NOW ladies left the Silent No More Vigil, yet the Vigil still continued and it was still going when we returned.

Eventually the time came for our group to venture over to a bar a few streets away for the protest of the Planned Parenthood fundraiser that was there. We walked the few blocks over while carrying our signs and laughing and getting to know each other. Along the way randomly resting up against a tree was a bamboo pole, Phill, just picked it up and kept walking. When we got to the bar we realized that the fundraiser was on the second floor so we quickly amid many a laugh stuck one of our Justice for All, Face it Abortion Kills signs on the stick and Phill held it up for the PP (lol, their abbreviation just makes me laugh) people to see. There were about 15 of us and just about as many cops, the cops just laughed because we did everything we were supposed to, we kept the door way clear and left a path for people to pass by on the sidewalk.

I was holding a total of 4 signs, I had my Justice for all one, down by my feet, along with the KofC Defend Life one resting against me, as Phil pawned that sign off on me. I ended up with the other 2 as the Irish ladies went in to drink aka infiltrate so I had their signs as well. I was decked out in pro-life-ness. During one of the talks at the workshops ALL and RFL had set up, someone mentioned how different the 2 sides were, how the pro-lifers usually had smiles in their faces and were laughing, and how the pro-abortion/pro-choice side usually was gruff and seemed angry.

I noticed how true that was at the Silent No More Vigil. The NOW women just seemed angry. I guess I would be too if someone was exposing the lies my organization was spouting. The majority of the ladies who gave their testimony spoke of how they were a part of NOW and fell for it's lies about how "safe" abortion is and how it wouldn't affect them. This women, years later, some 30 years after their abortion still remember the pain it caused, and the torment it caused them. I remember 2 testimonies in particular one was of a couple, a husband and wife, and one was an older African American lady. The husband and wife struck me as, as they said, they were the "first to give their testimony together". The wife spoke of how she was 18 when she got pregnant and her mom basically told her, that can't happen, you need an abortion. The husband spoke of how he just sat there and didn't say anything since he was 17 when it happened. Despite what happened they remained a couple and got married, they have helped each other through many of the things that have affected them such as depression as a result of the abortion.

The other lady, the African American threw me for a loop when she said "my uncle Martin Luther King Jr." At that point I think I actually did the whole WHAT! head shake and turn. She spoke of how "Daddy King" Martin Luther King Sr. when she mentioned aborting a baby said "no one in this family kills their child" or something like that. The child she had inside her at the time is now 31 years, and seeing her tell her story and relive it in my mind still brings tears to my eyes. I honestly can not put into words what these men and women spoke about. Fr. Pavone asked us to be moved by their testimonies and I'd say it is safe to say that anyone in attendance was moved by their testimonies.

I remember listening to one lady give her testimony and at the end when everyone starts clapping, these 2 kids next to me start jumping up and down screaming "great job mom, we love you mom" I can't even type the story with out crying. I happened to read the Rock for Life blog that comes to me via e-mail and I had almost forgotten about this testimony. There was a young lady who spoke of her experience, of how she could feel her baby move up until that last moment when it just stopped. She spoke of how the abortion was almost an assembly line how they moved from one room to the next, to one bed to the next. She was stuck with a needle in her stomach and whatever was in the needle poisoned the fluid the baby was in. She spoke how she felt her child move like never before and then it just stopped. Once this needle was stuck in and taken out she was left on a bed to rest and to let whatever was to happen happen. She then told of how she woke up the next morning and was sent to a room with what looked like a toilet and told to sit over it and push. "I pushed my dead baby into a toilet." was what she told us amid tears. She then told us how the nurse or whatever title this lady had said "oh, look at how skinny you are now."

Those words are what Planned Parenthood and NOW don't want you to hear, they want you to believe the lies that abortion is safe and that it doesn't harm the woman. That is why Silent No More was started to combat those lies, to expose the truth. That is why I will stand outside an abortion mill and pray for everyone inside it. That is why I will not sit idly by while my generation is killed. 47,000,000 have been taken from our generation... what are you going to do?

Something needs to be done and it needs to start in the trenches aka the churches. The Catholic Church needs to step it up, well not the Church, the Church, Herself is unwavering on this topic, Her princes, the Cardinals need to step it up, the Bishops need to step it up, they need to say something, they need to actually acknowledge that people like John Kerry and Nancy aka "Madam Speaker" have excommunicated themselves by saying YES to any form of abortion. It's not that hard, and we all know our Church is a forgiving Church and will take you back in a heartbeat, so even if you make a mistake you are always welcome. Just stop calling yourself Catholic and pro-abortion, there is no such thing. A Catholic is pro-life otherwise they are not Catholic.

Since that posting you can make the total babies killed via abortion to 50 million and you can see that I still don't like "Madam Speaker Pelosi" and other "catholic" politicians. I have uploaded pictures as well, I was hoping to find the one of myself with my four signs but I can't find it, so I will post one of the two story protest, the NOW bitches, I can't call them anything else other than bitches. I will never forget one of those "ladies" pushing herself up against me (all the time I was thinking get your nasty pro-abortion self away from me) telling me to move politely by saying "excuse me" as she pushed herself up against me. You'll see that the pro-life movement pushed its way in as well. We were nice and quiet and polite, they were not, they were there shouting their stupid cheers and being all nasty. The other picture is one of myself and part of my pro-life gear with the Capitol Building behind me. The other is of me during the actual March.

Inauguration 2009

2009-01-20T01:20:00.003-05:00

What I wouldn't give to be down in DC with a huge sign that says "you can't be CATHOLIC and PRO-ABORTION" Since I can't afford to be down there, I'll do the next best thing and post it on my blog.

I had hoped that the Bishops would have used this as a teaching opportunity, and I know that some of them did. My parish preached on FOCA this past weekend and Deacon George's homily was awesome. He started his homily by pointing out that he and his would be celebrating their anniversary on the 20th and how he unlike most men does not forget his anniversary. Deacon George said that this coming Tuesday there will be an historic Inauguration as the first African American will be sworn in as President. Deacon George pointed out that he is praying for President-elect Obama and that he hopes and prays that Obama does not start his presidency off on the wrong foot by passing FOCA. I had a feeling the good deacon was going down this road when he mentioned the 20th, and I've know Deacon George for about 15 year as his son and I were in our parish youth group together, I knew I wouldn't mind where he was going with his homily. I actually thanked him after Mass.

Deacon George took a page out of Fr. George book and did the whole "well George, why are you going down this slippery slope" question followed by his answer. His answer had tears of joy in my eyes. I was so happy to hear someone from the pulpit say defeat FOCA, and his reason just added to it. Deacon George pointed out that this so called "freedom of choice" act has no choice in it. He pointed out that Catholic hospitals, doctors and nurses would be forced to go against their morals to perform abortions. He pointed out that our tax dollars would be used to pay for abortions. He pointed that we as Catholics (he's learned from Fr. Brian to just say Catholics vs. Catholic Christians) have to listen to Jesus' call in the Gospel to stand up and defend what is right and moral, and that means life from conception to death. Deacon George is also the director of the local funeral home, he is very good at both jobs, deacon and funeral director. I don't remember the fully, but I can probably get a copy from him. He did mention the March and the parish prayed for those of us who will be attending the March and we prayed for President-Elect Obama and the other officials in this country to have a respect of life from natural conception to natural death. There is more to the pro-life movement than defending the unborn, and I am fully aware of it. It just pains me that we have elected 2 men who think "terminating" a baby is a woman's choice.

I have watched my friend Bridget's current pregnancy (mainly because we have a standing dinner/tv date) and it is amazing to watch her little girl kick the remote that sits atop her mom's belly. Interestingly enough when we talk about Obama, the little girl inside her mother's uterus kicks and kicks alot, we say oh there she goes, she doesn't like him, well he does think it's ok to kill someone in her position so I'd be kicking to say "hey I'm here don't forget about me." That little girl has nothing to worry about her parents have been married 4.5 years and the oldest in the family is 3.5 years old and baby #4 is growing nicely inside her mom.

Mr. Biden, I ask as a Catholic citizen in the US, that you re-think your stance on abortion and that one day you will return into full Communion with the Church. For now I will stand in prayer with the protesters who will be at the Inauguration and pray for the safety of this country most especially the unborn.

This is interesting

2009-01-20T00:58:00.002-05:00

I found this via a priest's facebook status and I think it's a great way to get the message out.

Thoughts on insanity surrounding the Inauguration of President-Elect Obama

2009-01-19T12:01:00.002-05:00

I don't remember 4 days worth of events surrounding President Bush's inaugurations, or even President Clinton's inaugurations. Then again I normally don't pay attention to the Inauguration, but this time I have no choice it's all that's on the news. Today we celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. however I can't help but think that while he would be pleased to see an African American elected as President, he would not be happy with Obama's pro-abortion stance. Obama as a person does not scare me, the idea that he would promise a "freedom of choice" which has no choice in it. FOCA is a load of crap full of evil. By chance and more likely by "order" the deacons at my parish preached on FOCA this weekend. Now I've heard rumors that FOCA doesn't have enough votes to be passed, but I feel like Obama will find a way to have it pass.

Oh well time for lunch, then I shall return

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus 1936-2009

2009-01-08T10:53:00.002-05:00

It has been brought to my attention that Fr. Neuhaus passed away this morning shortly before 10AM this morning. May he rest in peace.

Eternal Rest grant unto him O Lord,
Let perpetual light shine upon him,
May his soul and souls the faithfully departed rest in the Mercy of Christ.
Amen.

http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=5312

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=14710

I always enjoyed him comments on EWTN, especially during the election of Benedict and during Benedict's trip to the US. His comments will be missed, but he leaves many works behind to help educate us.

Christmas and the Feast of the Holy Family

2009-01-02T13:30:00.003-05:00

A few weeks back my parish was greeted with the news that our pastor is being transferred to another parish as of Feb. 2nd. Considering that when the 6 year mark came up and Fr. George heard nothing we all assumed, including Fr. George, that we would have him for another 6 years. Alas the good Bishop said move and Fr. George as he has throughout his priesthood said, yes. We're losing a great pastor and priest, but as he says one never truly leaves as we'll be in his prayers and he hopes we continue to pray for him.

Anyway, this news added a certain twist to Christmas this year. For me Christmas just didn't seem like Christmas, I wasn't into it as I normally would. Granted getting sick with a stomach bug on the 23rd didn't help matters. As a result my mom didn't have her actual presents just some silly gifts as I call them, usable gifts, but not her actual gifts. I don't know it just didn't seem like Christmas.

Typical of myself I sign up to serve at Extraordinary Minister at the 4:15pm Mass, our overflow Mass for the 4pm in the actual Church and as EM at the 10:30 for the Choir. Fr. Brian likes to call the 4:15 the "no room at the inn Mass." I had a feeling that since this would be the last time Fr. George would be able to say the "gym Mass" that he would have be saying it. I got to hear his homily twice as my family goes to our "Midnight Mass" at 10:30pm, and as pastor, Fr. George had main celebrant rights. One of these days I'll get back to an actual Midnight Mass at midnight.

Fr. George's homily had a visual aid this year, a signing statue of the Grinch from Dr. Suess' How the Grinch stole Christmas. The homily started out with Fr. George telling us about his 7th grade CCD class and him trying to think of a way to do something special for Christmas, so they watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas, his favorite Movie and out came the Grinch who is a special one, he happens to dance to "You're a mean one Mr. Grinch." Now that Fr. George had everyone's attention he got into the meat and potatoes of his homily. He spoke of the different "grinches" we have in life, with the 3 main ones being greed, violence, and secularism. Each grinch had a person in the Nativity scene to look up to and try to change, as we're called to bring the Grinch to Christ. The first was to bring the Grinch of greed to Mary, as our Blessed Mother gave all that she could, especially with her yes to be God's mother. The next was the Grinch of Violence was to look to St. Joseph has he wanted no violence against Mary when she was found with child. The Grinch of Secularism was to be shown the shepherds and 3 Kings as these men gave what they could to God and brought Him to others.

Fr. George spoke about having sorrows in our lives and that they might not make Christmas happy, but that Christ is the light in the darkness. Overall it was a good homily and he spoke slightly longer at the "Midnight" Mass than at the 4:15 but over all the basic idea was that we are to bring the Grinch and others to Christ. That the Christ-child came for us and that we are to bring Him to others with our actions and lives.

So that was Christmas, the Feast of the Holy Family was an exciting day at the parish. As I was getting ready to go to Mass my mom calmly mentions that "Mass is in the gym." WHAT WHY? was my reaction, seeing as I only do "gym Masses" for the High Holy days of Christmas and Easter, I don't like not being in the actual Church. I got the short version of the story from my mom...

"Fr. Brian heard a pop while saying the Gospel" and then someone said fire, so Masses were moved to the gym. You'll probably get the story over there." I said ok, I'll probably will. So the story as told by Fr. George during his homily that Sunday was this...

As is Fr. George's custom he was in the church to greet the people going to the 7am Mass, he and Fr. Brian noticed that the bells weren't working so Fr. George said, I know how to fix this, I'll just reboot the system. Fr. George rebooted the system and said, oh good no more problems today. 10 minutes later as he was sitting in his office in the rectory he hears and sees Fr. Brian running through the rectory saying, I think he might have been shouting, "George there's a fire in the church." Now, the image of Fr. Brian in full vestments sprinting into the rectory is amusing and a few of smiled, but Fr. George added to it by saying that one of the parishioners swears they saw Fr. Brian hop the altar. So now I have an image of Fr. Brian in essence high jumping the altar in full vestments, I must say I did a good job of controlling my laughter, as it was a serious situation that we were talking about. What is believed to have happened is that while Fr. Brian was holding the Book of the Gospels he hear a pop from behind him and a few seconds later someone said "fire." We believe the pop was either the light on top of the manger exploding or something going wrong with the electrical wires on the Christmas trees.

Thankfully no one was hurt, Fr. Brian and a few of the parishioners (who happen to be firefighters) got the fire under control and some of the people at Mass thought to take the hand crafted Italian (read expensive) statues that make up the Nativity scene with them as they left. There was a fair bit of smoke damage done to the Church, she needs a paint job, but amazingly so that's all that got damaged, well and a Christmas tree, and the lamb statues each lost an ear but they were fixed and are now back in the Church.

Back about 12 years ago the church building was restored, well renovated and I remember Fr. Geno telling us that if "God forbid the church was to catch on fire it would be gone in a few minutes." I believe that was because of the "paint" that was used, as there was paper or something in it, anyway it's truly amazing that the church building only sustained smoke damage, it just looks dirty.

As was pointed out during Fr. George's homily the parish family came together quickly to help out and to adjust to what was happening that weekend. If the fire happened at any other time who knows what would have happened. The other Masses are usually packed, the 7am is our "no smells no bells" Mass, meaning it's the Mass without music on the weekend, so you never know what would have happened. As Fr. George said thank God it happened while someone was in the Church and thank God no one got hurt and that we have very little damage done to the Church.

Fr. George in his homily on the Feast of the Holy Family spoke of how we are family in many way, we have the human family that comes together when it needs to, with such examples of Sept. 11th and Hurricane Katrina and other such natural disasters, a parish family that came together in many ways this past year with our Jubilee celebration and with the fire, and of course we have our immediate families. In the shortest homily I have ever heard or seen Fr. George give, he got the message of yes we have our own families to care for, but there is much more to a family than that, we are a family as Children of God and we are called to care for each other.

Fr. George ended his homily by returning to his seat and telling us to mark our calendars as this was his shortest homily given.

This link shows the Beacon's story on us, the color pictures are better than the black and white ones. I didn't take any pictures of the Christmas altar this year, I will take some on Sunday when I am there and post them, but I think I might have one from last year if not I know I have the manger scene.

Christmas

2008-12-28T14:39:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas, Happy St. Stephen's Day or Boxing Day, Happy Feast of the Holy Family!

I'll be blogging about the Christmas homily (I heard the same one twice) later on!

Real Men wear pink

2008-12-14T21:55:00.002-05:00

That's what Fr. Brian told us at Mass today, and I couldn't help but laugh as I hear a comment along those lines almost every time a priest wears his "pink" or rose vestments. We had a member of the Salesian sisters talk to us today about the retirement fund collection. For a woman asking for money, she was quite entertaining and I was disappointed in myself that I had left my envelops (for the parish and the retirement fund) at home, but I'll drop them in the basket next week. Sister spoke after Fr. Brian gave us a short homily, not his shortest as that was his Exaltation of the Cross homily, none the less his homily was good as usual. I don't remember all of it as I suffered trough Bible study right after. Normally one doesn't expect to hear suffer and Bible Study in the same sentence, but alas for me the Bible study I was supposed to help run, has now become some time for me to the classic "offer it up" prayer of a Catholic.

Anyway back to Fr. Brian's homily, he spoke if his annual trip to the local mall, Garden State Plaza, and how how felt "loved" and "needed" as he past by the kiosks in the mall hallways. I almost asked him if he was in uniform aka wearing his collar, I was close, but not close enough to actually ask him, nor do I have the guts to ask a question in the middle of one's homily. I take it that he wasn't in his collar, because he pointed out that as a woman at one of the kiosks said to him something along these lines, "you're handsome, would you let me exfoliate your head." Fr. Brian's response was "for goodness sakes leave me alone I'm a priest." The woman's comment is made funnier as Fr. Brian is bald. Fr. Brian continued to point out some of the things he saw or heard at the mall, and the young man behind me and I were laughing because he works at said mall and I worked at the mall, so we knew all too well as did most of the people in the Church what Fr. Brian was talking about.

Fr. Brian pointed out that these people will only "love" us until the 25th but that God will and does love us long beyond that. That was the basic point of his homily, that God loves no matter what. I don't want to confuse what Fr. Brian said with what was said in Bible study, so I'm going to stop there as mentioning Bible study will set me off on a rant.

When I get into something I really get into it updated

2008-12-07T17:06:00.002-05:00

So I literally spent the last week reading the Twilight Series books. Normally I wouldn't even think to pick up these books, but my friend, Bridget's niece read them and told her to read them and as a result I was told to read them so I did.

I have yet to see the movie, so I can only comment on the books right now, and from what I have seen with the trailers for the movie, the book is better, as is usually the case. Now I've heard both good things and bad things about the books so I wasn't sure what to expect. I knew something must be good if Bridget was after me to read them.

Yes it's about vampires and other mythical creatures but if you get beyond that; you can see series of books with a great message. The woman who wrote the books is a Mormon so at first you wonder how she could write a book involving "evil" creatures such as vampires. Stephenie Meyer has written a book for teens that they love with a "save sex" til marriage message.

Maybe it's because I'm a girl and yes the book is geared toward teenage girls, but I found myself having played the part of the main character, Bella, in my own life, and if I can I assume many other girls have too. Seeing a guy, falling in love, (though mine wasn't true love as I'm not married yet), wanting to be with said guy.

The movie as I expected was good but no where near as good as the book.

Also, when I comment else where that I am a 29 year old who and read the books vs. a teen who has read them, I don't need to get comments that say "well most of them haven't read good literature, so very average literature appeals to them... no offense" As a person who went through Catholic grammar and Public high school and I say easily that it wasn't until I met my friend Bridget that I started reading CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, and many others, so I trust her opinion on books. She got the better education, she was home schooled I suffered through a Holocaust book a year in high school along with other books, never once did we read Narnia, or Lord of the Rings, which is we wanted a taste of good literature is what we should have been reading.

The person who posted that comment may not have meant any offense, but really if you have to start or defend yourself with "no offense", you knew someone would be offensive. Yes I like the Twilight books. I like them because they have good morals in them, and it's a great way to get them to teens. A lot of my CCD girls have said I want to marry Edwards, I say that's great but he's a fictional character, but you should look for someone who treats woman the way Edward treats Bella.

Edward as a vampire is fascinated with Bella as she's the only human who's mind he can't read. he doesn't stalk her as some have said (they have not read the books if this is what they come up with), he tries to protect her and get to know her,and well Bella needs protection. He thinks and looks at himself as a monster and wants to know what possibly could attract her to him (other than her blood) and well most of all her to him. Edward tries many times to get Bella to realize that he's dangerous, but as Bella says it doesn't matter what you are, I love you.

It's a fictional story, why are people reading so much in between the lines. Edward won't "change" Bella (into a vampire, actually he's opposed to it through out most of the books) until after she has married him, and once they are married they behave like a married couple, sex is saved until after marriage like it's supposed to be. Yes they kiss in the books, don't most people kiss while dating, as for Edward watching Bella sleep, well he cant' sleep, she has too, find me someone who hasn't fallen asleep in front of someone or a parent who hasn't watched their child sleep.

I'll blog about why I think the movie was bad later.

SHU's Chapel

2008-11-26T00:45:00.004-05:00

I went looking for my pictures of the Chapel, it took me a while to find them as I didn't remember when I took them just that I took them. Alas I found them, they are from October 2007 despite my thinking it was before that.

You can see in this picture that different designs were being "tried out" on the wall, it took me a second to realize that something was different.

I thought I did a better job of taking pictures, guess I was in too much of a hurry to actually get the pictures taken than caring about how focused they were. I just say I'm excited to go and see the re-stored Chapel and to take pictures of it.

Here's an article on the re-stored Chapel

As soon as I find pictures of the newly restored Chapel I will try to do a side by side comparison. The pictures I was sent by one of the campus ministers were sent to her by one of the priests on campus and I don't want to use his personal photos on my blog. Oh well that's just an excuse to go visit one of my favorite chapels. You'll see a picture in the link if you click on it.

On a happier note

2008-11-20T00:27:00.001-05:00

Seton Hall my alma mater just finished refurbishing it's chapel so I'll be posting some pics soon. I've always loved the Main Chapel as we called it and it looks amazing I can't wait to see it in person.

Sometimes you don't what to think.

2008-11-19T23:28:00.005-05:00

This morning I woke up at 8am a fairly normal hour, I checked facebook from my phone because I am that addicted to it. I saw my friend James' status was "going back to NJ for a very sad day." I assumed it had something to do with his wife's side of the family so I let it go. About an hour later and after sleeping some more, I check facebook via my phone again. It amuses me that I do this because the PC is down the hallway in the living room. This time I saw Brendan's status say "pray" and I saw Britney's status say "praying for everyone." I knew with Brendan having pray up that it was James' side of the family and when Britney (a friend of the family) had something written I thought "uh-oh."

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would get the text message that I did get. So after seeing these statuses I send a text message to my friend Bridget (she is James and Brendan's Aunt) and I say "What happened or what is happening, I only ask because of James', Brendan's and Britney's statuses on facebook." I got back a very straight forward message that said "I didn't get to call you yet, but it's Nicky. He's dead. We're going to the hospital." I read the text message and I knew what it said and I responed back with a "holy crap, what the hell happened? tell katie and everyone that i'll be praying for everyone."

I honestly expected to be something about Bridget's father, and I don't know why her dad came to mind first but he did. I never thought I would read, hear, see the words Nicky's dead. Nicky is Bridget's grand-nephew or great-nephew what ever you want to call him and Katie is her nice and Nicky's mom.

I re-read the text message about 4 or 5 times before it really sank in and then again it really didn't until a little while later when James (Katie's brother, Nicky's uncle and then Bridget's nephew) left a message much like the one I left for our friend Kelly, you know the classic, "when you get this call me back, I've got news that I'm not leaving on a message."

I had of all things a funeral Mass to go to so I went off and showered and continuously checked facebook via my cell phone at times wishing that somehow Bridget's text was going to magically change. I went to the funeral Mass and tried my best to think of and pray for Joann, whom I know from the Cornerstone Retreat team I am on, who is the wife of the man who the funeral Mass was for, but I couldn't my mind was completely on Nicky and Katie. Fr. George was preaching to the family of the man who died, he was preaching to all of us, but it was geared towards the family. Fr. George spoke of love. All I could think of was yep that's why it hurts because I love Katie and Nicky. I know where Nicky is, he's in Heaven with his cousins Fiona and Bernadette and his great-aunt Teresa and his great-uncles Matthew and Owen, who also were taken home to God earlier than we would have liked. I'm sure there's other family members up there too, I just know their names.

Nicholas Tolentine Alexander Knock (yes that is his full name, he was born around or on the feast of our Lady of Knock so that got tossed in, and Alexander came from Fiona (who died about a month and a half before Nicky was born) whose middle name is Alexandra), may you rest in peace, your short life brought great joy to those of us who knew you, even if I was the crazy one with the camera that you saw once in a while.

Katie my prayers are with you as you will need them more than anyone. I want to do nothing more than just hug you right now. My prayers are also with the family, I've know you guys for 10 years now and from the first time I met you I was treated as family. Hell, most of you consider me family.

Life is so confusing at times. God has His plan, we may not understand it, but we have to go with it.

I was asked to pass this around

2008-11-15T16:23:00.002-05:00

so I am. Chris Slattery of EMC in NYC asked me to pass this article around and if possible leave a comment on it. I will leave my comments later as I'm off to dinner at a friend's house, however I am taking the time to post the link. As I don't know how many people actually read the blog, I figure it's better to post it anyway even if only one person reads it. ;)

A priest with a backbone.

2008-11-13T17:48:00.002-05:00

As Fr. Z and Fr. Longenecker had this linked I think it's good to post here too. This priest isn't afraid to say what needs to be said from the pulpit

hey why not

2008-11-11T23:52:00.002-05:00

Go here and vote for Thomas Peters, he writes and runs the awesome blog known as American Papist. Gotta help out the fellow Catholic grad school student, as I hope to be one of those soon. ;)

The election

2008-11-10T22:14:00.004-05:00

From Cardinal Sean O'Malley's blog, "Our prayer is that the new administration and the new Congress will work for a just and lasting peace and to protect the dignity of human life in all its stages, from the moment of conception until the moment of natural death."

I agree Cardinal Sean!

I'm not surprised that Obama won, disappointed yes, but not surprised as so many "Catholics" voted for him and his so called Catholic running mate. The Bishops have a great teaching opportunity on their hands and I hope they jump on it, looks like they will be discussing this at their meeting. For me personally it's gotten me to at least think of doing more for the pro-life movement. I've been slacking with that and now I have a good excuse.

What I don't get is why so many people think he's a change. Not being George Bush is not enough change, and honestly I'm tired of people blaming one man for the countries issues. Last time I check Congress aka our Senators and Representatives were the ones to make the laws, so therefore there is no change in DC. It irks me that so many people are comparing him to Kennedy and that young people are back in the White House. Excuse me, the Bushes are not that old, just because they are conservative doesn't make them old. I'm tired of the media attacking Palin and watching the GOP do nothing but watch her fall under the bus that they seem to be driving now.

The election is over, America is about to get what it wanted too bad that means an awful lot of dead babies if Obama gets his way. 50 million voices have been lost, wonder what they would have said during this election. Oh well, many prayers will be said and that's honestly all we can do right now. I'm also curious as to how many people voted for Obama simply because he's "black." Personally I don't care what color your skin is, if you can't figure out that killing the unborn is wrong you're not getting my vote, you could be green and orange and I still wouldn't vote for you. So much was tossed around about Obama's race, and how we're not a racist country if we elect him, I really want to know how many people voted for him because of his skin color, notice I'm saying voted against him, as I do think we are beyond that thanks to many people. I highly doubt Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would appreciate Obama's stance on abortion, but he would be impressed to see that one's color isn't that be of a deal anymore, or at least it doesn't seem to be.

I think this years March for Life will be one of the biggest ever, but we shall see.

strangely amused

2008-10-20T23:56:00.002-04:00

Thanks to Fr. Z's blog on All Souls Day I was able to showcase my stellar skills at reading blogs tonight at my parish's liturgy committee meeting. In discussing All Souls Day, the liturgical colors for the altar were being discussed, and someone realized All Souls Day fell on a Sunday this year and I said to our pastor (whom I sit next too, no one else seems to like to do that) I think All Souls Day trumps Sunday this year, I read it somewhere. He looked at me and said "I don't know about that" Of course that began the search for what does happen, and lo and behold Fr. Z was right. ;) Our sourcebook said it, our lector book said it, and the most important one the Ordo said it. I think I impressed my pastor in my knowledge of random Church stuff. Thanks Fr. Z for giving me an amusing story of knowing more about liturgy than either of the priests or two of the deacons at my parish.

Well done good and faithful servant

2008-10-20T00:18:00.001-04:00

I have yet to read the actual articles that are mentioned, they are printed out and waiting for me, but this needs to be shared.

Archbishop Chaput is awesome, he has been quite outspoken in the lines of abortion and the election and certain "Catholic" politicians. The Gospel from Sunday was the "give unto Caesar what is Caesar's and give unto God what is God's" A perfect gospel to show that politics and religion do sometimes mix as they should. I couldn't help but think of the Archbishop's book Render Unto Caesar today during Mass. I'm actually going to buy a copy of it tomorrow on my way to work, there happens to be a Barnes and Noble on my way to work.

Alas, now that I have finally gotten my fingers to warm up, they were cold with the fall weather here in New Jersey, I've taken to searching Barnes and Noble for books that I want and that could work for work too. :) Oh well, off to figure out what to talk about on Sunday for Confirmation.

An interesting election quiz

2008-10-17T00:48:00.001-04:00

Like this is surprising...

You preferred McCain's statements 75% of the time
You preferred Obama's statements 25% of the time

Voting purely on the issues you should vote McCain

Who would you vote for if you voted on the issues?

Find out now!

The second time I tried it I got this...

You preferred McCain's statements 89% of the time
You preferred Obama's statements 11% of the time

Voting purely on the issues you should vote McCain

Who would you vote for if you voted on the issues?

Find out now!

Third time...

You preferred McCain's statements 67% of the time
You preferred Obama's statements 33% of the time

Voting purely on the issues you should vote McCain

Who would you vote for if you voted on the issues?

Find out now!

It really doesn't matter, I knew I wouldn't agree with Obama on most things, though it is interesting that you can take this "quiz" over and over to see who you would pick. So over all I'm 77% for McCain and 23% for Obama. Really that's not surprising at all, considering that on at least 2 issues I am directly opposed to Obama.

I've been waiting for this

2008-10-09T15:10:00.000-04:00

Finally, Pappa Arty aka Bishop Serratelli has said something involving politicans and abortion. I first met Fr. Serratelli on the bus ride down to the March for Life, he was rector of the minor seminary at the time, and Seton Hall United for Life, the organization I was a part of, was in charge of the bus. I know he's a very busy man, between changing the English translation, and other trips he took over the summer, so I gave him til now to say something and he did, because he's always been a strong voice for the unborn. While this "letter" aka column in the weekly diocesian paper, The Beacon, is not in direct responce to Pelosi or Biden, we all know which politican the Bishop is talking about. As I am at work, (It's all good, I work for the Church, they can't get mad at me for reading a Bishop's letter), I will just paste the article. Later on I will add my comments to/about it.

What follows is Bishop Serratelli's article, feel free to read it here or as I'm giving you the direct link to it on the Paterson Diocese webpage,

A Politician's Promise: No Right to Life! No Freedom!
After committing a murder in Rome, the famous 17th century Italian painter Caravaggio went to Malta to avoid the death penalty. While there, the Great Master of the Order of the Knights of Malta commissioned him to do a painting for the chapel of the Co-Cathedral of St. John in Valletta. Caravaggio chose as his theme the martyrdom of John the Baptist. He produced The Beheading of St. John, his largest work, the only one he ever signed. No doubt the scene touched him personally.

Herod was married to Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife. Because John the Baptist preached against this sin, he incurred the hatred of Herod’s wife. The day her daughter Salome delighted Herod with her seductive dance, Herodias had her make Herod promise to kill John the Baptist. Within the severe architecture of a 16th century prison, Caravaggio vividly depicts the grisly moment when Herod kept his promise.

Caravaggio’s work, considered his greatest masterpiece, immortalizes the misguided fidelity of a ruler to his gruesome promise. With the stroke of the soldier’s sword, John dies and so does freedom. Freedom is based on the truth of the human person as created by God and protected by his law.
When a ruler can decide against God’s law, true freedom is sentenced to death.

Recently, a politician made a promise. Politicians usually do. If this politician fulfills his promise, not only will many of our freedoms as Americans be taken from us, but the innocent and vulnerable will spill their blood.

On April 18, 2007, in Gonzales v. Carhart, The Supreme Court upheldthe Partial-Birth Abortion Ban. The very next day prominent Democratic members of Congress reintroduced the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). The bill is misleadingly packaged as a freedom bill. It is not! It is a clear act of unreasoned bias to end abruptly and brutally the debate on the pressing and fundamental moral issue of the right to life.

For thirty-five years, Americans have been wrestling with The Supreme Court’s decision legalizing abortion in Roe v. Wade. Most Americans now favor some kind of a ban on abortion. Most who allow abortion would do so only in very rare cases. In fact, in January, 2008, the Guttmacher Institute published its 14th census of abortion providers in the country. Its statistics showed that the abortion rate continues to decline. Abortions have reached their lowest level since 1974. There is truly a deep sensitivity to life in the soul of America.

The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) would mortally wound this sensitivity. In effect, it would dismantle the freedom of choice to do all that is necessary to respect and protect human life at its most vulnerable stage. FOCA goes far beyond guaranteeing the right to an abortion throughout the nine months of pregnancy. It arrogantly prohibits any law or policy interfering with that right. While advocates trumpet this law as the triumph of the freedom of choice, they hide the dark reality that the law would actually inhibit choice.

Laws protecting the rights of nurses, doctors and hospitals with moral objections to abortion would no longer stand. Health and safety regulations for abortion clinics would also vanish. Gone the freedom of health care professionals to be faithful to the Hippocratic Oath “to prescribe regimens for the good of …patients…and never do harm to anyone, to please no one [by prescribing] a deadly drug nor [by giving] advice which may cause his death.” Gone the freedom of conscience so essential for a civil society!

If a minority of avid abortionists succeed to impose this law because of the ignorance or apathy of the majority, the law would force taxpayers to fund abortions. Gone the freedom of taxation with representation!

In its 1992 Casey decision, The Supreme Court ruled as constitutional state laws requiring that women and young girls who seek an abortion receive information on the development of the child in the womb as well as alternatives to abortion. The ruling also determined that a period of waiting, usually 24 or 48 hours before making a decision about an abortion is not an undue burden. The Freedom of Choice Act would nullify these laws immediately. Gone the freedom of women and young girls to have all the information they need to make their own choices!

In about half of the States, there are parental notification or consent laws in effect for minors seeking an abortion. The Supreme Court has ruled that these laws are permitted under Roe v. Wade. With the stroke of a pen, these laws would be abolished. Gone the freedom of parents to care for and protect their children and grandchildren!

Advocates of FOCA redefine a woman’s “health” so as to expressly permit post-viability abortions. Thus, a child who survives an abortion can be left to die for the health of the mother. No politically correct word can mask this reality for what it is. This is infanticide. Gone the freedom for a baby, once born, to live!

Science does not dispute that the child in the womb already has all the characteristics that he or she will develop after birth. Notwithstanding, abortionists obstinately refuse the right of the child within the womb to live as a fundamental human right. They are not happy that Americans have not swallowed their distorted propaganda that denies the dignity of the human person from the first moment of conception.

Pro-abortion advocates close their eyes to the fact that abortion even hurts women as it undermines the very fabric of our society. Their zeal for the Freedom of Choice Act sounds the alarm for decent Americans to wake up! The more the right to life is denied, the more we lose our freedoms. The “pro-choice” movement is not pro-choice. It stands against the freedom to choose what is right according to the truth of the human person.

In 2002, as an Illinois legislator, the present democratic candidate voted against the Induced Infant Liability Act. This law was meant to protect a baby that survived a late-term abortion. When the same legislation came up in the Judiciary Committee on which he served, he held to his opposition. First, he voted “present.” Next, he voted “no.”

Along with 108 members of Congress, the present democratic candidate for President continues his strong support for the Freedom of Choice Act. In aspeech before the Planned Parenthood Action Fund last year, he made the promise that the first thing he would do as President would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act. What a choice for a new President!

At the time when Herod murdered John the Baptist because of his promise, Rome practiced the principle "one man, one vote." Whoever the emperor in Rome placed in authority over a subject people, ruled. Today we live in a democracy. We choose our leaders who make our laws. Every vote counts. Today, either we choose to respect and protect life, especially the life of the child in the womb of the mother or we sanction the loss of our most basic freedoms. At this point, we are still free to choose!

Oh somewhat exciting. ;)

2008-10-09T13:56:00.002-04:00

It's that time of year again when the US Bishops will be meeting!

http://usccb.org/comm/archives/2008/08-143.shtml

Maybe this time they will actually approve the translation.

Life in general

2008-10-08T00:12:00.003-04:00

I feel like I have neglected my poor little blog, but the last 3 weeks have been a whirlwind. Between work with all the Confirmation interviews, goodness I have a lot of educating to do, then introducing myself to the parish, attending a workshop on youth ministry (which isn't even part of my job yet :-P), and then finally the first Confirmation session. Again I state I have a lot of educating to do, but as it says "preach the Gospel daily and if necessary use words."

Added to all this are Cornerstone meetings, (which will warrant a blog later)and finally Sunday's big event, our Jubilee Mass. My home parish not to be confused with my work parish, just celebrated it's 100th Anniversary. YAY! The outdoor Mass with Bishop Serratelli went wonderfully despite the rain that fell that morning. It stop with enough time to make sure the seats were dry for Mass. It was Respect Life Sunday, and if I was God, I'd be crying over all my murdered children too.

Really it was raining at 6am and it rained until about 9am-ish. It was over cast from 10am-2:30pm, which is when the local life chain was to begin. I didn't go this year, the day was just too busy, but I did pray for the babies.

I'm still alive, just busy as I'm babysitting on top of all this, gotta pay the bills somehow.

Josh Groban at the Emmys

2008-09-22T00:27:00.000-04:00

OH my goodness, this was hysterical. I cried I laughed so hard, I'm not sure if South Park or Fresh Prince is funnier, the whole darn thing is funny, so it's tough. The faces Josh makes are classic too, seriously I've watched this 3 times and I laugh each time I see it.

and just in case the embedding didn't work, here's the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7xD59eAnUc

Baby Hats

2008-09-15T23:41:00.000-04:00

As I sat crocheting a hat for a preemie baby while waiting for the child I babysit to finish up with speech therapy a worker came over and asked, "what are you making?" I replied a baby hat, my friend's niece was born with anencephaly so she had made her niece hats, so we're making some for St. Joe's as they asked her too." She then asked me what stitch I was using and I gladly said "double crochet" while noticing she had precious feet on her tag. I don't know why it amused me that she would have those on at Hackensack University Medical Center, for some reason I tend to assume that those that work for "public" places don't wear their opinions on their sleeves per say. I added that if they needed hats that we would gladly donate some to them and she said, "we don't get many tiny babies here, but NICU probably needs some.

While making the hat, I looked at how tiny it was/is and wondered what child could possible be that small and then I thought of those born even earlier than I was, as I was on course to be a normal sized baby, I just wanted out 10 week early. ;) Thankfully God has blessed me with wonderful health and I've had no health issues.

I was looking on line at different groups and saw pictures of a baby tiny enough to fit the hat I was making, and it just made me more determined to make hats. As the hats are small, they are completed quickly, and well the more babies we can keep warm the better. Makes you appreciate life on a whole new level when you see how determined some of these "little ones" are, though they don't all make it to have a full life, they have all blessed someone with their presence.

Exaltation of the Cross

2008-09-14T19:36:00.000-04:00

Today we got a homily that "11 words long." Fr. Brian came forward to give him homily and simply asked "how much does Jesus love you"... Fr. Brian walks over to the pulpit and picks up a crucifix (Fr. Brian gives him homilies from the middle of the altar) and says "Jesus loves you this much." Fr. Brian placed the crucifix on a podium-like column and says "please kneel" the entire congregation kneels while on the organ is played Were You There. After about 2.5 verses Fr. Brian stands up and continues on with Mass.

Fr. Brian placed the focus on the Cross, what more could you ask for on the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.

September 11th updated

2008-09-11T00:00:00.002-04:00

Seeing as this day holds memories of happiness and sadness and I hope to never forget what happened, it's time for my traditional Sept. 11th blog.

This image while not the best, as I was watching the coverage of Pope Benedict at Ground Zero via the jumbo-trons in Yankee Stadium reminds us how sacred the ground at Ground Zero is. Today holds many memories, happy ones as it's my brother and sister-in-law's ninth anniversary. Smart ass that he is, my brother chose 9-1-1 so everyone would remember it, and it happened to be a Saturday, so they went with it. Little did we know what would happen. There are sad memories from the actual day in 2001 and this year the date stings a bit more.

I remembered that Bernadette would have been 6 months old on Sunday, but it bypassed me that today would be her 6 month anniversary. While Bernadette is not my niece and I know that I will never know the pain that her mother, father, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents feel, but it still stings. I know Bernadette's family quite well and I did drop most things to go watch my friends' (Bernadette's aunt and uncle) kids so they could be with Bernadette's mom and dad, so I was there in spirit. It just doesn't seem like March was only 6 months ago. Bernadette graced us from March 7th- March 11th, and we are all better for it. Bernadette, her parents and her sister are a great story/image for the pro-life movement. Bernadette was given the gift of life by her parents because they believe that all life is sacred, even those that are supposed to only last a few hours. Bernadette had a condition called anencephaly, so her parents knew from fairly on in the pregnancy what the outcome would be. They never backed down in defending their daughter's right to life, and for that among other things, they fall into the category of "heroes" in my mind and are a great example of the Gospel of Life that JP2 called us to. Bernadette, enjoy your place in Heaven and keep praying for us.

Each year I try to write something about today and it is usually the "where was I on Sept. 11th" blog. This year will be similar, but different as each year we are removed brings something with it.

What I wrote last year via my livejournal...
"I did a google search for the "dennis mchugh run" and found this " Today, LoHud.com carries a special Community View, by Chloe McHugh, the daughter of FDNY member Dennis McHugh, who was killed at the World Trade Center.

Here's a section of Chloe's Community View: "My dad, Dennis McHugh of Ladder 13 was one of the 3,016 people that died on 9/11. My dad was one of those "wake-up and be happy" kind of guys, he never let anything bring him down. He loved to run and go to the library with me but he also liked to work. In the six years that he has been dead there have been a lot of changes in not only my life, but in everyone's lives. If you take a good look around you can see all the changes that have happened. Do you see what the firefighters, policemen,and policewomen have done to change this country? My dad was one of the many people who ran in at the last moment to get as many people as possible out of the falling buildings.""

Rest in peace Dennis, you have touched and saved many lives.

Every year my family goes in to "the City" for the St. Patrick's Day Parade, and I think they started the 343 flags the St. Patrick's right after the attacks, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. I remember being at the parade and watching the flags appear up on 5th Ave. when these flags pass by is the only time the crowd is ever quiet. It is an amazing site that pictures do not give or do justice. 343 brave men and women ran into those buildings are they were falling. The man mentioned above was one of those 343 taken from the FDNY, and while I may never have known him personally, our families knew each other. Dennis' father and my father either worked on the NYC buses together or are from the same county/section of Ireland or it could be both. Dennis' wake sits in my memory as something unsual, yet profound at the same time. The outpouring of love shown at that wake was unreal. I remember the line to get in wrapped around the parking lot a few times and we were early. In front of us on/in the line was a volunteer firefighter from Rockland County. I remember this because of his actions inside the funeral home and our conversation outside. We walked into the funeral home and what struck me besides the fact that there was no body, but a huge picture of Dennis in his dress FDNY uniform, were the flowers that said "Daddy you will always be our hero" and the firefighter in front of me, giving a full salute to Dennis' picture, it was the classic full attention, back straight, heels together, hat on head salute. To watch this man who might have been from the same area of Rockland County as Dennis stop and salute his fallen brother as he called him moved me to tears.

Dennis was not the only one we knew who died in the attacks. John Gallagher, who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, lived down the street from us when we lived in the Bronx and I remember distinctly one visit I made with my brother who was in school with John to his family's house. I remember John's memorial Mass was just a big reunion of families that hadn't seen each other in years. We laughed, I heard a lot of "no, that's not 'little Mary'" as I was 12 years younger than the boys and we had been out of the Bronx for 8 years at that point. John's Mass wasn't somber, well at times it was, but it truly a Mass celebrating the life that John lived on this Earth. The picture of John holding his newborn son is what touched most people, but as the priest who said the Mass said, "John is up in Heaven laughing at the fact that he brought you all back here for a party." It truly was as we went to Mass in the church, and continued our way downstairs to the school gym. I can't tell you how many times that happened when I was a child, but it was a lot and the school gym was also where the boys would play basketball and other adventures would take place.

Both men, John and Dennis, have managed to touch many lives during their lives on Earth and are continuing to do so as they live in their Eternal resting place, as do the others who were taken with them.

I'm taking a short break to watch TV and then you'll get my account of where I was that day.

Soundtrack to my life

2008-09-10T23:49:00.002-04:00

I was searching for the blog that had my September 11th memories on it and found the set your iPod/mp3 player on shuffle and see what happens, well this is what happened...

Opening credits:
Cats in the Cradle- Cat Stevens

Waking up:
Desire-U2

Average day:
Slip Jigs - McKee & Bradley

First date:
Falling off a Log- Backyardigans

Falling in love:
Celtic Fire (Live Version)- Flatley's Feet of Flames

Fight scene:
The Big Reel of Ballynacally/The High Hill/Flash Away The Pressing Gang- Solas

Breaking up:
Easy Reels- Bradley Bros. (not too much of a genre shuffle here)

Getting back together:
Everywhere But Here- Nick Lachey

Secret love:
Drunken Gauger- Mark Arrington

Life's okay:
Yes-Coldplay

Mental breakdown:
Born to be my Baby-Bon Jovi

Driving:
We Walk by Faith-Marty Haugen (LMAO)

Learning a lesson:
Much Too Young To Feel This Damn Old-Garth Brooks

Deep thought:
Long For You-Ceili Rain

Flashback:
Mountain Dew- The Pogues

Partying:
McQueen's Lost- Cars Soundtrack

Happy dance:
Radio- Friday Mourning

Regretting:
Why Do I Always Want You- The Saw Doctors

Long night alone:
Jigorous-Ceili Rain

Death scene:
Jockey to the Fair- Irish Dance sets

Election '08 (pro-life)

2008-09-05T09:41:00.003-04:00

I refused to watch the Democrats at their convention, because I know I would just get annoyed and toss out comments along of the lines of you don't care about families or the unborn so why should I listen to you.

I did watch Gov. Palin's speech and Sen. McCain's speech mainly because I wanted to see what Palin was capable of and McCain's I watched simply because well I wanted to see what happened. Palin was great, though her speech was written for her (as was Obama's Biden's, McCain's, and both Hillary and Bill Clinton's speech) her wit was great, her explanation of what she has done while is office was good. Palin impresses me because she's more than just talk, she has instilled values in her children and we can see that with the pregnancy of her eldest daughter. Bristol Palin made a mistake but she and her future husband chose to keep the baby and are getting married. She is hardly the first person to pregnant at a young age. Sarah Palin gave birth to a baby with Downs Syndrome. I think the statistic is something like 80% if not 90% of pregnancies that might have Downs result in abortion, meaning death for the baby.

My issue with Obama and Biden is that I can not wrap around my head how someone with children can support abortion. I don't understand it and I never will. I know I was given grace by God (happens when one is baptized and confirmed) probably because I was 10 weeks premature and my was an "older mom" and was baptized the day after I was born, Dec. 12 the feast of our Lady of Guadalupe who is the patroness of the unborn.

I've often wondered why I'm so adamant about the pro-life movement. I was born 10 weeks early and weighed in just shy of 4 pounds, named after the Blessed Mother, with Christine (Christ) as my middle name. My parents took no chances and baptized me right away on Dec. 12, and a priest from our parish in New York City would never allow to forgot what day I was baptized on. May God continue to bless him in his ministry as I probably would not have read the story of Juan Diego albeit via a "comic book" but I was a young child at the time. I managed to choose Anne as my Confirmation simply because I wanted a vowel in my initials. Seriously, that's why I chose Anne. I have to come to see that I have Anne, Mary and Christ in my name, and those people 3 forces to be reckoned with. My mom always made a point to talk to me about Cardinal Cooke. Cardinal Cooke died in October 1983, I was too young to remember him, but much like Archbishop Sheen, Cardinal Cooke has touched my life with out me really knowing it. Turns out that part of Cardinal Cooke's family is from the same area as my maternal grandfather, in essence "down the street" from my family. There is a tiny church in Athenry, which is where Cardinal Cooke's mother was from and where my grandfather was from. There are rumors in the family that somewhere we are related. That might explain my intense defense of the unborn.

Cardinal Cooke and his successor Cardinal O'Connor were both defenders of the unborn, as was Archbishop Sheen and I often in prayer ask the three of them to pray for us.

More to come later as I have to get ready to go to "work"

Get Behind me Satan! updated

2008-09-01T02:36:00.004-04:00

So the title of this comes from the Gospel from Sunday Aug. 31st, it was the continuation of the Gospel from the week before. The idea of St. Peter being so good one day and so bad the next as always amused me, as well it really does sum up how must of us are. I was once told to read the Passion, and watch Jesus of Nazareth (the movie) during Holy Week to "make up" for what I thought was a "bad Lent" and to see whom I was most like. Sometimes I say Mary because of my name, but almost always when I think about it, I'm Peter. We all are, one day I can say OK JESUS, and the next day unfortunately deny Jesus, but when it comes down to it and it matters I say THAT'S RIGHT I'M WITH JESUS.

Interestingly the word deny comes up in the Gospel. "Deny one's self, take up your cross and follow me" are the words of Jesus we hear. Recently I've been leaning towards wishing to hear Fr. Brian's homilies, but Fr. George did a good job with this one. I laughed when the homily started because Fr. George did his typical joke to get everyone to pay attention and because I said to myself "I didn't read Fr. Jim's homily before Mass this week, must mean this one will be decent." It's usually true that if I read Fr. Jim's homily via his blog before I go to Mass that the one at St. A's is lacking. Fr. George's was decent, it didn't blow me out of the water, but honestly most don't.

Fr. George focused on the aspect of deny one's self which leads many times to taking up a cross that was expected yet unexpected and finally it all leads to following Jesus. I remember Fr. George saying that deny one's self meant we didn't need all the material possessions that we so often want and "need." He spoke about how when we deny ourselves something that we can gain from in. In denying one's self one is to cling to Jesus, hence why this line usually get quoted by people. Fr. George mentioned at one point and I remember this because I'm usually surprised when he touches upon the topic of "pro-life" activities from the pulpit. He spoke about how taking up one's cross means going against the tide in some cases and while those are not his exact words, it did make me think of the election and the "pro-life" movement. It was a basic stand up for what you believe in type homily, which I guess I need reminding of everyone once in a while.

The week before I happened to have Fr. Brian at Mass, and it tells you something that nearly 2 weeks later I still remember the homily. I happened to be sitting in the first pew, which I haven't done since my days at Seton Hall. I felt a little too close to the presider's chair, but alas that wasn't too big of a deal. The week before August 24th was the Gospel where Jesus commends Peter for knowing who He is and getting it right. Jesus does add in, this was revealed to you, which it is. Fr. Brian tied this into the apostolic succession and the succession of St. Peter to the current Pope. I remember Fr. Brian speaking about Humane Vitae and how we should read what the popes have written especially the current Holy Father and the last one. I laughed as Fr. Brian said that because I have read the writings of JP2 and I am currently reading Jesus of Nazareth by PB16 (as Fr. Brian calls him)and was reading Humane Vitae. Fr. Brian spoke of how Paul VI's document was prophetic in essence and he went on to point out 3 passages about how if artifical contraception was allowed that the country would do down hill, well as Fr. Brian put it, "I think he (Pope Pius VI) hit that one on the head.

What makes Fr. Brian's homily so interesting is that later on that night while a good friend and I were watching TV our other good friend called us to complain about the homily she got. (Side note the 3 of us earned the nickname unholy- holy trinity, as the 3 of us were RCIA sponsors and well for the most part inseparable in college) Any way my friend's homily was about how there were three major mistakes in the Church: Galileo, the Crusades, and Humane Vitae. I turned to my friend who was watching tv with me when I head her repeat what she heard and I said, oh no way, let me tell you about my homily.

At one church you have a good holy priest speaking about how Humane Vitae was a great document and that we need to read what the Popes have written and to listen to what they say, while at another you have a deacon who speaks of how the same document was a giant mistake in the Church.

This is why people don't know what to do, or what to believe. It amuses me that on on the same day these homilies were given that Nancy Pelosi was stepping in the largest pile of crap she could find. Props to the bishops who have used this as a teaching moment and those that continue to do so. It saddens me when people don't know or fully understand the Church that they were raised in, let alone ordained to a ministry in. People are confused because they can hear two different things and nothing is said as to whom is right. Thankfully the bishops came out and defended the Church and Her teachings.

May St. Peter continue to pray for us as we need it.

a pro-life woman as VP

2008-08-29T10:58:00.004-04:00

Now this is exciting. Seriously, I feel like running around screaming like a little kid! McCain picks Sarah Palin aka the pro-life governor of Alaska as his running mate. The stories abound that Hillary supporters are now voting for McCain as he has picked a woman.

Fox News' breaking story

Catholic.org's breaking news

More on Mrs. Palin via foxnews

What I like is that she gave birth to down syndrome baby in April. After she was told you know there's a chance there could be something wrong with the baby, she went ahead and had the baby anyway. Her oldest boy who's 19 enlisted and is being shipped out to Iraq on Sept. 11th. (I got that tidbit from Catholic.org and I'm trying to find that link.)

This is really exciting!

Pelosi steps in it big time!

2008-08-25T20:59:00.003-04:00

So on Sunday Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was asked about abortion more specifically when does life begin and she sent herself down a certain river without a paddle.

Tom Brokaw on Meet the Press posed the question "If Senator Obama were to come to you and say 'Help me out here, Madame Speaker. When does life begin?' what would you tell him?" Pelosi did her best to answer the question, but she up and died and showed that she knows nothing about the teachings of the faith she practices. There's to much to actually post their conversation, but I will give a link to it, better than that I'll just post the you tube video.

As you can hear she thinks she is prepared and knows what she is talking about. However she has received more coverage in the last two days than she probably expected or wanted, considering that most of the coverage has been via Catholic blogs and from Bishops and some of her fellow Catholics responding with how wrong she is on the subject.

I believe the first to respond was Archbishop Chaput from Denver. Over on the Archdiocese of Denver's web page you will find this .
I am assuming that the good Bishop was quick to answer for a few reasons. One, the Democratic National Convention is in his city, second, he just wrote a book on "Serving the Nation by Living our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life", and thirdly because he is the type of bishop to come and stand up for the Church and Her teaching.

I have mainly been doing my reading of this story on two sitesAmerican Papist and Fr. Z's What Does The Prayer Really Say. American Papist points out that ten of Pelosi's fellow Representatives wrote a letter responding to her and asking her to apologize for what she has done to help reduce the scandal it has caused. Even the Bishops came out as a group and said something on their web page, it's actually on the main page.

I am sure there will be more on this story, but I needed a place to put all the links that I found about this story. I'm glad the Bishops and other Catholics are standing up to defend when life begins, which is at conception scientifically and theologically. Animation of the fetus (Latin for little one) is what St. Augustine and others were debating and saying was 3 months not when live begins. I am sure that I will be blogging more on this issue later too.

Running!

2008-08-22T17:24:00.000-04:00

The 10 week program I would like to try from Runner's World..

I tried 30 mins of walk 3 run 2 which was apparently ahead of what I was supposed to be doing, so I'm opting to walk for 30 the next few days and then on Monday re-start the whole running thing. :)

our 10-Week Training Plan

The following running schedule was created by Budd Coates, Health Promotions Manager at Rodale Inc., who instructs a corporate beginning running program. Coates has taken nonrunners and, in 10 weeks, helped them reach their goal of running the 3.5-mile Chase Corporate Challenge.

Before you start with this schedule, get your legs ready with eight days of walking: walk for 20 minutes a day for the first four days, then increase to 30 minutes a day for four more days. Now you're ready to begin with week 1.

Each week of the program, do your run/walk workouts on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, and take Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday off.

10-WEEK TRAINING SCHEDULE

Week 1
Run 2 minutes,
walk 4 minutes.
Repeat 5 times.

Week 2
Run 3 minutes,
walk 3 minutes.
Repeat five times.

Week 3
Run 5 minutes,
walk 2.5 minutes.
Repeat four times.

Week 4
Run 7 minutes,
walk 3 minutes.
Repeat three times.

Week 5
Run 8 minutes,
walk 2 minutes.
Repeat three times.

Week 6
Run 9 minutes,
walk 2 minutes.
Repeat twice, then
run 8 minutes.

Week 7
Run 9 minutes,
walk 1 minute.
Repeat three times

Week 8
Run 13 minutes,
walk 2 minutes.
Repeat twice.

Week 9
Run 14 minutes,
walk 1 minute.
Repeat twice.

Week 10
Run 30 minutes.

Note: After completing week 9, if you feel tired, repeat this week of training before moving on to week 10.

Don't rock the boat

2008-08-13T01:07:00.000-04:00

I guess the title for this blog should really be "Get out of the boat" as the past few homilies that have stuck with me have involved Fr. Brian and Deacon George telling us in their respective homily to step out of the comfort zone.

I don't mention Deacon George's homilies very often as the deacons only preach once a month in our parish and I usually end up with one of the other 3 deacons at the parish. I like Deacon George for many reasons, for starters he converted to Catholicism simply because his daughter one day asked "daddy why don't you come to church with us?" That was all he needed to get the ball rolling. I first met Deacon George through his son Michael who was a member of the parish youth group with me.

More to come later... off to bed I go as I'm off to the Bronx Zoo with some friends later on today.

2008-07-24T23:38:00.002-04:00

Absolutely disturbing...

From PP's NY facebook group... "Did you know that MANY New York City Public Schools do not offer Comprehensive Sex Ed? CALL 311 today and tell them you believe sex education should be required in all NYC schools. It's a fast, free way to make a difference!"

There's more disturbing shit on the page, but I prefer not to be all bitchy and ready to beat something before going to bed. I'm sure I'll be adding to this post.

Homilies

2008-07-19T23:44:00.003-04:00

I try to blog about the homily I hear each week as long as it affects me. I've noticed a pattern of it mainly being about Fr. Brian's homilies which are for the most part always awesome. I have taken to reading Fr. Jim's homilies over at his blog who is likewise just as awesome.

Fr. Geoff from Michigan whom I met through youth ministry at St. Anthony's who met him through Catholic Heart Work Camp says that awesome is an overused word. I agree with him, it is over used, but I can't think of another word to use to describe Fr. Brian's and Fr. Jim's homilies.

Any way, Mad Men on "on demand" has caught my attention so I'm off to watch it.

Sometimes I wonder

2008-07-18T12:00:00.003-04:00

Seriously, if you teens to be active in the parish and you want them to be good Catholics they need to be formed correctly. Yes it's nice to give them the "potter (as in someone who makes pottery, not harry)retreat" and other things but they need to be formed correctly! If they know what and Who the Eucharist is, they will come to love it, trust me I should know.

I've spent the last 6.5 years trying to figure out what to do with a BA in Religious Studies and wanting to do ministry in the Church, but I don't know anymore. I know where and what my gifts are, but no one seems to want them.

Sometimes I wonder was it worth changing from nursing to religion. All these issues wouldn't exist if I just stayed a nursing major or hell even if I kept up my Irish step dancing, I would be a TCRG aka teacher by now, but alas hindsight is 20/20.

I need a drink.

Vote for David Wright!

2008-07-06T21:36:00.001-04:00

Go vote for David Wright, I don't care who you vote for on the AL side, but on the NL side I want to see David Wright in the All Star Game despite his horrible performance recently!

Some wickedly great homilies!

2008-07-06T14:30:00.002-04:00

Over on Fr. Jim's blog there's a pretty good homily for today! Fr. Brian over at St. Anthony's had a good homily too, which is usually the case. Fr. Brian tied right into the whole "proud to be Catholic and proud to be American" aspect of the weekend.Humility-generosity-charity more to come on this in a little while!

Two years

2008-07-06T00:18:00.000-04:00

It does not seem like two years since I got two messages from Bridget, one saying, "you need to pray for Mary Ann, something happened to/with Fiona" the second "call me back when you get a chance I have sad/bad news." I was working at New York and Company at the time so I wouldn't have had my phone on until I left, which was usually 11pm or later as I mostly closed. I know the above messages are not word for word, but I knew from the moment I heard the first one what had happened. For the rest of the time I worked at New York and Company I hated turning on my phone after a night's work. It honestly took me 45 or more minutes to call Bridget back. I didn't want to do it on the way home, as I was driving, once I got home I couldn't bring myself to hear the words, "she's gone." Eventually I sucked it up and called and heard what I expected to hear, Fiona had died.

Here's the short version of the story, Fiona somehow at the age of 23 months managed to move a kids table over to the edge of the deck climbed up fell over the deck wall and fence into the pool area and was found face down in the pool. Bottom line of the story is that she died.

I remember going to work the next day numb as I didn't even know how to phrase what happened to my manager and to tell them I wouldn't be in on the days of the wake and funeral. I eventually told one of them and left it at that.

I remember looking at the small coffin with the pretty little girl in her pretty little dress with her beautiful curls in it. I remember how her Aunt Bridget and I made first class relics by simply touching Rosary Beads and other articles to Fiona. Mary Ann, Fiona's mom looked at us and once she realized what we were doing, she laughed.

That night Aunt Bridget and I ended up, well Bridget more than I, I was simply there to keep Bridget company, making the pall that would go over Fiona's casket. It was simply beautiful, a piece of white satin, with tulle around the bottom of it, with roses on the corners. We literally flew by the seat of our pants while making it and some how it came together, we know it was by the grace of the Holy Spirit. When we finished it, Bridget and I simply stepped back and looked at the pall lying on the dining room table and both said, "It's wrong that it's so pretty." We stared at it and eventually turned to each other and said, I can't look any more or I'll start crying, and seeing as we found a way to laugh while making the pall we both decided that the crying was best left for the Mass of Christian Burial. So I went home only to return to Newark the next morning for the Funeral Mass.

Mass was obviously sad, I walked in to see an honor guard of Irish Dancers in full uniform, who really did look out of place, but little Fiona loved watching her brother and sisters dance so she got an honor guard of dancers. Heck I dance around the house sometimes knowing she's probably watching. Larry aka Fr. Larry told us during the homily that Mary Ann told him that he was going to sing her a good African Spiritual, and Larry did, he started his homily out with "Swing Low Sweet Chariot coming forth to bring me home... and then went in to his homily, finding a way to make us laugh and cry." The hardest part was hearing Dan, Mary Ann's brother-in-law start to sing Elmo's World after we all laughed, we all cried, as Elmo was Fiona's favorite show and character. We walked out crying as was expected and it was raining slightly, and all I could think of and as Mary Ann's off the boat Irish mother-in-law said, "happy the corpse the rain falls on." Yep, leave to the Irish to say something like that, as Mary Ann and I said later, it always rains over there, they had to come up with something!

That day continued on with the actual burial part and the traditional meal back at Mary Ann's sister's house. Eventually I ended up staying over as the Peter Smith School Feis was the next day and I wanted to watch Mary Ann's kids dance.

It really doesn't seem like 2 years ago, but I know that it is. Fiona's death brought me closer to my faith and to the idea of Church Militant and Church Triumphant closer to me as well. The terms Church Militant, Church Triumphant, and Church Suffering aren't used anymore or at the very least not spoken about too much and I miss it. We connect with the Saints and saints (no I am not repeating myself, there's a difference between saint with a capital S and a lower case S) in a awesome way at every Mass and with Fiona's death that idea was brought closer to home for me.

Fiona is not the first "young person" for me to bury, honestly she's not even the youngest, her cousin Bernadette holds that honor, but she is one of the youngest and her death brought Heaven closer to me.

Fiona I will continue to pray to you, especially for parking spots, you and Tony are great at that, I will talk to you about others that we need to work on, and yes I know that you can run up to Jesus and sit on His lap and whisper our prayers to Him, if not I'm sure Mommy aka Mary is telling Him for us.

Fiona may you continue to rest in peace and to pray for us!

Fiona Alexandra Marie 7/13/04- 6/19/06

I want.... (photo heavy!)

2008-07-05T19:32:00.004-04:00

a Nintendo WII

and wii fit

a treadmill

a silly t-shirt

and a cheap laptop

I like the idea of having a Macbook, but it's expensive, though the idea of getting an ipod with it is nice, I just have to work for a school. ;)
maybe I can spend my stimulus check and then some all at one ;)

Mets Blanket

2008-07-03T00:24:00.001-04:00

Why I am posting this here I don't know. I have the privacy settings so damn high no one will be able to find it. Anyhoo, my friend Bridget has finally gotten me to start crocheting and now I am in the process of creating mets blankets. One for myself and one for Bridget.Here are some progress pictures, one of a few of the squares I have made and one of the 3rd blue squares being made. I have 4, really 5 out of 24 made. 3 out of 6 blue squares, 1 out of 6 orange squares, and 1 out of 12 white squares. I am still messing around with the order of the colors but it will be 4 squares wide by 6 squares long making it total of 44 inches by 66 inches as each squares is about 11 inches wide by 11 inches tall, and it all depends on how tight my stitches are, which seem to be getting tighter. I will be sure to update as I go along. Click on the pictures to see the full version.

sometimes things are closer to home than you think

2008-06-27T00:30:00.003-04:00

During the war in Iraq I often thought it would be Mike (high school acquaintance and son of one of the deacons at my parish) or Paul (best friend's brother) I would hear about, however when they announced on the news the names of 3 soldiers who died over there on Monday, in particular Greg Dalessio, I thought, I know that name... did I go to school with him.Sure enough I got a link today from a fellow SHU alum via facebook and I can't place or remember how I know him, other than campus ministry keeps popping into my head. It will drive me nuts until I figure it out and now work study is popping into my head too, for all I know it could have been student ambassadors, but I'm thinking campus ministry.Captain Gregory Dalessio SHU classes of '00 MA '04 may you rest in peace and thank you for your ultimate sacrifice and love of your country. Without men (and woman) like you this country would be nothing. In doing a google search for Greg's name in an attempt to see how I knew him I found some interesting pages. This one in particular struck me as interesting. A news article on him from the Courier Post, the paper in South Jersey. am sure that more will come up on this topic...for now I'm off to sleep as it's the last day of CCD and it's been a long week.

Random comments from the priests...

2008-06-22T23:19:00.002-04:00

that's right the priests...

I'm sitting quietly in the pew minding my own business when Fr. Brian says "I don't want you crying during Mass either."

I was at the 10am Mass, which I normally try to avoid because it's the "kids Mass" which means there are normally a lot of babies and kids making noise. Before someone jumps all over screaming about it, I love kids really I do and I love my friends kids and my niece and nephew but since I don't have any of my own I don't really need to subject myself to the Mass with the screaming kids.

The reason for Fr. Brian's comment where there was a 7 week old baby in the front fussing, babies do that, the kid's mom, dad or aunt shoved something in the kids mouth and he was happy as can be the rest of Mass. There was another baby making noise in the back, so Fr. Brian being Fr. Brian and knowing he can get away with it, tells me, 'no crying from you either." It made my day, and makes me think, "that's what makes him good." The only other priest to make comments like that to me is Fr. Bill, so Fr. Brian must be good. ;)

Mary's thoughts

Somethings never change, damn spiral staircase

Rome Day 2

Roma Day 1

Changes at St. Anthony's

Rome

Catholic Media Promotion Day

January 25th, yet another day I will not forget

January 19th a day I will never forget

St. Paul Inside the Walls

Where have I been...

Priests

Diocese of Paterson's Chrism Mass

Lent workout

Lent

blogging from me phone

Walk to Run take 2; day 1

All Saints and All Souls (another late one)

Respect Life Sunday relfections

Prayer for Priests

September 11th

Obama's speech

go vote...

Walk to Run

Ireland

It's probably the beer talking...

Back but not for long

Where oh where have I been...

Life in General

Bishop Serratelli's weekly column from 05/14/2009

Bishop Serratelli's weekly column from 05/07/2009

Bishop Serratelli's weekly column from 4/30/2009

Bishop Serratelli's weekly column from 4/23/2009

Trip to Madison

Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday

Archbishop Dolan

Happy Birthday Holy Father

Pictures of St. Anthony's during Holy Week

Good Friday 2009

Holy Thursday 2009

Happy Easter

An Interesting Conversation

Notre Dame part 2

Notre Dame

Discernment

Cornerstone "09

Lent- how am I doing- week one

Pro-life Activism

Lenten Checklist 1st Thursday and Friday

Lenten Checklist- Ash Wednesday *updated*

Lent '09

Where oh where have I been.

March for Life 2009

President Obama's first action

It's creepy how fast things change

Things that drive me crazy

Inauguration 2009

Some old posts from 2 years ago.

Inauguration 2009

This is interesting

Thoughts on insanity surrounding the Inauguration of President-Elect Obama

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus 1936-2009

Christmas and the Feast of the Holy Family

Christmas

Real Men wear pink

When I get into something I really get into it *updated*

SHU's Chapel

On a happier note

Sometimes you don't what to think.

I was asked to pass this around

A priest with a backbone.

hey why not

The election

strangely amused

Well done good and faithful servant

An interesting election quiz

I've been waiting for this

Oh somewhat exciting. ;)

Life in general

Josh Groban at the Emmys

Lenten Checklist- Ash Wednesday updated

When I get into something I really get into it updated

September 11th updated

Get Behind me Satan! updated