Pray, Decide and Don’t Worry take 2, Chapter 1 Seek, Fr. Mike Schmitz

I feel like I am taking a step back in time with this whole discernment thing. Two years ago I was questioning all my activities with the Church and beginning the process of leaving crazy day care number one. I’m now officially out of day care number which I thought would be better but was actually worse. I’m out of there for doing the right thing and I know that because I would do it again. 

Seek, what am I seeking? I wish I knew. I don’t even know where to start. If the condition of my bedroom and laundry are any indication it’s no wonder I am so confused. Everything is all over the place and not a damn thing is organized. I feel like I am so distracted and can’t focus on anything. 

The questions: (from the introduction)

Lord, what do You want me to do?

I wish I knew, I thought I knew. I went from Religion major to religion teacher, to retail work, back to teaching, to teaching the little ones.  Now all I feel is lost and confused.  I was so set to go back and get my teaching certification but now I don't even know if I want to do it anymore. Is it worth it.  

Why don’t I hear anything when I pray?

Oh this question, not only do I not hear anything I feel nothing.  If you look at me at Mass I look put together and like I know what I am doing and what not.  Which is true as Mass is my safe space, oh how I hate those two words.  I don't know what's going on with my prayer life other than I feel like I am goin through the motions and I want more, I long for more.  

Lord, why won’t You just TELL me Your plan already so I can get to work? 

I feel like I have been on this discernment journey for 20 some odd years and in a way I have.  I always say if I was male this would be easy I would be a priest.  Sadly, now one would have questioned that.  I was told Religion wasn't good enough that I would need something better to make more money.  I never thought I would be stuck figuring my life out at 43,  I fully expected the husband and the army of children, but God obviously had other plans. 

Do you trust in His plan?

This is one where I wish I could honestly say yes, but I know deep down that I do not, because I feel like when I have trusted that it hasn't worked out or maybe I jumped too early. The trust is there it's just down deep. 

Will you take a step forward without knowing fully where the road will lead? 

This is the frightening concept, I like order, I like knowing things,  I like being in charge, but not knowing where that road will lead is a scary thought.  

The questions from Fr. Mike’s reflection:

What are you seeking?

I wish I knew.  I want to say God's plan for me, but right now I would settle for a little bit of happiness.  I want to know what God is actually calling me to.  Why am I always torn between teaching and campus ministry.  I'm seeking approval, approval for doing ministry work, not the constant "what are you going to do with your life" I always seem to get.  I want people to acknowledge that ministry work and teaching are legit jobs, not even teaching, people are usually fine with that.  I want people to see that ministry isn't a bad thing. 

What are you looking for?

I don't know, I know if I focused I could find something, but I feel so lost that I don't even know what I am looking for.  Part of me is looking for that person who will let me bitch and moan and I do have that, but another part of me wants to be that for others.  I guess I am looking for where I should be. 

What is the cry of your heart?

To help others is what stuck out in Fr. Mike's reflection. I honestly just want to pass on the faith, I want to teach the faith to those who want to learn about it, but no one has a adult faith formation position in this area or if they do I am far to old school/traditional and conservative for people. 

What excites you about life?

Honestly, right now nothing.  I'm stuck in a Dark Night where that Light is hidden and unseen.  Am I excited about finally getting to see one of my favorite people after months, yes, but I really shouldn't be excited about hanging out with a priest. 

What gets you out of bed in the morning?

It was work, even though I hated it.  I didn't hate it, I loved the kids, but the administration was horrendous. Hate is such a strong word and I normally wouldn't use it, but I can't think of another word.  Right now it's the fact that if I don't someone will think something is "wrong with me" and start complaining about it. 

What is weighing on your mind?

That I'm not good enough for anything, that I will never find what I am called to do.  That all I will be is this lonely woman in the corner with no friends and no job just wasting away. 

What are you avoiding?

In some ways the truth that I should hav done things differently, what I wouldn't do to go back and change things.  Usually I say I wouldn't go back, but honestly I would but who knows. I'm avoiding the responsibilities that I should be taking care of. 

What are you trying to bury deep?

Everything.  I thought I had handled my grief well, but I guess I didn't.  Nothing has been the same over the past three years.  I know I have plenty of people who support me, but it doesn't feel that way.  

What are you wrestling with?

Everything, but honestly it's what is my purpose, why put me through all this crap to basically get nothing out of it.  

What are you willing to sacrifice for? 

I would say family, and my select group of friends, especially my priests friends (Charlie, Frank, Sylwester). Interesting that I didn't say God first, but He's there in the priests I hope.

How do you define a great life?

My heart says by doing what God wants me to do, but my brain says what humanity says, by having money. 

What are you seeking? 

Holiness, why did that just pop into my head.  I mean I am but I didn't think that was what I was actually seeking.  I want guidance, I want answers, I want to know what I am being called to do. 

What purpose has God put on your heart?

I want to teach the faith, I want to bring people to Him, but it seems like that task never gets started or that I am too afraid to do it outside of the comforts of ministry. 

Do you even believe that you have a purpose?

The quick answer is yes, I just wish I knew what it was. I joke that my vocation is friend to priests as the three I count as my closest friends do share stuff with me, some more than others.  

The reflection questions:

What am I seeking?

This question was asked multiple times and I still don't have one answer.  I guess I am seeking answers, answer to why things happen to why I always seem to be the black sheep the one who will amount to nothing because she chose religion. I've been trying to follow God's path for me, but who knows where I ended up. 

What is weighing on my mind and heart?

Why it's not horrible in the grand scheme of things, all things considered as I seem to have led a simple and privileged life, I just wish people knew that my life hasn't been easy.  I don't know, I want a job, I want to do what God wants me to do, but I don't what that is anymore.  I see what I wanted, a husband and family and know that I will never have that, no matter how hard I try I am the old maid, I am the one no one wants. 

When I am ninety years old, what will I have wanted to accomplish or regret not doing?

I don't think I will make to to 90, but I feel like I should have so much accomplished by now at 43.  I regret things already, do I really need to add to it.  I don't know what I want to accomplish, at one point I would have said having a family, but now I'll just take having my own place and not having people assume things about me. 

What matters most to me? 

I would say family, but it's not.  I could say faith, but I don't know about that either.  I'm in such a rut and mood that my answer is going to be I don't know.  My faith, my immortal soul, even if I don't act like it is.

I want answers and I want the short quick no work needed version of things.  I'm angry, angry that I am being punished for doing what was right.  No one sees that outside of the people I worked with. I just want someone other than to see and understand that. I don't want the "I'm sorry" or "something good will come from this" comments. I want the life sucks and then some comments, but everyone is afraid of that and doesn't want to say it.  I want to know I am not alone, and I know I'm not even if it doesn't feel that way. 

bus stations, train stations, Stations of the Cross part deux

So I am slacking in my saying the Stations of the Cross, daily but it's still early in this Lenten season.

I decided to walk to daily Mass and today was no different except it was snowing but I don't mind walking in the snow, I rather enjoy it.  I decided to walk "the back roads" aka the not main road that runs through town as I figured if I have to walk out in the street it's better to do it on a street where there's not at much traffic.  So I walked along my way, using mainly sidewalks as they were clear despite the dusting of snow on the ground.  I was listening to Jars of Clay's version of I Need You when all of a sudden my ass was on the cold ground and thought, ouch.  I have enough padding to just be slightly bruised if I am at all.  I bounced up as quickly as I went down.  I was thinking about a friend who had basically posted her goodbye to us on Facebook, as she's entering the final stages of her battle with cancer, so my mind was not on watching where I was walking.

The ice I slipped on was hidden by the dusting of snow and dare I say my ego was bruised more than my body.  I do have a nice little "cut" on my hand from where I placed it to break my fall, but again the whole thing happened in about 5 seconds.  I got up thinking, well grumbling, I should have just walked in the street and then I noticed that my hand hurt.  I took off my glove and looked at my left hand and said, oh that hurts, but it's barely skinned, I wonder if my ass will bruise.  As I kept walking I started to think about Stations of the Cross and I of course thought of the Jesus falls ones.  I looked at my hand and said, this tiny cut hurts more than anything, I can only imagine what type of pain Jesus was in when He carried the cross.

Here's my tiny little flesh wound that still hurts hours later.  Something that 

small shouldn't hurt as much as it does.  I have always been one who realized that the traditional beatings Jesus got in the movies was nothing like what really happened.  Call it God's grace or my vivid imagination.  So of course I think of The Passion of the Christ when ever I think of Jesus's Passion and death.  I chose a not so graphic image from the movie.  I have in the past looked to Our Lady of Sorrows for consolation and for some reason she came to mind this Lent.  Maybe it's because of the death of one of the parish's young adults and watching the family she left behind suffer and not knowing what to do for them or watching my friends suffer and not knowing what to do for them either but suffering has come back as a topic.  

Yesterday I learned that a priest I knew and has as a professor at Seton Hall died suddenly.  Not an Ash Wednesday goes by that I don't think of him and the giant crosses he would place on our heads.  Anyway, I started to think of all the memories from Seton Hall and I thought where's the book we used in class. I remember he commented that it was such a small book despite the class being on Christian Spirituality.  The book is 144 pages long and covers some of the classics of Catholic Spirituality actually that's it's name too.  I went searching for it just because and found it and thought, oh I need to get a bunch of these classics.  While searching for the book, I found books that I used for my senior thesis.  One of those books is called At the Foot of the Cross The Seven Lessons of Mary for the Sorrowing Heart, the other one I found is Archbishop Sheen's Seven Words of Jesus and Mary Lessons on Cana and Calvary.  I don't want to take any of my proposed books out of my book a week challenge  but I might have to add these two in.  Again I see a theme appearing or should I say reappearing as I have read these books before.  

I had originally planned on this particular blog to be about Stations of the Cross again, but when I fell today it got me thinking about how we can daily live out the stations of the cross.  I have an all day retreat with our high school freshman in our confirmation program on Sunday, and I know that right about now is when the spiritual, physical and mental battles come to a front.  I'm reminded of a quote I saw on Facebook, of course it happens to be from Mark Hart. "Don't be surprised when attacks come - if you're living for Christ they'll come constantly. It probably means you're doing it right... 'When you seek to do good, evil will be at hand.' - Rom 7:21" 

Who would have thought that a tiny cut on my hand would make me think about how to daily live out the Stations of the Cross and to look back into our Lady of Sorrows.  We are not suffering along, Jesus knows what we are going through as does God the Father, and our Blessed Mother. 

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.  

SCC the digital version or my "homily" for the 1st Sunday of Lent.

J.M.J. 

I decided to start my Lenten book challenge off easy, I was already reading Mark Hart's Behold the Mystery and have most of Cardinal Dolan's Doers of the Word read so I decided that they counted as one book and would be read on Ash Wednesday and the days that followed.  I did finish both of them, but they were easy reads.  In Behold the Mystery Mark Hart suggests spending time with all four readings for Sunday's Mass.  I always think of Small Christian Communities (SCC) at Seton Hall when I think of this, because that's exactly what we did.  A bunch of us met each week with Fr. Bill to discuss the readings for the upcoming Sunday.  I know we inspired a bunch of homilies for him and it was fun and interesting to discuss the readings for Sunday.  We typically came up with about 4 or five questions to go over, and by we I really mean me. No, it was mainly Fr. Bill until one day I heard "hey, Mar, my newest, bestest, best bud, do you want to write the questions for SCC tonight."  I know I had some sort of smart ass response but I can't remember it, but I do remember him saying, "but your's are good and better than mine" or something along those lines to me.

I've decided to do a digital version of SCC though it's more of a Lectio, which now that I think about it is what SCC was, but we never treated it that way.  Now, I know why Fr. Bill suggested Lectio Divina years later, and that's what makes him one of the best priests I know.  This also makes me laugh at how God works.

Any way I figured I might as well spend time with the readings and what better place to "talk" about it but the almighty inter-webs.  I know that a lot of people don't read this and it's mostly for me, but hey you never know who might find it and learn something.  Here's the link to Sunday, February 22, 2015 Mass readings  .  The USCCB page was giving me issues before, so I'm not sure if it will load correctly or not, but they should have an interactive calendar on the home page if the link doesn't work.

So the first reading comes from the Book of Genesis and it involves Noah and we can assume that the ark was involved too.  The daily readings link doesn't give you the footnotes like the actual Bible pages do; the New American Bible Revised Edition aka the NABRE is on the site. I have to give credit to said Bible as my bishop, Bishop Arthur Serratelli, spent "7 years of his life" working on it. It's also the Bible we hear at Mass.  I was going to look for the footnotes, but the website is not loading on Chrome anyway, not sure about other browsers.

Anyway, back to the first reading. Most of us know the story of Noah, the ark and the flood.  In the first reading we get the promise from God to Noah that the world will not be destroyed by water again.  God saved the world because of one righteous person, Noah, well eight people if we count Noah's wife, sons and daughters-in-law. God promised that He wouldn't use water to destroy the Earth again.  I'm currently sitting through a Biblical Call Narratives class for my Masters and Certificate program, so we've been discussing the Old Testament far more than the New Testament and I'm fine with that because we so often skip over the Old Testament that we don't look to it for wisdom, even though it is one of the books of the Old Testament.  God made a covenant with Noah and his family and the sign He gave them was a rainbow, or so we traditionally say it is.  Even today we are always in awe when we see a rainbow in the sky.  I remember a few times when my family was in Ireland that I was told, "get you're camera, there's a rainbow; oh it's a double rainbow; quick before it goes away."  I happily oblige as there is something special about rainbows precisely because we don't see them that often.  I usually think of pots of gold at the end of a rainbow long before I think of God's promise to Noah.  I don't think oh that's a reminder that God will take care of His family, I think oh that's pretty.

We have a glorified idea of Noah and the Ark, that thing had to stink to high holy hell with all those animals on it; yeah think about that, gross isn't it.  The stench didn't stop Noah or his family from doing what God told him and that ark wasn't small, it did have to fit two of each animal and 8 humans on it; so the hard work didn't stop Noah either.  Noah trusted God and was rewarded for it; God saved the world because of Noah's faith and actions.  One person saved the world, that sounds familiar doesn't it.  As my pastor reminded us at his Lenten Friday Night Lights aka his seasonal sessions on Catholic things, we, the younger generation often look at the Old Testament as some nice stories that we hear but don't really pay attention too. It's true we look at a rainbow and think, oh that's pretty, we don't think oh God's reminding us about how He saved us all those years ago with Noah.


I was about to jump to the second reading when I read the psalm. So often the psalm is forgotten or not preached on.  A few weeks ago Fr. Ray spoke of the psalm because it happened to be his favorite and the music ministry happened to play his favorite setting of it.  I don't remember what psalm it was but it reminds me that as Mark Hart said in Behold the Mystery we so often forget about the psalm.

The refrain of the psalm is "Your ways, O Lord, are love and truth to those who keep your covenant." My initial thought as I read it in church was, how the heck are we doing to sing this one.  It's interesting that the psalm uses the work covenant.  Today we don't think of covenants, we think of contracts which is sort of what a covenant with God is.  I try to say Liturgy of the Hours every day, there are plenty of days where I don't say one or any of the hours, but it has allowed me to get to know the psalms better or least notice which ones they use all the time.  The first verse of the psalm has us asking God to teach us His ways.  The second verse has us asking God to be kind to us and to remember us in His compassion.  The third and final verse reminds that God guides us, teaches us and shows us the way.  When we pay attention to the readings we see how they are linked together. Noah followed God's ways and kept the covenant and therefore passed on the faith to the generations that followed him.

The second reading is from St. Peter's letter.  It's rare that the second reading is not from one of St. Paul's readings just because he takes up the majority of the New Testament.  When I went to type the blog at first I kept thinking where did I hear "prefigured baptism" it must have been in one of the books I read, no it was from the second reading as I realized as I sat in Church. I think my mind had wondered during this reading, and I laughed to myself as I thought of Mark Hart's comment of well, at least you will have gone over the readings in case you start to not pay attention at Mass.  In this reading we are reminded that Jesus suffered for sins once, that righteous one suffered for the unrighteous.  Here we have that righteous man saving the world again.  Yes, that righteous man from the first reading is in essence a prefiguring of Jesus for one man saved the world.  Rarely do we have the readings so connected, or at least it seems that it's rarely that the first and second readings connect; let alone mention the other.  Noah was a prefiguring for our baptism, though the water of Baptism we are saved, but we can't forget about Jesus and how His saving act is what truly saved us. St. Peter reminds of that at the end of the reading.  Our salvation is not about being physically clean but about having a clean and clear conscience.

The Gospel is one of the shortest ones I can remember. It's literally three verses long. It's five sentences from the looks of it.  Of course on the first Sunday of Lent we are reminded that Jesus was in the desert fasting and was tempted by Satan.  This reminds that Jesus knows exactly what we go through each Lenten season.  Jesus knows that we are going to be tempted to eat what we gave up or tempted to not pray because I'm tired or some other excuse. In this short Gospel we get the idea that Lent will not be easy and that we will be tempted.  In the second portion of the Gospel we hear the words that we also hear on Ash Wednesday, depending on what saying the person who is placing ashes on your forehead uses.  "Repent and believe in the Gospel."  The gospel is the good news that Jesus came to save us all but we are so far removed from it that we often forget it.

I always try to get one thing out of the homily and while Fr. Ray actually preached on the first reading, using a great example of the Benedictine Abbey in Newark and how they because the ark for young men in Newark it was his preaching on the Gospel that stuck with me.  Fr. Ray mentioned the idea that we are obsessed with survival shows.  It got me thinking of Naked and Afraid, Bear Grylls' shows, the one with the military guy and the hippie guy and of course Survivor.   The line that got everyone to laugh was, "Survivor: they send people out to a remote island for 40 days and have all these tests and rituals they have to go through; we've been doing that for 2,000 years it's called Lent."

It's so true we are throwing ourselves out into the dessert to hopefully be drawn closer to God by giving something up or whatever we planned on doing for Lent.  It won't be easy as we will be tempted, but at least we've not voted off the island.



In cause you were wondering why the J.M.J. (Jesus, Mary and Joseph) randomly appeared; I've been writing it on my handwritten notes since college and after seeing another blog with it and Cardinal Dolan post a homily with the letters at the top I figured if they can do it so can I.

Does the Catholic Church have a man problem?

I had the majority of this blog typed and ready to go and I thought saved and then I accidentally closed out the window and lost a good portion of it so I had to rewrite some portions of the blog.  


It would seem that Cardinal Raymond Burke hates women if you listened to some people and their comments on the Cardinal's most recent interview with "The New eMANgelization" which is a part of the new Evangelization.  So I was at a meeting at my parish and was told, "did you hear what that Cardinal said about boys not wanting to do things with girls."  Of course when it's presented this way, one thinks, what, who would say that.  As I am of the opinion of trying to read the actual interview, I was pleasantly surprised when I actually read the interview 

I came home and searched the almighty Google for Cardinal Burke and the few sites that did come up led me to think, I wonder what he really said.  I tend to be skeptic of the media when they talk about the Catholic Church because, well they usually don't get it right.  I could not find what I deem a Catholic site that I trust to have the interview, until I found a link to the interview on Patheos When I saw this I thought ok, good a site I can trust.  So I went ahead and read the interview, and you should too as it's packed full of wonderful comments and that one comment that everyone is talking about is par for the course taken out of context.  

When I went to read the interview I was thinking "I usually agree with Cardinal Burke, what possible could he have said" as the way it was presented was as if the Cardinal had denounced all women and declared us unworthy and useless.  I did have my pastor's comment of "it's just a piece of it" deeply in the back of my mind, again I usually agree with Cardinal Burke.  So I went and read the whole article and decided that after I was ready to cut and paste sections that this was much longer than a tweet or facebook post would allow.  Thus this blog post was born.   


What follows below are the parts of the article that I cut and pasted in the italics and blue with my comments following.

"Everyone understands that women have and can be abused by men. Men who abuse women are not true men, but false men who have violated their own manly character by being abusive to women." 

As I read these lines I thought, why isn't this the line that's being reported, this interview isn't about women, but about men and how they can be much better than we let them be.  Yes, men can be abusive, as can women, but this statement packs so much more than "boys don't like to do things with girls."  

I kept reading and the next section to stick out was:  "The crisis between man and woman has been made much worse by a complete collapse of catechesis in the Church. Young men grew up without proper instruction with regard to their faith and to the knowledge of their vocation. Young men were not being taught that they are made in the image of God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. These young men were not taught to know all those virtues that are necessary in order to be a man and to fulfill the particular gifts of being male.

Making things worse, there was a very fluffy, superficial kind of catechetical approach to the question of human sexuality and the nature of the marital relationship."

I could not agree more with Cardinal Burke.  As a catechist, youth minister, evangelization person, and regular Mass goer I see this all the time.  It's not just men, but women too.  I am a product of a Catholic elementary school so my religious education came every day in school and at home.  Vocations are so important to the Catholic Church, but we no longer teach or say "yay, my son wants to be a priest" but instead, "what is wrong with you, are you sure that's what you want to do?"  At the Defending the Faith Conference at Franciscan University this past summer I heard the comment "As the father goes so does the family."  It was in reference to conversation to Catholicism but it is true on many levels for many things. 

We are afraid to teach that we are all made in God's image and likeness and that God created us male and female.  There is so much confusion about "I want to be this gender not the one I am."  God made us who we are and yet we are afraid to teach that, we are even more afraid to teach that evil and Satan exist.   Human sexuality is something that is no longer sacred or special, but something to be thrown around.  So many people are applauding decisions that basically tell God, sorry I don't like what you gave me, so I'm going to change it.  

We are afraid to teach many things but one of the ones that comes to mind is Marriage.  Marriage is a sacrament, a covenant between a man and a woman.  We tend to forget about Sodom and Gomorrah and that God destroyed them.  We are so afraid that we are going to hurt someone's feelings that we no longer teach the truth.  Yes it is a difficult topic to teach on but that's because the media has already blasted our children with what it thinks sexuality is.  Sexuality is much more than a person's gender, what a person wears, how they wear it, and how they act.  It breaks my heart that I come across as the mean and evil one because I am the one to say "gay 'marriage' is not marriage" I have to qualify the statement by restating Church teaching on how everyone is created in the image and likeness of God, and how we are all called to live celibate and chaste lifestyles if we are not married.  At least I know I am giving the teens actual Church teaching and I pray and hope that it sinks in or that eventually they will get it.  

The next comment that stuck out was this, which goes along with the above comments.  "We have gravely wounded the current generations. As a bishop, young people complained bitterly to me, “Why we were not taught these things. Why we were not more clearly taught about the Mass, Confession and traditional devotions?” These things matter for they form a spiritual life and a man’s character." 

I often look back on my childhood, which I am keenly aware wasn't all that long ago, and I see that my parents and teachers did teach me about devotions and other things in the Church.  I think, actually I know, God gave me graces as a child.  I often felt like I knew more about Mass than my peers and that could simply be because my parents took me to Mass every Sunday, no matter the weather. Seriously, we were like the post office, still are.  We do not teach devotions such as Adoration, novenas, the Rosary, Stations of the Cross and other Lenten devotions.  Christmas is all about how many presents we get and it's over in a day. We barely teach no meat on Fridays and why we do it and that it really should be all year long not just during Lent.

Mass is simply something we do when we feel like it, it's Christmas or Easter I have to go, it's what my parents want.  Confession is all but lost, no one feels or thinks they sin any more, but more on that later.  The comment "as the father goes, so does the family" comes to mind again.  I look at my parents, both Irish immigrants who attend Mass daily; they are far better than their daughter.  Dad doesn't or rarely misses a day, Mom is slightly more relaxed about it.  We have gravely wounded the current generations, my generation and the one that follows are so lost it's not even funny.  People don't ask me why I am Catholic, but anyone who knows me or gets to know me can tell that I wear my Catholicism on my sleeve.  I came to know and love my Catholic faith because of those that lived it out around me, and the majority of those people were priests that I met along the way.  We need to do more to teach the younger generation the devotions and traditions of the Catholic Church and how we do that is all part of the new evangelization movement.  

Here's the line that the media latched on to, but as normal have taken out of context.  

"The introduction of girl servers also led many boys to abandon altar service. Young boys don’t want to do things with girls. It’s just natural. The girls were also very good at altar service. So many boys drifted away over time. I want to emphasize that the practice of having exclusively boys as altar servers has nothing to do with inequality of women in the Church."  

I read this line and thought, "oh this actually makes sense."  My nephew plays with my niece, but they don't do the same things. They like to hang out with their friends, my niece with the girls and my nephew with the boys.  It is natural, boys and girls are different and we no longer teach that.  Society as a whole is completely into the whole let them explore themselves instead of saying, boys are boys and girls are girls.  We live in such an overtly sexual world that innocent comments are often taken out of context and misconstrued.

When we first moved to New Jersey, all the way from the Bronx, New York and I saw girls altar serving I was confused as I always thought and still do that it was a boy who served Mass.  I understand that there was an altar server shortage and girls were brought it, but it still seems strange to me. I am not a fan of girls as altar servers, but I understand that most masses would not be covered without the girls.  Some of my friends, boys and girls have altar served and I have no problem with it.  I have heard so many priests say my vocation began when I was an altar server, and I feel that altar serving is a door way to the priesthood.  Burke's comments seem so insignificant when compared to the rest of the interview.

I actually found an article written by a former altar girl who says it far better than I could or can.  Go read it.

The question asked of Cardinal Burke was "Your Eminence, what has been the impact of this Catholic “man-crisis” on the Church?"  Burke's immediate response was "The Church becomes very feminized. Women are wonderful, of course. They respond very naturally to the invitation to be active in the Church. Apart from the priest, the sanctuary has become full of women. The activities in the parish and even the liturgy have been influenced by women and have become so feminine in many places that men do not want to get involved." 

He then gives examples and then launches into the girls as altar servers thing.  He's right on any given Sunday, at least in my parish, the cantor is female, the lector is female and most often the altar servers are female, not to mention that the majority of the extraordinary Communion ministers are also female, thus leaving the priest as the loan male in the sanctuary.  My pastor knows that I will jump to help out as needed, and yes that part of me comes from my mom more than my dad, but dad gives of his time too.  Burke goes on to say that if it seems easy men won't do it, which I can see and honestly he would know better than I would on that one.  

A lot of what Cardinal Burke said could be said for men and/or women especially the next part that stuck out.  "We have to be very clear with men about purity, chastity, modesty and even the way men dress and present themselves. Men’s behaviors and dress matter, for it affects how they relate to the world and it affects the culture. Men need to dress and act like men in a way that is respectful to themselves, to women and to children."

Often when we think of purity, chastity and modesty we put it all on the female population. Very rarely do we hear that men need to dress modestly, now granted a man typically wears a shirt and pants no matter what, so it's easy to lay the blame on the female population as our clothing options are far more extensive and cover far less than male clothing.

Each individual is responsible for how they dress and for how they think and act.  Now there are some females and males who leave nothing to your imagination when they get dressed. As I tell my confirmation students when asked what to wear for the sacrament of Confirmation, "no popping out of your tops or bottoms" and granted it is usually said to the girls as the boys are told to wear a suit or pants, dress shirt and tie at the very least.  The sponsors are told the same thing too, but I don't have much control over them.

We have let our idea of purity go from something that was good and wholesome to something that it now considered old fashioned and not wanted; the same goes for chastity and modesty.  Trying to teach teens about either of those is like taking down a brick wall with only a regular hammer.  Chastity is yet another old fashioned idea that they don't want but desperately need.  Chastity is not the same thing as celibacy, but so many people think it is.  We are called to live chaste lifestyles and if we're not married that means we're supposed to be living a celibate lifestyle.

Society tells us the less clothing we wear, the sexier we are. Some people will say that a women wearing any type of shirt that has writing that happens to align or go across her chest is not modest.  So does that mean that a guy wearing a shirt with writing on it is being immodest.  There is a double standard here mainly because of the media and what they portray as being sexy.  We need to find a middle ground between the two extremes and explain why we should dress modestly.

If men dress better and more carefully and allow women to do the same society will change.  Men need to acknowledge the woman who dresses modestly as sexy not the woman who's showing off everything God gave her.  I was recently watching a show, granted it was a reality tv show but it still proves the point, where a husband was disheartened by his wife using her body, by posting pictures of her half naked, to make money for the family.  There has got to be something better than that for men and women.

It was them mentioned that  "One of the frequent themes in the New Emangelization Project research is that large numbers of men do not understand the Mass. Men think that the Mass is feminized and they don’t really understand the powerful manliness of the Mass. This is particularly true of a majority of Catholic men who are Casual Catholic Men, men who are casual about their faith. This is critical because if a man doesn’t understand the Mass he can’t tap into the supernatural graces that occur in the Mass. A man who doesn’t understand the Mass himself certainly can’t teach his children about the Mass."  

Cardinal Burke responded with "Yes. One way to re-engage men is to restore the dignity of the liturgy. Men will respond when they see a priest reverently acting in the name of Christ. Men will not respond when the priest is putting on a show about himself. Offering the Mass in a reverent way has always attracted men throughout the history of the Church. It does today. We need to catechize men about the profound realities of the Mass. As I mentioned, catechesis has been poor, especially the catechesis of men. Catechizing men and celebrating the Mass in a reverent way will make a big difference. It is also clear that many men will respond to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, the rite celebrated before the Vatican II Council reforms." 

I know Cardinal Burke is a fan of the Extraordinary Form he does say that neither form is better than the other, they are equal.  I have been to both forms of the Mass with the Novus Ordo, the ordinary from of the Mass in the vernacular, being the one I normally go to.  My experiences with the Extraordinary form have been special occasions, a wedding, a Church's anniversary, and a baptism, all wonderful in their own rights, but I'm more comfortable with the Novus Ordo, but that doesn't mean I'm against the Extraordinary form nor should any of us be, it is a beautiful liturgy.

Cardinal Burke is right, when anyone not just a man sees a priest reverently saying the Mass or acting in the Name of Christ they react differently.  I love my pastor dearly, but if you only see or focus on the one side that he seems to alway portray you'd really dislike him, hate is such a strong term, but I'm sure there are members of the parish that do hate him.  However if you watch our pastor say Mass or go to him for Confession, you see a completely different side of him.  The liturgist comes out at Mass, the human comes out at Confession but sides that he shows all the time to certain people.  When I watch him say the high holy Masses, Christmas, Easter, most especially the Triduum, it makes me fall in love with the priesthood and Catholicism all over again, every time.  This has nothing to do with him or me, but with God bestowing His graces on us.

I had to teach our parish RCIA program about the Mass a few weeks ago and I realized that those of us who go week after week so often simply go through the motions and don't understand and most often forget what it is that we are doing. There is so much in the Mass. I keep seeing this quote attributed to St. John Vianney "If we really understood the Mass, we would die of joy." This is quite true, if we truly understood the Mass, we'd realize that we are watching Heaven kiss Earth and that Heaven will be one very long and happy Mass.  I read Dr. Scott Hahn's The Lamb's Supper and it truly changed the way I saw Mass.  I was able to see how Biblical the Mass truly is.  I also started reading Mark Hart's Behold the Mystery: A Deeper Understanding of the Catholic Mass and while I'm only four chapters in but I love it.  Both books bring the Mass to a different level, both bring high theology to a low theology level.

We're back to the whole lack of catechizes in general not just to men.  We no longer teach what Mass is and why we need to God.  Mark Hart in his book constantly reminds us that Mass is not for God for but for us.  We no longer teach that missing Mass is a mortal sin. We need better ways to catechize the flock, those that are in the pews and those that are not in the pews.


Now the joy of being Catholic is that we have the sacrament of Confession, but we're lacking in that department too.  The comment and question was proposed "The Sacrament of Reconciliation has also been abandoned by the vast majority of Catholic men. Only 1 in 50 men go to Confession on a monthly basis. Some 80 percent of men don’t get to Confession even once a year. Combined with the epidemic of pornography, especially among young men, large numbers of Catholic men are in mortal sin. How can the Church reintroduce and emphasize the need for men to go to Confession?" 

The line that stuck out the most in that was "Some 80 percent of men don’t get to Confession even once a year." This is shocking, but not surprising.  Cardinal Burke's answer begins,  "Until men understand that there is Sin, and what Sin is, and that Sin offends God gravely, they will not go to Confession. Men need to have an encounter with God, with our Lord in the Sacrament of Penance to confess their Sins, express their sorrow, and receive His forgiveness. Men are not going to Confession today because there has been a denial of Sin. There was a period after Vatican II where many were promoting the idea that there weren’t any serious sins."

We no longer teach sin, so it's not a surprise that my generation and the one that follows think that sin doesn't exist or that it's okay to not go to Mass for any reason.  Very few realize that missing/skipping Mass puts them in a state of mortal sin, meaning they have completely cut themselves off from God.  We fail to teach about one's eternal soul, Heaven and Hell and where we can end up.   People are not going to Confession because we have failed in catechizing them.  Society has told people that sin and evil do not exist so it's no surprise that people think they don't need confession. We've been taught that we can just confess directly to God and now have to worry about it.  Much like the Mass, the Sacrament of Confession is not for God but for us.  Randomly on my facebook feed an article called Inside the Confessional: What's Is It Like for a Priest? so I read it and it like the books I read on the Mass allowed to see Confession differently.  I know that I don't go to Confession nearly as much as I should, but I do try to fulfill my "requirement" of once a year.  I was lucky that in college there was a retreat offered each semester, along with Penance services offered during Advent and Lent.  When I graduated I was lucky that my parish offered Penance services during Advent and Lent, the parish has sense taken the Lenten Penance service away as the Diocese offers the Sacrament of Confession every Monday during Lent.
So we can't say that the sacrament isn't offered.  Society still tells us that there are no serious sins.  Again I often become the bad guy for trying to teach actual Church teaching. Again, my hope is that something sinks in to the teens and adults that I teach.

The last question that was asked was "What concrete advice would you give to a priest to help him evangelize men and dramatically increase the involvement of men in a parish?" 

Cardinal Burke answered with, "First of all, be manly yourself. In other words, cultivate your own manly qualities, because the priest is first and foremost the spiritual father; he is a man. You need to have manly qualities of selflessness, chivalry and discipline to avoid situations improper for a priest. A priest must have the manly confidence and credibility to be a spiritual father to his flock, giving clear firm guidance with kindness and charity.  Secondly, I’d advise priests to give special attention to men and to look for ways to draw men into the life of the Church. It is easier to engage women because our sisters tend to be very generous and talented.   But the Church and each priest needs to make a determined effort to draw good Catholic men into whatever activities there are in the Church. It is essential to the New Evangelization." 

We tend to forget that our priests are human, just like us, they are not perfect.  At an evangelization directors meeting, the priest who was the Vicar of Evangelization at the time said that when he told pastors that "they were responsible for all the souls in their town not just the Catholics ones," that they would look at him like he was crazy.  What is said is true of all us, we're all responsible for each other, we should be worried about one another's souls.  In reading The Lamb's Supper I can across the line "Now, we can understand why we call priests "Father" and the pope our "Holy Father" - because they are other Christs, and Christ is the perfect image of the Father."  If we remember that our priests are our spiritual fathers, we might treat them differently.  So often I hear people complain about our priests in ways that one would never complain about their biological father.

I can hear the complaints now that the priests are paying more attention to men than to women, but Cardinal Burke brings up many great points in that while women are great for the Church and without our biological and spiritual mothers we would be lost.  We have lost our biological and spiritual fathers and we need to get them back.  So many times I can look back on my life and spiritual journey and see that yes, the sisters that taught me were wonderful and a great image for vocations, but more often it was the priests that I met that truly helped form me.

The Church not only has a man problem, but also a women problem, a people problem, and a secular media problem.  Cardinal Burke's comments are not in anyway offensive to women, but men should take note as should the women in the Church.

As the Father goes, so does the family; it would do us well to educate our young men and remind the rest of us of what Catholicism is really about.

What are my gifts?

So as part of our Evangelization Certificate program and eventual Masters of Theology we have Saturday sessions and this past weekend we talked about what our Spiritual gifts are and what ministries we might be suited for.  As a part of this we took a spiritual inventory and took a look at the answers.  Oddly I wasn't surprised by my answers, well order of gifts and when I read the ministries that are afflicted with my top three (five as three of them tied) I was pleasantly surprised to see me described to a tee.


Here are how my Spiritual gifts ranked:
Serving
Faith
Craftsmanship/Pastor/Teacher
Apostle/Giving/Deeds of Power
Evangelization/Exhortation, Encouragement/Hospitality/Knowledge/Prophet
Discernment/Musician/
Intercession
Mercy
Tongues
Caregiver
Healing/Wisdom
Administration
Missionary

I found it interesting that serving ended up on top, but I'm not surprised by it as I do tend to lean towards serving people and the Church.  I was sort of surprised to see faith up there as high as it was because I haven't felt like my faith was strong at least not as strong as it was in college.  The ministries that use my tops gifts also fit me, I do volunteer with social ministries, I have no problem doing mundane tasks.  I am a lector, greeter, and Eucharistic minister and I would totally run and participate in Bible studies and take pictures of the events in the parish.  CCD teacher, youth leader and teaching are stuff I do already and I've often said I would love to teach the teachers, so it was nice to have my gifts and ministries reaffirmed.  I would love to find a way to get paid to do all this stuff, but that will come I guess.

Hopefully there will be more to come on this later but for now I am off to read for class ;)

Go to your room!

"But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you."

So this week's reading is from Matthew's Gospel.  What comes to mind is the idea of praying in "secret" or alone giving the fact that the highest form of Catholic prayer is public it amuses me that we are told to pray alone.  The word prayer jumps out too as in I need to pray more.  Oddly or not oddly I do tend to pray alone either in the car or in a room away from my family so that I don't get any questions about what I am doing.

My favorite form of prayer is and has been Eucharistic Adoration mainly as I can be by myself.  I've always been the leave me alone type of person not because I don't like people but I just like being by myself.  So I guess I have always found a way to go to my room and pray.  We were given an assignment of doing an Examen prayer in the style of St. Ignatius Loyola.  We're supposed to do it daily at the end of the day so we can look over our day.  I don't mind doing it, I just don't want to look at my life that way as I'll see how imperfect I am.  I mean really who wants to see what they are really made of.

Grad School and Scripture

I have to spend time with Scripture passages for grad school so why not blog about them.  Hey why not right.

So our first reading assignment was Luke 5:1-11


"While the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God, he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret. He saw two boats there alongside the lake; the fishermen had disembarked and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, he asked him to put out a short distance from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. After he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.” Simon said in reply, “Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command I will lower the nets.” When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish and their nets were tearing. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come to help them. They came and filled both boats so that they were in danger of sinking. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him and all those with him, and likewise James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners of Simon. Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” When they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him." 

We were asked to spend time with the scripture passage so of course my mind went straight to doing Lectio Divina with the passage.  You know read it, think about it, read it again, think about it again and pray with it.  Yeah, easier said than done. I read it and attempted to do Lectio but it wasn't the best effort.  My thoughts alway turn to how human St. Peter is.  Of course we discussed it in class and each person thought of something different.  As I was reading the passage I thought of my past trip to Ireland specifically our tour of Donegal, especially the fishing village of Killybegs because when I saw the picture that is below, I thought of this Scripture passage.  What, I am a theology major it makes sense.  What came to mind as I read the passage was the stench of the net; it was nasty.  So I went on to think well ministry can be smelly as it's not always easy and well dealing with teenagers does mean getting dirty literally and figuratively when you discuss the heavy hitting issues.

I always think of the USCCB Vocations video when I read this passage as well, it is called Fishers of Men after all.

The beginning of the film is pretty much this scene from Luke's gospel or is at least meant to make you think of it.  While the video is strictly for priestly vocations it doesn't mean that they are the only ones who can catch the fish.  

In class we discussed Peter's progression of seeing Jesus, listening to Jesus, stopping what he was doing, getting in the boat, which Jesus was already in, listening to Jesus again and finally acting on Jesus' words and asking for help from others.   I wonder how Andrew, James and John feel being in the backseat to Peter.  We know they become Apostles and followers of Jesus, but while they are always around they often take a backseat to Peter. Maybe it's because  we can so easily relate to St. Peter in his ways of really getting it one day and the next falling flat on his face.  However Jesus doesn't care how long it takes us to get it or how often He has to speak to us to get it.  

Ministry is something I have been doing for the majority of my life and so often I wonder am I doing what God wants me to do.  Peter, Andrew, James and John literally drop everything and leave it all behind to follow Jesus.  Do I trust God enough to leave what is comfortable and a pay check behind to do His will?  I honestly don't know and that's been the question on and in my mind since I returned from the Defending the Faith Conference at the end of July.  

We had a session on spiritual gifts and charisms trying to figure out what our individual gifts are.  It was an interesting session which I will get into in another blog  but the session ended with us getting an assignment of spending time in prayer so the next Scripture passage is quite appropriate.

Our second reading assignment is Matthew 6:6

"But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you."

More to come on this later after I sleep and after I actually spend time with it in prayer.

Lent 2014

So begins Lent 2014. This year I'm giving up junk food aka actually sticking to my weight watchers program and giving up the idea of drinking just for the hell of it which is really drinking to forget how crappy life can be at times.  As usual I will add in Liturgy of the Hours and reading books. This year's books are Lenten Reflections from A Father Who Keeps His Promise by Scott Hahn and Lent With Pope Benedict VI: meditations for every day.  This also means I might attempt to read the book that Scott Hahn's reflections are taken from but I might read any one of the books I have sitting in my room.  I know it's a lot to add in but it's stuff I should be doing anyway.  Of course there will be my Friday daily Mass and stations of the cross to follow that Mass. Our parish is offering Theology Tuesdays so I'll go to those and also attempt to to to Mass and the Lenten presentations at St. Paul's.  Most of this is stuff I would and should be doing anyway so it's a lot of getting back to where I was.  Mainly this Lent I want the dark cloud that seems to have a hold on my soul to go away but I know that's easier said than done. I also know that I have opened myself up to fail and I am fine with that as I know that Jesus fell while carrying the Cross but He got up and kept going so that's what I will do should I not be perfect at what I plan in doing. 

I haven't disappeared, I'm still around

Fr. Jim's most recent homily (http://chernjam.blogspot.com/2012/09/being-unfriended.html) sparked in me part of why I've been away from my blog for so long.  I know that not many out there read it and those that do I probably don't even know, however one of these that used to read it along with most of her family have "unfriended" me and they honestly made up most of the audience who actually read it. Long story short I went to a wedding that the former best friend had decided that I didn't need to or should go to so she and half of her family no longer talk to me, some do and they probably hear about it all the time, but whatever.  I'm no longer hiding behind what happened.  Yes, most of the fault probably does fall with me, but I do no regret what I did.  I was the bigger person.

Fr. Jim's right it's a shock to find that you've been unfriended especially when it was left that you might actually be able to talk to the person and they just up and click a button and end a friendship.  Fr. Jim's homily adds to Fr. Derek's comment of God gives and He takes away what isn't good for us.  See I was such a horrible friend by going to the wedding that the countless trips and sleepovers and free babysitting I did for the former best friend was all forgotten.  Being there for her at her wedding and the insanity that surrounded it, doesn't matter anymore.  The 13 years or whatever it was wasn't matter because I disagreed with her on something for the first time in what was a best friendship.

I've had a lot of priests be a part of my life.  Fr. Jim's is mainly an internet friendship as it's on Facebook and blogs that we interact however I've come to realize that the world between Diocese of Paterson and Archdiocese of Newark is quite small and Fr. Jim and I have many mutual friendships as Facebook calls them.  Oddly Fr. Geno makes that an international world now as he's working on the Council for Evangelization.  Fr. Geno is one of these priests that no matter how hard one tries to shake they can't.  I will forever "blame" Fr. Geno aka FG for who and what I am.

FG started the youth ministry program that I was a part of in high school and am now proudly helping to run at the parish.  When he left the parish I was at Seton Hall, so I wasn't overly attached to the home parish, but I still looked forward to FG's homilies and masses when I came home on the weekends.  We in essence went our separate ways after my freshman years at SHU until our worlds reconnected a few years ago at a "small" place known as St. Paul's Inside the Walls.

Bishop Serratelli tasked FG with building an Evangelization Center, and that they did.  Through St. Paul's I got to see the crazy priest that I knew in high school acting in much the same way as he did back then.  Before he left for Rome and the Vatican FG had an overnight retreat for certain young adults that were hand picked to be there.  The topic was friendships in Christ and how they affect our lives.

During the retreat Fr. Geno talked about trust, friendships, prayer, and of course God.  Looking back on it, God was giving the grace to finally say goodbye to the 13 year friendship that maybe one day will return but for now it won't.  Fr. Derek in one of our "classes" on catechesis as Evangelization talked about the Dark Night of the Soul and how the further away God seems the closer we are to Him.  During one of these sessions he said something along the lines of "God gives us friendships and sometimes He takes them away.  God takes away things that might seem good for us but may not be."  I thought of the former best friend and said yes yes He does.  Fr. Derek's comment came before Fr. Geno's retreat, but they all tie into me reading Fr. Jim's blog and saying, yes it is odd and a shock when you get de/unfrieneded on Facebook.

I've been busy with St. Paul's and learning more about Evangelization and ways to get people back to and into the Catholic Church.  I'm spending my Sunday evening with the greatest joys in my life, the parish teens, showing them that being Catholic is serious but it's also alot of fun.  I'm one again teaching in the Confirmation program, I'm still an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion and active at the parish on a few committees, so yes I'm busy and don't usually have time to sit and blog. Work is work and keeps me busy from 9am-7pm.

I'm still around but when I'm not in front of the computer (or iPad and wireless keyboard) I'm at work, or at the parish or at St. Paul's sharing and learning more about the Catholic faith.

So with the drama of the last year and a half finally out on the internet I hope to return to blogging but I know it won't be conssistent.