Christmas

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

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*

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.