Saint Patrick's Day

Dear friends in Christ,

One of the most popular days of celebration is Saint Patrick's Day. It is a day where people where green; it is the day where everybody is Irish, even if you aren't; it is the day where people celebrate Irish Heritage. But when celebrating Saint Patrick's Day, are we celebrating Saint Patrick, or are we using the day as an excuse for excessing partying?

Saint Patrick was an evagelist. He was born in England, and when he was 16 he was captured by Irish raiders and taken back to Ireland. After several years he escaped and returned to England. After becoming Christian he returned to Ireland as a missionary. He used the three leaf clover to explain the mystery of the Trinity to the Irish: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

But little is known about the life of Saint Patrick. If he followed the example of other contemporary saints, we can assume that he practiced a life of penance and sacrifice. By the time Patrick was around, it was after the Edict of Milan in the early fourth century, which legalized the practice of Christianity in the Roman Empire. One couldn't be martyred as a way to show his or her devotion to their faith, so the practice of self denial and sacrifices developed as a way to become more Christ like. Most likely, Saint Patrick lived a life of great penances for the Irish people.

So how do we go from a man who lived a life of great penances to the modern ideal of celebrating Saint Patrick's Day, drinking excessively and partying? When I was in college, Saint Patrick's Day was a great excuse for indulgence for many people. Last night I walked by a local Irish tavern, and the parking lot was full. I can't judge those people, but I wonder how many drank excessive amounts. I also wonder what Saint Patrick thinks of what has happened to his feast day; instead of going to Mass to give thanks to the patron saint of Ireland, and the reason why Ireland and the Irish have been traditionally Catholic, people would rather give thanks at the bar. People's priorities are backward; instead of giving thanks for the life of Saint Patrick, they use the day as an excuse to indulge in activities that can be contrary to what Saint Patrick stood for.

And I am talking about indulgence; there is nothing wrong with celebrating the life of Saint Patrick with a Guiness, but multiple Guinesses? And drinking into the early morning? Is this what St. Patrick would like to see? Probably not. I had a beer last night, and I don't always have a beer, but to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, I had one. I didn't drink into the early morning, nor did I get beligerently drunk. And despite that, I still had a very nice Saint Patrick's day.

Let us try to remember the real life of Saint Patrick, and let's try to celebrate the day with reverence towards Saint Patrick. And instead of worshipping the tavern ale, let's try to worship Christ, since this is the greatest tribute to Saint Patrick.

St. Patrick, ora pro nobis.

A point of clarification

Some of the readers of this blog may be confused by the fact that this blog has stuff on the priesthood on it and the other blog I run has stuff exclusively on the priesthood, yet I have pictures up of my recent engagement. I want to go on the record to avoid confusion that I am not a priest, nor am I a seminarian. I was in the seminary, but not anymore, and I am discerning with my fiancee about married life. I work at a seminary, and I happen to work in a vocations office, with my full time work being priestly vocations work, but let me say again, I am engaged, and I am not a priest or a seminarian.

I do realize that my life is very ironic. Here I am, having been in seminary and on my off times living in a rectory, and now I work in a seminary and I live in an old convent that has been converted into a Catholic men's house. There I was, discerning whether I was called to be a priest, and now I work full time for priestly vocations. God is probably laughing, because I know I am. But God is good; I know I wasn't looking to be where I am now; it just was a number of chance occurances that got me here. But they aren't chance occurances, since I know God knows what he is doing, and I know I will be ok as long as I listen to Him and follow His will for me. I feel very confident that I am supposed to be doing what I am doing right now. And because of that, I have a lot of consolation.

I suggest you do the same: listen to Him and do not worry, whatever may come your way.

May you all remain close to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Prayer for Priestly Vocations

Lord Jesus, you called chosen men to be with you: to preach the good news of salvation and to have authority over the powers of darkness. Send your Holy Spirit upon the men you have chosen for the priestly ministry. May they answer your call and follow you with generous hearts. Amen.

Love and Marriage

I proposed to my girlfriend Angela this past weekend. Below are the pictures. Let me just tell you how excited I am to be planning to spend the rest of my life with this woman. She is so exquisite and beautiful, so honest, loving, and caring. She makes me want to be a better man.

We have now dived head first into wedding prep, doing stuff for reception halls, the Nuptial Mass, as well as guest lists and a whole host of other things. It is sort of terrifying to see all the stuff we have to do in the next six months. The wedding date is August 22nd, which for all of you liturgists out there is the Memorial of the Queenship of Mary. In the old calendar, August 22nd is the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. When I saw this, I knew I wanted to get married on that date. Angela and I's favorite Marian title is the Immaculate Heart, and so I think it would be very appropriate.

But as we are travelling full speed to August 22nd, we must remember that this is still a period of discernment, and I must remember to keep talking about life after the wedding, when Angie and I will be married and in our own place, trying to do the will of God. We both want a good number of children. I have thrown out the number 12, and she has thrown out 7. However, while it does kind of matter what we think, God is the one who will allow us to get pregnant with the number of children he wants us to have. As long as we are open to God's plan for us, we will do alright.

By being open to God's plan, let me explicitly say that in a marriage, there is no room for contraception or any other form of birth control which attempts to take the power of God out of God's hands and make it your own choice. Contraception is intrinsically evil because it doesn't allow a man and woman to fully partake in what sexual intercourse was intended. Sexual intercourse is the beautiful mix of unity and procreation, and when one of them is not present, a man and woman are not making love, but simply having sex. They are then in it solely for pleasure. I don't intend to take pleasure out of the act of making love (because you probably can't do that), but the pleasure should be directed towards the openness to procreativity.

Anyway, I hate to soapbox when I talking about such a great event in my life. But I am very happy, and Angie makes me happy. Thanks Angie for saying yes. I love you, and I look forward to spending the rest of my life with you.

Finding God in little things

Dear friends,
As I was driving into work this morning, I had to constantly find alternative ways to go, since the roads I typically drive on were closed due to a police officer's funeral at the cathedral. But when I reflect on this morning, I realized that God was teaching me patience. Here I was, late as it was since I overslept by 30 minutes or so, hitting road closures. I usually get to work around 9 AM. I didn't leave this morning until 9 AM, where I usually leave at 8:20-8:30. And instead of it taking me 30 minutes to get to work, it took me an hour. Everything was working against me this morning.

But yet, I reflect. Everything happens for a reason. Perhaps it prevented me getting in an accident, or some other thing. I know I was being taught patience, and I think I did ok in that department this morning. I didn't pass with flying colors, and I know that in order to be saint-like one must be ready to see God in everything and be ready to accept it. My problem with many things is that when something happens, I don't necessarily think about God, but rather about the problem. I tend to reflect on it afterwards. One of the constant criticisms about myself is that I fail to see God in every situation I face throughout the day, and as a result I kind of wonder why I don't think about God more often throughout the day. For Pete's sake, I work in a priestly vocations office for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. I should be thinking more about God, but in the little mundane things of the day, I fail to see God, but rather, I focus on the mundane thing itself. I have noticed this before, and yet I never seem to do any better at it.

I need to continually strive to find God in the little things.

Courage

Friends,

If we don't have courage to preach the Gospel and to live a Christ-filled life in cooperation with the Holy Catholic Church, in what can we have courage? For courage, true courage, is to live a Christ filled life in the face of adversity, to be true to Christ, and to consider Christ your friend, and there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for his friends. To be courageous is to imitate Christ. Therefore, let us imitate Christ in all of the actions we do. May we never be afraid to stand up for the Truth of the Faith. May we always stand up for life in the increasingly venomous culture of death. Live your faith in its entirety, and this is the greatest way to joy and fulfillment. It is easy to throw aside the Church teaching you don't agree with; it is courageous to joyfully acknowledge that the Truths of the Faith is sometimes beyond our intellect and to assent to that truth regardless. Friends, open up your hearts to the living God, the Christ, who died for our sake.

Prepare the Way of the Lord

I continue to be delinquent in my posts on this blog. I am currently working hard to keep another blog up to date. That one is www.HeedingTheCall.blogspot.com. It is a blog for the Vocation Office for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and I try to put something up at least once per week, something related to priestly discernment and vocation.

But for this blog, I offer a little meditation for this Sunday's Gospel. We are progressing through the Season of Advent, the season in which we are mindful of the Love of God, because He gave us His Son for the sake of our salvation. We are constantly in a time of preparation and waiting, but the Season of Advent reminds us to be extra vigilant.

The Gospel of Mark immediately goes back to the prophet Isaiah, when the Evangelist says "Make ready the way of the Lord, clear him a straight path." When we hear this passage, we can take it perhaps two different ways. The first is a literal way, sanctifying one's surroundings as a way to prepare for the Lord. One may, in one's home, put a little Nativity Scene to remind us to prepare the way of the Lord. We may light candles, and maybe even burn incense.

The second way if a spiritual way. Instead of lighting candles in your home, God lights our hearts with the fire of His love. In this way of preparing for the Lord, we look to an interior cleansing as a way to grow closer in love of God. Advent is a special time to be mindful of growing in love of God, with graces given to us by God. So what are things we can do to dispose ourselved to these graces in this time or preparation? Prayer is the first order of business. By partaking in daily prayer, we are setting aside time every day to strengthen our relationship with God. I always say that in order to strengthen any relationship, there must be communication, and when there isn't communication, the relationship stalls.

The same is true of God. We must continually talk to him, and when we don't, our subjective relationship with him stalls. We must distinguish between an objective relationship and a subjective one. The objective will remain the same: A baptized man or woman will always remain an adopted child of God, for example. Nothing you do can change that, but the subjective flows from that, and makes us ask, how can we, from graces received at Baptism, continue to strengthen our relationship? And the answer is communication. Jesus speaks to us as well, but most of the time, unless we are Saint Paul, we must dispose ourselves to hear what he is saying. That involves quiet in a loud world. Sometimes that silent prayer is a sacrifice. There is always something else to do, but to take 10-15 minutes to pray can sometimes seem impossible to fit into a schedule. It involves sacrifice, and discipline.

So there are many simple things you can do to sanctify your day, preparing for yourself to prepare the way of the Lord. Many churches at this time of year have little meditation books in the back of Church that you can use for your meditation. They usually take 10 minutes at most. One of my Advent goals is to go through one such meditation book, and every day, praying through that meditation. Another way to prepare for the coming of Christ at Christmas is to pray the Rosary every day. Now, sometimes, we can say: "But doesn't it take like 30 minutes to pray?" I offer you this: First, it take at most 25 minutes if you pray it reverently, 20 if you move at a faster pace. But no matter how fast or slow you may pray the Rosary, you can always pray it in the car on the way to and from work. I typically pray a Rosary on the way into work every day, and sometimes I pray it going home. I think of it as a sacrifice when I could be listening to Christmas music. There is also daily Mass; one can benefit greatly from abundant graces recieved at Holy Mass, so I would really recommend this one if you want to get the most out of the Season.

Many people do not realize that like the Season of Lent, Advent is a penetential season. Unlike Lent, Advent isn't a good time to give up your favorite food, since there are a number of parties during the season. I would hate to give up chocolate and go to three or four parties with big chocolate fountains. It would drive me nuts. There are other things to either give up, or to take up. Prayer is a great thing to take up, and it might be good to give up something like talking on the cell phone in the car when driving. First, it will free you up to offer prayer instead of chatter, and second, you will be a safer driver.

Preparing the way of the Lord is an important theme in Advent; it is the Season of Waiting, and so we await the coming of Christmas, that special day in which we remember the birthday of Jesus, who came into the world for the salvation of mankind. In the midst of all the parties, all the shopping, Christmas cards, and caroling, we must set aside some time to remember the real reason for all of those things. May you continue to have a safe and holy Advent, and may you strive to have the faith of a child, for Christ has taught us what it means to be a child by His birth at Christmas. Take care, and God bless you all.

St. Nicholas, pray for us.
St. Francis Xavier, pray for us.
Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, pray for us.