The church’s celebration of the birth of our Lord

"Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord.”

These angelic words express the heart of this celebration that gathers us here tonight/today. We celebrate the birth of our savior and sing with the Angels, “Glory to God in the highest”. For the past four weeks we have been preparing for the birth of Christ. We have been the people who have walked in darkness that long to see the wondrous light. Tonight/Today that light illimines our hearts with tidings of comfort and Joy. Yet, we cannot forget that we are really celebrating a real person’s birthday, the birthday of Christ. There are those families that will go so far as to bake a cake and have their children blow out the candles to remind themselves of the reality of this birthday.

Around the middle of November, a student who was writing an article for the Iowa State Daily came to me and asked me to comment on the status of Christmas. As you are undoubtedly aware, Christmas began about two weeks before Thanksgiving this year for most retailers. He asked if I thought there were really two Christmases, two different uses of the same word, that people were invoking. It was with regret that I admitted to him that I, in fact, thought that to be true. Christmas is a national holiday in the United States. Most Americans will celebrate it. Yet, I believe that a sharp division is being drawn between a secular understanding of Christmas and the true celebration of Christmas that takes place in the lives of Christians. While I’m not willing to say there is a war on Christmas, I believe we would be mistaken if we were to deny the schism that has taken place.

The secular celebration, as I said, begins at least a month before the actual date of Christmas. While there is still sentiments of good will towards men, for the most part it deals with buying presents. Radio stations begin playing our Christian Christmas melodies over the air for a month, which will end precisely at midnight on December 26. The Christian celebration begins with an acknowledgement of waiting and preparation, similar to the secular celebration. But, we don’t usurp the celebration by worrying about details like shopping and presents. I mean, let’s face it, if it were my birthday, you wouldn’t start singing happy birthday a month and a half before the actual date. You would at least wait until the day of my birth before you started to do that. And I would hope that you would worry more about the gifts that you were giving me than the gifts you were giving to those coming to the birthday party. To me these two realities identify the largest difference between the secular understanding of Christmas and our Christian understanding: we believe that Jesus was a real person and that his birth was a real event. The Lord of Life who created us and watched with pain as we succumbed to the temptations of the evil one decided to walk among us and come into this world as “an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” We believe that the prophecies from old have been fulfilled. “For a child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.”

And, for me, the most palpable difference between the two celebrations takes place in the days following Christmas. As the secular parts of society quickly turn from tidings of comfort and joy back toward the normalcy of life, Christians are just gearing up. The children may neglect the great presents Santa Claus gave to them. You may find yourself standing in line trying to return that one-size-too-small sweater that your family member gave to you. But you will come to church and finally sing the songs that celebrate Jesus’ birthday. Because, like our secular counterparts, we believe this celebration is too important to confine to one day. We want to celebrate it for about three weeks, until the celebration of the Epiphany. Yet, we also need to discover ways to live out this celebration of the birth of the Lord, to celebrate each day the God who dared to walk among us as one like us though free from sin.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that you have to buy gifts for your family members each day of these three weeks. That’s really more a part of the secular celebration than the Christian one, though we can’t forget that tradition began when a certain Saint Nicholas gave candy to the poor children of his city. No, instead, let us focus on the side of things that our society tends to neglect: Good will towards our fellow human beings. Let this celebration be a time to love one another with even more gusto, especially family members that may be difficult to love. Let the good news of great joy continue to affect your life this Christmas season. Sing the great songs of praise for our King who walks among us.

Merry Christmas

Even though I plan on putting my Christmas homily up here before I leave for home, I want to wish you all a merry Christmas and hope you keep reading my blog into the next year. You are all in my thoughts and prayer in the hope of the coming of our Lord.

finding forgiveness

In ministry, I often have to wear many hats. I talk to someone and realize that I can't share that with someone else. I know that a college student has a crush on someone and that person confesses he has a crush on her. It's strange when it happens to me. Recently, I got very angry with someone. I'd rather not go into details because it's not worth it. But, I had the opportunity recently to reconcile with that person, not in the sacramental sense but in the practical sense. We basically didn't talk and the avenue of communication just opened spontaneously. In other words, we both decided that, regardless of what divided us in the past. I hope the good will will continue between us.

New Hope in the midst of a deprived and twisted generation

I took two groups of students to the Twin Cities yesterday and today. One group went to St. Agnes and another went to St. Joan of Arc. St. Agnes church is known for its celebration of a Latin Mass at 10:00 Sunday Morning. It's a rather complex mass in many ways involving a lot of servers and bows and such. Some of the students said that they didn't feel as participatory as they would have liked, which told me that I need to be better prepared for Latin next year. The people responded and we didn't because we didn't know how. They also just needed a little more general preparation. Even though it's the mass as we all know it, there are a few changes that deserve explanation such as taking communion at the communion rail on the tongue while kneeling.

When we met up with the students that went to Joan of Arc they had a different reaction. Joan of Arc is known for its differentness. They actually strive to be different and do the barest amount possible to remain in the church. The students hated it. They couldn't see the catholicism in it and were worried about what made the children that went there actually love the church. They felt like they still needed to go to mass.

The people who went to St. Agnes were impressed with St. Agnes and were hoping to bring things back. They were perplexed by some things but genuinely felt like they loved the mass. It gives me hope that people don't want to be Protestants, don't want to make the mass into a "worship service". They want to learn how to love what is authentically catholic. If only we could make sure all the priests felt the same.

Bruskewitz vindicated

Vatican affirms excommunication of Call to Action members in Lincoln

By S.L. Hansen
Catholic News Service

LINCOLN, Neb. (CNS) -- The Vatican has upheld Bishop Fabian W. Bruskewitz's decision 10 years ago that membership in Call to Action "is totally incompatible with the Catholic faith" and results in automatic excommunication for Catholics in the Diocese of Lincoln.

In a Nov. 24 letter to the Lincoln bishop, made public Dec. 8, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Bishops, told Bishop Bruskewitz that his ruling "was properly taken within your competence as pastor of that diocese."

"The judgment of the Holy See is that the activities of Call to Action in the course of these years are in contrast with the Catholic faith due to views and positions held which are unacceptable from a doctrinal and disciplinary standpoint," the cardinal said in his letter.

"Thus to be a member of this association or to support it is irreconcilable with a coherent living of the Catholic faith," he added.

Bishop Bruskewitz said he hopes Cardinal Re's letter will bring clarity to Catholics who have continued their affiliation with Call to Action, Call to Action Nebraska or the 10 other groups cited in the original "statement of extrasynodal legislation," a formal canonical notice that they would be automatically excommunicated if they remained members of those groups.

"My prayer will always be that when people understand they have taken a wrong turn, they will stop and take the right turn," the bishop said.

He said Catholics who wish to return to full communion with the church must repudiate their membership in the groups by sending a letter to the organization and having their names removed from any rosters or mailing lists. Then they can seek out the sacrament of reconciliation, where their priests can guide them in confession and penance.

Although the Vatican letter only dealt with Call to Action, the other groups named by Bishop Bruskewitz were: Planned Parenthood, Society of St. Pius X, Hemlock Society, St. Michael the Archangel Chapel, Freemasons, Job's Daughters, DeMolay, Eastern Star, Rainbow Girls and Catholics for a Free Choice.

The Hemlock Society works to legalize physician-assisted suicide, and Planned Parenthood and Catholics for a Free Choice both support keeping abortion legal.

Job's Daughters, DeMolay, Eastern Star and Rainbow Girls all are affiliated with the Masons. The Society of St. Pius X and St. Michael the Archangel Chapel both oppose the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council and celebrate Mass in the Tridentine rite.

After the Vatican decision, Bishop Bruskewitz said he felt a duty to lead the people under his pastoral care away from organizations perilous to the faith.

"Parents have to tell children that they can't test everything in the medicine cabinet or drink everything under the sink," the bishop explained. "The church is our mother and gives us these instructions as protection against dangers we might not perceive. ... It is liberating, not enslaving."

The bishop said he hopes people affected by his ruling will remedy their situations without delay.

"The Lord loves everyone and died for everyone, and he wants all to be saved," he said. "The best lesson that can be learned from everything that has happened is that one finds happiness, joy and satisfaction in obedience to the church."

Bishop Robert F. Vasa of Baker, Ore., was vicar general of the Diocese of Lincoln in 1996 and general secretary of the diocesan synod that issued the decree of excommunication.

Upon hearing of the Vatican's response, he said, "There never was any question of the bishop's right to do this and the suitability given the circumstances. I'm pleased to see that the Holy See has publicly affirmed Bishop Bruskewitz's decree and authority."

Call to Action, founded after the U.S. bishops' national Call to Action conference in Detroit in 1976, works to change church teachings in such areas as mandatory celibacy for priests, the male-only priesthood, the selection process for bishops and popes, and opposition to artificial contraception.

The Chicago-based national organization claims a membership of more than 25,000 people in 53 local chapters, and holds an annual conference in Milwaukee.

Talking about his 1996 warning that Catholics would excommunicate themselves by maintaining membership in Call to Action and/or Call to Action Nebraska, which drew national media attention, Bishop Bruskewitz said he was "determined to face up to the media so that it didn't look like I was ashamed of my decision."

The diocese was soon flooded with feedback, 95 percent of which supported his decision, he said.

The bishop said he did not anticipate a similar reaction to the Vatican's official ruling on the matter. "I can't imagine that there is much interest," he said.

The incredible gift of forgiveness

It happened again last night. We had the second of our communal reconciliation liturgies. It was truly powerful to sit and reconcile people to God. It was just one of those times when being the intermediary of God's grace is just incredible.

Dealing with Life's Hard Pathways

For some reason, I tend to think and preach about my three and a half month experience in Israel a lot around this time of year. I'm not sure if it is just because I was getting home on a frosty cold Minnesota day similar to the ones that we had this past week or exactly why, but I remember a time in Israel, when I had the opportunity to visit the area in which John the Baptist did his ministry. I imagine that, like me you don’t know that the best viewing time of the Dead Sea area is at sunrise, or at least that’s what my professor said. I remember feeling hostility at that professor while standing at one of the city gates by 6:30 in the morning waiting for two Jeeps to haul us Sout. Nonetheless, I was there along with the rest of my class and heading out of a very quiet and peaceful Jerusalem and into the cold hilly desert. The name Jordan means "coming down" and that's pretty much what we did for the next couple of hours of driving. There would be short periods where our driver would negotiate a small hill but, for the most part, we got accustomed to the perspective of a angular descent.

We passed by the area where the Jordan River empties into the Dead Sea. Of course, we were all trying to pretend that we were wide awake listening to our instructor tell us about the animals and plants native to the area when, in truth, we were all sleeping with our eyes open. We soon came upon this area that reminded me a lot of the bluffs along the Mississippi River. The main difference was that, instead of lush vegetation and beautiful houses lining these bluffs, it looked as barren as any other part of the desert. Our driver pulled over and we all got out of our Jeeps yawning and stretching. Essentially, we were out in the middle of nowhere. When our instructor pointed to the top of one of the bluffs and said, "That is cave one. We're going to climb up there." I thought to myself, "no sweat. I can make it. I've walked at Loras College in Dubuque, the college built on a hill that will never fall. I can make it up this thing." The problem was that there was no footing while walking in all that sand. We all struggled partway up the hill until our instructor taught us a trick. Instead of going directly at this kind of hill, it's best to walk at angles so that the hill is not so steep. Sure, it did increase the distance but it was a fair trade-off to not take one step forward and slip two steps back in the sand.

It made me appreciate the kind of difficulty that John the Baptist would have had when he lived in that area. And he didn't even have the luxury of cars and highway 30s that we have today. He would have had to walk everywhere in that sandy desert up hill and down. I think that's why both he and our first reading from the prophet Baruch sought the day when "Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The winding roads shall be made straight and the rough ways made smooth..." That way when they were doing ministry just getting there wouldn't be so hard. It is much easier to do ministry if you didn’t blow all your energy going from place to place.

But something even more profound than that is happening in our readings today. John and Baruch aren't just lazily trying to get out of hard work. They are also using this as an analogy to talk about life. Oftentimes, our church talks about us as a pilgrim people to describe our relationship to God. Our life on earth is really a journey of drawing closer to God. Sometimes there are mountains that get in our way when problems pile up and we wonder if God really is out there. Sometimes we make mountains out of molehills, especially when we allow fights between siblings to destroy our families. Other times, there are valleys that get in the way of our relationship to God, like when we realize that we haven't taken the time to pray as we should and we feel like we could never get started because we are so far behind. We don't realize that God isn't keeping score. He just wants us to start! So often, we allow other things to take priority over building that primary relationship we have with God. Technology can slowly dig a hole between us and our family and friends. Sometimes the best thing we can do is turn off the TV or computer and spend some time talking to our family or our God. This past week, we began a tradition here at St. Thomas by inviting you all to come for catechesis on the Jesse Tree. Many of you responded and discovered how the Jesse Tree, from the book of Isaiah, connects us through out ancestors to great people of faith. We hope that you can see in that exercise the importance of getting rid of all the valleys and mountains that interfere with our relationships to our family and friends and how important it is to take time with one another.

Yet, sometimes we encounter a winding road that seems to waste our time with all its twists and turns. Maybe it’s a friend or a family member that seems to drift in and out of our life. Maybe it’s those days when work is full of frustration and home is anything but peaceful. Maybe it’s when we think that we have a free day and end up spending the whole day doing some unexpected job. These experiences seem frustrating and can leave us ready to rip our hair out. Yet, pay attention to these curvy roads because they are the ones that help us appreciate our straight paths. They can teach us about what we truly value in life.

Ultimately this path that we walk is one walked with others toward God. What kind of path are you on right now? How can you make it a little more straight and smooth?

Why we'll miss coach Mac

I've been looking for a video that clearly shows what Iowa State will miss in firing coach Dan McCarney. I finally found it at 3:10 in the morning. Here it is. It deals with a game that I actually was at when the UNLV coach decided to act like a 2 year old and protest the last call of the game. He chased the officials into the locker room and kept his team on the field an extra 15 minutes claiming that a play was not reviewed. Unfortunately for him it had been and had been ruled out of bounds. Some people refuse to take no for an answer.

It was shameful. If I was a UNLV fan, I would have immediately called for his dismissal. Coach Dan McCarney was and is a class act. This is not to say that man who replaced him is not a class act. I'm not going to lie. I have concerns about bringing in someone from University of Texas...that's mostly because I'm mostly because I'm a Texas A&M fan, the Texas equivalent to the Cyclones. But, I think it's worth mentioning that Coach Dan McCarney acts in a way that represents the institution for which he is coaching well. He made the Cyclones proud to be cyclones again.

Where's our snow?

I'm a little disappointed, to be honest, that we didn't get any snow in Iowa, at least not where I live. They told us we probably would and then there was none. It all went to the East...Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan. I look out and there's a lot of cold students walking past my window and the grass still has a bit of green in it, although even that is beginning a turn to the deadly brown of winter. I like the first snow and then I'm ready for spring. The snow is so clean and pure. Maybe I should realize that the first snow is just being put off for a while and be happy that every snowfall that misses us is just putting winter off a little while longer.

From Catholic World News

Nov. 27 (AsiaNews) - Chinese officials plan to install another Catholic bishop without the permission of the Holy See, the AsiaNews service reports.

Apparently breaking a "truce" with the Vatican, which had stopped the illicit ordination of new bishops, Bishop Qian Yurong of Xuzhou will ordain his vicar general, Father Wang Renlei, as a bishop on November 30, reliable sources told AsiaNews.

Canon law bars the ordination of a new bishop without approval from the Vatican; the ordinary punishment for violation of that ban is excommunication. Chinese government officials said that the bishop-elect was chosen "democratically;" AsiaNews reports that the choice was made by the government's religious-affairs bureau.

Bishop Qian, a strong supporter of the Chinese government, is one of the relatively Chinese bishops of China's "official" Catholic Church who have not sought recognition from the Holy See, AsiaNews reports.

A book by the Pope....

I got an email from a friend that said Benedict is going to carry on the tradition of his predecessor of releasing a theological book aside from his formal theological tretises. John Paul II released two books, one called "Crossing the Threshold of Hope" and "Rise, let us be on our way" that were both personal reflections, basically. It's very interesting to think about the idea of a book in the context of papal documents but I'll spare you the disagreement over canonical identification. Instead, I am saying that I can't wait until I get to read this because it deals with understanding Jesus. Given the patently false assumptions that are out there by folks like Dan Brown, the Pope is going to address people that can't imagine the historical/church understanding of Jesus to be true. Here is a quote from what may be the introduction....

"Less justified in an historical "inquest" on Jesus, it seems to me, is the care with which Augias collects all of the insinuations about the presumed homosexual bonds existing among the disciples, or between Jesus and "the disciple whom he loved" (but wasn't he supposed to be in love with the Magdalene?), as also the detailed description of the sordid episodes of some of the women in the genealogy of Christ. One has the impression that this inquest on Jesus sometimes turns into gossip about Jesus.

But the phenomenon has an explanation. There has always existed the tendency to dress Christ in the clothing of one's own time or one's own ideology. In the past, as arguable as they were, there were serious causes of great depth: Christ as idealist, socialist, revolutionary... Our age, which is obsessed with sex, is unable to think of him except in relation to emotional problems. I believe that the combination of an openly alternative journalistic outlook together with an historical view that is also radical and minimalistic has produced a result that is on the whole unacceptable, not only for the man of faith, but also for the historian."

Christ is the King who reigns from the cross

About a week ago and a half ago two things happened for me. The bottom dropped out of what had been a very hectic semester. Most of the events I was planning came to an end and, as many of you now, I have to leave the students alone to be able to study and prepare for finals. Virtually simultaneous with that event came my first cold of the season, a cold that you can still hear in my lungs despite tons of rest, liquids, and even turkey noodle soup provided by some very caring students. So, with my extra time, I canceled every meeting that I felt I could and stayed at home doing what is my second love in life, reading history. I read over one of my favorite subjects in German history, a period that I believe to be the defining moment in the history of my ancestors. Now, you may think that I’m referring to the period immediately after World War 2 during the rebuilding project but you would be wrong. You may even think that I’m referring to the period after World War One and the failed Treaty of Versailles. But, alas, you would again be wrong.

No, the time period in German history I find fascinating is immediately after the Protestant Reformation. After all, arguably the most famous reformer, Martin Luther, was from Germany. And, unlike England and other countries that are far away from Rome, Germany is the Pope’s next-door neighbor. When Martin Luther nailed his theses up on the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral, some were ecstatic and others less so. Literally, it made father turn against son and mother against daughter. Each European country dealt with the Reformation differently. England decided to make a wholesale switch to Anglicanism. Germany, on the other hand, decided that, basically, the local leader would decide which religion the county would be. So, to put it in modern terms, if the prince of Ames was Catholic, all his subjects would be Catholic too. If he were Protestant, all his people would be Protestant. And, of course, if there was a leadership change there may very well also be a religious change. If the Catholic prince came in and over threw his Protestant predecessor, everyone became Catholic. This marked a very confusing time in Germany history in which counties would fight against one another because of a difference in denominational leadership and secret groups of Christians would meet depending on who was in charge that week to overthrow the leadership.

I think there is an interesting parallel to this in today’s first and second reading, which sets the tone for this celebration of Christ the King. In the book of Daniel we hear that when the Son of Man comes, a title that Jesus used about himself, he would come from the clouds to destroy all the powerful armies of the world. The book of Revelation also shows this type of imagery, only they apply it to the second coming of Christ. Jesus will overcome the power of the enemy by his power. Both of these writings were done during persecutions not totally unlike post reformation Germany. The book of Daniel was written about 150 years before Jesus came when an evil Roman leader named Antiochus Epiphanes came to power. He sought to make all people follow the pagan religion of the Romans. Understandably, certain Jews had a problem with this. They stood up to this tyranny by continuing to practice the exclusive laws within Judaism, not the free flowing legislation of paganism. For their bravery, many died.

Similarly, after the death of Christ, Christianity became a forbidden religion. Many people died simply because they desired to follow the way of Christ. It is no surprise, therefore, that people needed to have hope during these persecutions. Think about our own time. I think all political pundits agree that the reason we had such a drastic change in leadership during the last election was because of dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq. We don’t know how to solve this problem that we caused and we are becoming increasingly distrustful of leaders that tell us we just need to keep trying. We hear no hope in that message.

In times of persecution, people need to hear that in the end the good guys will win. That’s what the books of Daniel and Revelation tell us. That even when we have corrupt leaders who make decisions that compromise human life, it will get better. Good will triumph over evil, God will triumph over sin and death and bring us into the kingdom of his beloved Son. But when you look closely at the gospel, you realize that it paints a wildly different image of Christ as King than that triumphal image from Revelation and Daniel. We hear from the Gospel of John, not from a victorious Son of Man who is coming in the clouds to topple the government of Rome. Not from the God who is the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega, the great Oz behind the curtain. We hear from Jesus Christ who has been imprisoned and is entirely alone. He is being interrogated by the local leader, Pontius Pilate, knowing full well that, for himself, being lifted up as leader will mean that he will be lifted up on the cross to die. This is the Son of Man in reverse. He wasn’t there to take over Israel in a bloody coup. He was there to take over Israel by dying on the cross so that death’s power would be sucked dry and we might have the hope of eternal life. That’s why Pilate couldn’t understand that Jesus was a King unlike any King that he had known, certainly not a political threat to him.

We began this month with the feasts of All Saints and All Soul’s, a time to pray for those of our loved ones who have passed away and ask for the saints to pray for us. We have done this each time we gathered together by reading names from our Book of Remembrance at the beginning of mass. We end this month by remembering how it is that there are saints at all – that Christ our King took his throne on the cross to die for our sins. We don’t have a king that will fight a bloody war with countless casualties on each side in order to gain power for himself, we have a King that models for us what it means to freely serve our neighbors even to the point of shedding our life. In this world of power and authority, we Christians must be like Christ and see our real authority in weakness.

A great Thanksgiving

Today was so much day that it's hard to believe it was only 24 hours long!

I went to mass at my home parish in Marshalltown, which I love to do because I get to concelebrate in that beautiful familiar structure. Then we had our family Thanksgiving dinner, which is again so familar to me.

The one strange thing is that my nieces and nephews are getting older. The younger ones still want to play outside but the older ones don't anymore. It's strange to think that they may be coming to ISU sometime. I pray for them all the time because I know that if the world is getting this immoral at this point in history, what's it going to be like when they get here?

More razzing from the disenfranchised....

I was looking around the net and found this article from (excommunicated) Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo affirms the vaticans decision that celibacy is integral to priesthood while simultaneously believing that "Celibacy should be a freely chosen charism and not a job requirement. Not every priest has the charism to be celibate and this is the problem because the church forces it on him or he cannot be ordained. It is a requirement that violated human freedom..."

First of all, priesthood is not a job. Priesthood is a vocation. It is a life/calling. While one is called to be the best janitor/police officer/doctor possible and is given gifts by God to carry that out, these jobs pale in comparison to priesthood. A priest is expected to live a different life because of his calling. He is expected to be a man of prayer, a man of holiness, a man in the world but not of it. He is expected to image Christ constantly in all his interractions. A janitor that goes home may have a very untidy house but still be called a good janitor. A doctor who smokes is still called a doctor. A priest who committs acts of sexual abuse destroys the very foundations of the church. A priest who swears scandalizes and diminishes priesthood. (I should know. I do it way too often.)

Secondly, but related, in an age of sexual confusion, the best thing that the church can do is recommitt herself to the mandatory celibacy requirement. Priests need to know why they are doing this, true, and they need to be supported in their celibate commitment by many people. But, there has been nothing that in any way shows the need to diminish the necessity of celibacy. The sacrament of marriage is a mess! Sex is a part of dating not the penultimate expression of love between husband and wife. Gender is something that you choose. Why would the church believe that adding sex and marriage to priesthood is going to do anything but make a difficult situation even worse?

Thirdly, why should the church listen to some excommunicated bishop that has founded a schismatic group? Like most schismatic movements in the church, this will die and 200 years from now people will say, "Married priests now? What the heck was that?"

The exciting life of the sick campus minister

I tend to think that being a priest at a college campus is, at points, the most frantic lifestyle of a priest. I'm not sure if that's true or if just goes to show how much I'm willing to put into this particular assignment. Regardless, the last forty eight hours have been strange, even for the life of a campus minister

1. I have the flu and it seems as though it's headed for bronchitis. I used to get bronchitis around this time of year in college but it hasn't happened for quite some time. A couple of the college students got a cold that, more or less, was a 24 hour affair. I figured this was the same thing...on Thursday. Now it's Sunday and I feel about as bad now as did then. Clearly, I have it worse than they did.

2. There was a car accident in front of my house last night. Somehow, one of my parishioners got into his car, drove a block, and rammed it into a tree in front of my house. He died. I didn't really hear anything until I heard the sirens. How could I have missed that?

3. The students brought me turkey noodle soup. We had left over turkey from out supper last Sunday and they bought the rest of the stuff. It's awesome soup, too. If I hadn't sneezed all over it accidentally, I'd offer it to other people.

I'm looking forward to an easy week this week. The students are on a week break and I will be getting past this cold and enjoying Thanksgiving. It should be a good time to catch up on reading...something that I've not been able to do since August.

Instead of actually writing a blog

I'm going to let you read something that I found interesting about catholic voters. Very interesting.

The meeting about married priests....a thought.

The Pope met with his closest advisors yesterday to talk about married priests. Of course, the media was all aflurry with the misguided conception that the pope would emerge from this meeting and declare priests able to be married. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind when this never happens....

1. The Pope isn't going to change long-standing church policy by meeting with eight people.

2. The priests that have already promised celibacy (myself included) will not be affected by this.

3. There is a legitamate reason why the church should not move in this direction at this point in history. The reason has to do with society's misguided fixation with sex. We are entering an era in which the very idea of celibacy is almost uniformly repugnant to larger society. Sex is a part of the dating process, not something that should be reserved to the married state. In the midst of this, an old heresy has reemerged that posits that Jesus was married and has children. The church needs to stand up against this heresy in all its forms. If, at the peak of this heresy, the church were to allow for married priests, the very people we need to image Christ for society, we would be sending a very confusing message. We would either be admitting that we believe sex is a necessary part of human development or we would be perpetuating the heresy that Christ was married with children.

All of this leads me to believe that, rather than declaring it possible for priests to marry the pope will likely seek to explain with greater clarity the church's theological rationale for "celibacy for the sake of the kingdom"....again.

wow! It's been a while

I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to post again. I've been busy with a retreat around the student center and unable to do anything but lock and unlock doors. But, aside from the thank you notes, I think I'm finished and will be able to start sharing my thoughts again.

I'll post this weekend's homiy tomorrow and, hopefully, have time to read the bishop's statement on homosexual pastoral care. We'll see.

We don't often hear stories like this.

Imagine, if you can, the persecution of several hundred catholic priests at a time. Imagine a state that would round up priests and hand out a death sentence for their faith. Sound like something that would happen in Afghanistan or Iran? There aren't enough priests there. How about France?

Read here and find out. Think it can't happen again?

Vox Clara more pastoral than most people expected

Toward the end of my seminary experience, a small but significant revolution took place in the english speaking catholic world. I imagine most people were totally unaware of it. Had I not been in seminary, the hotbed of catholic rumor mills, I'm quite certain I wouldn't have known a thing.

The vatican enacted a second group, called Vox Clara, to oversee the translation of latin liturgical texts (texts for mass and other sacraments and prayers) into english. It was thought that this group would make it almost impossible for english to be translated into anything but the most literal of translations. I find it intersting, therefore, to find this article on catholic news service this morning....


Commission looks for balance in English liturgical translations

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Work on a new English translation of the Mass continues to seek a balance between a highly formal prayer language and preserving liturgical phrases that have become part of an English speaker's prayer tradition, said Australian Cardinal George Pell of Sydney.

Cardinal Pell chairs the Vox Clara Commission, an international group of bishops who advise the Vatican on English liturgical translations.

Vox Clara met Oct. 23-26 at the Vatican to study translations developed by the International Commission on English in the Liturgy.

Describing many of the texts as "outstanding," Vox Clara members also said they gave the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments an "extensive commentary on certain problems" found in the translations.

Cardinal Pell told Catholic News Service Oct. 27: "It is important to be clear that they are small problems. They are not major problems at all."

In general, he said, the bishops were concerned about "some interesting terminology that was different from the traditional -- unusual."

While declining to give specific examples, Cardinal Pell said the phrases in question replace phrases -- judged to be faithful to the Latin -- used in English since the Second Vatican Council.

"Provided the Latin is rendered faithfully, we are keen to keep terminology the people are familiar with," Cardinal Pell said.

He also described some of the phrases as "too grammatical" in the sense that they sound like they are the result of an advanced grammar lesson rather than a faithful translation into a living language.

Vox Clara's Oct. 27 press release praised the energy with which everyone is working to get a high-quality, faithful translation of the Mass into parishes as soon as possible.

It also said commission members conducted a final review of a congregation document meant to serve as a guide for English-language liturgical translations.

The congregation is expected to publish the guide, formally called "'Ratio Translationis' for the English Language," before Christmas.

When will we learn that it's just not that easy to move bishops into categories of "liberal" and "conservative"? These are pastors, shepherds who care a great deal for their flock. They don't want to impose any agenda other than Christ Jesus and the salvation of souls.