Rosary Novena for the Election

I never want this blog to be about politics, because I don't care if someone is Democrat or Republican. But certain issues are paramount, like the human rights of children in the womb. In this country you will go to jail if you harm a bald eagles nest, but you can legally take the life of a human in the womb. Something is truly wrong with that! Its hard to say this, because so many people have been mislead by our culture and had an abortion. This could have easily been me, because before my conversion in college, I never cared about abortion. Here's the good news, their healing and forgiveness in Christ! But trying to pretend that abortion is OK, will never bring the freedom that is available to anyone that has been part of an abortion.

With this in mind, many Catholics are committed to praying a Rosary everyday beginning today for the next 9 days that God may act and help all Pro-Life Candidates win their election. Remember, Jesus is the perfect man, he lives the commandments perfectly, the 4th commandment is "Honor your father and mother," At the Wedding Feast of Cana, Jesus teaches us that He will do basically anything for his mother. We go to her with this intercession! Our Lady of Life Pray for us

Greater Appreciation for my Wife

This weekend was a pay-back for all the pain I inflicted on my mom growing up, all the times I wouldn't get out of bed, all the times I said mean things to my mom. My wife went away to visit family over the weekend, and it was just me and the kids. My poor wife returned this morning to a house that looked as if a rogue militia came through our village and decided to destroy homes. There was syrup everywhere. Its actually amazing how syrup can spread in a house, and I don't even remember eating pancakes. But I actually don't remember much of the weekend. Thankfully we survived, and my beautiful, wonderful wife is back to restore order. Here's my analogy, Brad Lidge is the great closing pitcher for the Phillies, he comes in and throws fast balls to finish the game. I come in at 6:30 pm and help my wife close out the day. Here's the problem, Brad Lidge can't pitch 9 innings, and I can't manage a house for the whole weekend. I should have embraced it with a better attitude, but you live and learn! Here's a great baseball quote from the former pitcher of the yankees EL Duque Hernandez,

"In my home country, we don't have middle inning relievers, and sometimes you have to pitch back to back days, if the game goes to extra innings, your arm physically won't work anymore, so its then that you have to throw with your heart"!

Learning to Dance in the Rain

Please check out my good friend Andy Person's website: caringbridge.org/visit/dottieperson; and go to the journal entry section. Andy lost his wife Dottie about year and 1/2 ago to cancer, they had five children together. Their faith and hope and even joy in suffering has been an incredible gift to me personally. Andy spoke last week at Temple University and two things from the talk struck me in a big way.

1.) Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, its about learning to dance in the rain! The most moving thing for me, is the lived Faith in this quote, and Dottie Person and now Andy have lived this. In their actions and attitude, they tell the whole world the truth, that God is Good all the time! That He is working in us personally and in the world, even when life doesn't make sense.

St. Teresa the Little Flower said it best and actually summed up what this family has lived over the past 3 years, "Everything is a grace, everything is the direct effect of our Father's love - difficulties, contradictions, humiliations, all the soul's miseries, her burdens, her needs - everything, because through them, she learns humility, realizes her weakness. Everything is a grace because everything is God's gift. Whatever be the character of life or its unexpected events - to the heart that loves, all is well."- Never allowing our suffering to crush us, but allowing it to help us grow in humility and trust in God.

Finally, the part of Andy's talk that really raised me up, was a 10 minute video of us wife Dottie, right before her death. The trust and confidence in God was nothing short of supernatural. She actaully said at one point, "I am happy, I mean really happy, like zip a de do da happy," I loved it. Faith is effective and alive all the time! With Christ we have nothing to fear, here was a women with literally everything to fear! But she lived her Faith in an abandonment to a God that loved her.

As I left the talk on Thursday night something important dawned on me, "What's the alternative" to the choas we see in the world. We can either live in discouragement and fear (Which for some people like Dottie and Andy would be justified, that's what makes their witness so powerful) or we can live in gratitude and Faith, which makes life more agreeable for everyone, and makes us happier.

Dottie Person, pray for us to live your Gratitude for God's Gifts!

The Economy, Anxiety, and the Eucharist

As the market continued to crash last week, an important thought continued to come to me. That I have to look for all the good in this crises, and what it can lead to for me personally and more importantly what it can bring to the whole culture. I am using this post to deal with the spiritual benefits of a financial crises, not the material benefits. (Even though the material benefits can be big in down market, the most wealth in real estate was created in the great depression.). But this article I want to deal with three main spiritual blessings in a financial crises, simplifying our culture, simplifying our lives, and deepening our trust and confidence in God and not ourselves.

For the past two weeks you can almost feel the simplifying of our culture in the air, and even though its effecting me personally it actuals feels good. The Wall Street Journal ran a story last week, entitled, "The Death of Bling", about how living high in America is gone at least in the short term, because there is no one this crisis doesn't effect. This leads to the "Snow-Storm effect", we are all in this together, and as a culture we need to trust in the ingrained goodness of those around us to help build each other up, and get the financial systems humming again. ( As I write this on Monday Morning, thankfully the markets are trending upward.)

Simplifying ourselves might be the greatest spiritual blessing to come of this whole mess. This economic crises was clearly caused by sin, greed and dishonesty in the housing market. But even in sin, God brings great good out of it. When we simplify our lives, we grow in freedom, the less we are attached to, the less we are cluttered, the more God can fill us, and the more we can listen to Him. I read a study that teenagers with cell phones, are disproportionately more likely to engage in all types of sin that will wound them in the future. Over this weekend, you could almost hear families sitting around the kitchen table, telling young Johnny and young Suzie that mom and dad can no longer afford their cell phone, that mom and dad can no longer afford their car, on and on. As we cut back on things we really don't need, we can be free to grow in happiness, and appreciate what we have! Truth be told, it gives us freedom to love what's free in Life (love, nature, friendships, exercise.) All clutter does is mess with our ability to enjoy these things at a deeper level.

"Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you even at my mother's breast. From birth I was cast upon you; from my mother's womb you have been my God." Ps. 22:9-10. No matter our circumstances, this is true for all of us, God is our loving Father. During economic downturns, this becomes heightened, and we become happier people! We can no longer rely on our own strength, we need to turn and rely on God. This brings me to my final point on the Eucharist. what a gift it is that we can walk into any Catholic Church in the world, and find Jesus alone waiting for us. Waiting to pour His Love,and His Wisdom into our hearts. So many times, I have fled to the Tabernacle, with questions and unease, and so many times I have left with renewed strength and the wisdom I need for the moment.

The Pill and a Happy Marriage

A couple funny things about the "the pill", how many objects can you just say the word, and everyone knows exactly what you are talking about. Imagine saying grab "the ball", and everyone knows what your talking about, (a soccer ball, or a basketball), and there's a lot of pills out there, allergy pills, cholesterol pills. But if you say "the pill", people know what your talking about. That's a sad commentary on our culture. The other funny thing about the pill, is that in many people's thought process there's no openness, its sort of like saying, "you should really consider not using tooth-paste anymore, or if you stop using deodorant, you'll will be happier". Another thing to consider, is that our culture has made great strides in trying to live in a healthier, more natural way, we believe in eating well, and taking better care of our minds and bodies, this is beautiful. But many times people fail to mention the most obvious un-natural way that people are putting into their bodies, (Just read the common side effects to contraception)

But I want to stick with what's most positive about Natural Family Planning- Your Wedding Day! My sister Patrice just got married, and it was so funny to watch it all play out, because she has been dreaming and planning this day for the past 20 years. Girls love weddings, and its clear from our faith, that they have good reason for this. Our culture is right building up the wedding Day! But the problem is, we forget that in the Catholic Sacramental vision, that day should continue everyday into eternity. In the great movie Fire-Proof- (I will post on this movie next week) The couple falls back in love, and the natural response is to renew their wedding vows. Lets start over, and begin to live what we promised. That's the amazing "Theology of the Body," the Church believes that sex is so holy, that its sacramental, we are giving flesh to our promise on the alter! That's where the problem of the pill comes in. When you insert the pill in the equation, your promises on the alter, your giving flesh to your promises becomes a lie. Because truth be told, you are not accepting everything, you are not making a total gift of yourself. Here I am, you can have everything, (except my fertility, this you can not have!) But God does not play games with us, we are His Children, that's why he made us with natural cycles that lift us up as humans. If a husband and wife works together, they can with prefect confidence avoid pregnancy, for a simple reason, NFP is based upon abstaining during fertile periods. You can't have pregnancy without sex. Think about that, that's how holy sex is, God allows us to co-operate with him in his most amazing act, creating a unique and unrepeatable human life. When we are prayerfully discerning if we should have another child, emotionally, physically, economically, we have to remember the gift God has given us. But with full confidence we can avoid pregnancy and most importantly raise up the truth of our wedding vows, bringing flesh to the promise we make.

How happy we would be if every day in our marriage we lived the joy and the celebration of our wedding day! Why is it so hard for us to believe that this is what God wants, for us to celebrate love, to celebrate our marriages. With NFP we are able to truthfully proclaim with our flesh the promises we made, and we can always be sure that God will stay faithful to his end of the promises.