What's the right question?

The thing I love most about these Monday morning blogs is that it reminds me of things I need to be focusing on. Last Tuesday, I read a quote from C.S. Lewis about the question people ask in order to have a happy marriage.

"Lewis said that you don’t get married to become happy, but rather to make the other person happy. Your own happiness is a by-product, a consequence, of maintaining the proper end. If, by contrast, you get married simply in order to make yourself happy, your true happiness is made that much more unlikely."

Let that sink in. That's the formula. If we are constantly thinking, I wish I was happier in my marriage, we are actually wasting precious time and energy keeping us from what will make us truly happy. The more we seek to make our life happier for our spouse, the happier we will become in the process. But its an act of surrender, we can't look to control how our spouse will receive our kindness. Just love and let God, who is mysteriously present within the Sacrament of marriage, do all the work. That is what is so interesting about the Sacrament of marriage, the Grace is life long, and the grace is always present. I believe it was GK Chesterton that joked, the reason that marriage is a sacrament, is because we need it to be, or else a man and a women could never co-exist for life! But with the Sacrament of marriage, not only can a man and a women co-exist, but we can thrive!

Had to Share this quote from GK Chesterton

It expresses the wonder we need to view life through! Powerful, my kids always, and I mean always say this, in fact, I think its the only thing my 20 month old knows how to say- Do it again!

"A child kicks its legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough. . . It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again,” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again,” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike: it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we." GK Chesterton

The Power of Choosing real Love

I have recently started reading Fyodor Dostoevsky famous novel The Brothers Karamazov. I was struck by the incredible cast of characters that considers this the greatest novel ever, (Nietzsche, Freud, Kurt Vonnegut, Albert Einstein, Peter Kreft, Father John Neuhaus, the priest who married my wife and I, Father Don Haggerty, Dorothy Day). I thought wait a minute, Nietzsche, Freud, Peter Kreft, Dorothy Day? What am I missing. The first two were atheists, and the argument can be made that no two people did more damage to the world of thought that Nietzsche or Freud. Shouldn't I stay away from a book that they both consider the best ever. The answer is no, because truth is beautiful. A very evil man can look at a sunset and love it, he could even love it so much that it changes him. There are two very famous quotes from the Brothers Karamazov, the first one is, "Beauty will save the world," Nothing convinces us of the truth more that beauty, the beauty in creation, the lived beauty of a holy life.

The second famous quote was found at the bedside of Dorothy Day upon her death. When I first read it, I thought it was too extreme, but as I thought about it, its beautiful. Dorothy Day thought that working with the poorest of the poor would just be all romance, and what she found was quite different. Love is hard, but even on True Love's worst day, its so much better than Love in Dreams. Its our choice, we can choose to do all the heavy lifting of real love, or we can accept a counterfeit our whole life. Here's the quote;

“I am sorry I can say nothing more consoling to you, for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on the stage. But active love is labour and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete science. But I predict that just when you see with horror that in spite of all your efforts you are getting farther from your goal instead of nearer to it- at that very moment I predict that you will reach it and behold clearly the miraculous power of the Lord who has been all the time loving and mysteriously guiding you.” Fyodor Dostoevsky,The Brothers Karamazov, chapter 4

Pure Gold

We are blessed right now with some amazing prophetic voices in the Catholic Church through out the world right now, here are a few below: With so much garbage out there to read, here are a few links that will edify you on a daily basis.





1.) Pope Benedict- Just for one week read his Wednesday Angelus, and his Sunday Homily, you can find that here. http://www.vatican.va/.





2.) Franciscan Friars of the Renewal- Their homebase is in the Bronx, N.Y. here is their weekly e-letter- http://www.franciscanfriars.com/fr_glenn_letters/frglenn1144.htm





3.) Community Cenacolo Website- This community proves that almost any hardship or addiction can be overcome with the Eucharist, and Family or Community Life. http://www.hopereborn.org/- They post every 2 weeks, and the Europe post is once a month.





4.) Michael O'Brien- I love his art and his novels, he has an internet newsletter every month- http://www.studiobrien.com/. This is always excellent.





5.) Mission Moment- My good freind Bill Donaghy has an excellent blog a couple times a week, check it out at http://www.missionmoment.blogspot.com/.





I promise that you will be edified from each of these sites. After 30 days, if your not 100% satisfied, you can have your problems back no questions asked

Ode to the Fall

I love doing this for every season, because its a way to remind myself to be on the look out for all the great lessons that nature has to offer. The Fall's easy, here our a few:

1.) The Smells of Fall- The smell of burning leaves, the smell of outdoor fires, the smell of nature dieing, its amazing how good the Fall smells.

2.) The Sites- The Falls greatest gift is how it shocks our system, its so beautiful that it makes us take notice, especially here in the Northeast, driving on the turn-pike and just watching the sheer amount of different colors in nature. This very well might be the biggest benefit of the Fall.

3.) October fest- I love October fest and Fall fests, starting this weekend, I will try to make all of them!

4.) Football- I love watching football, high school, college, pro, it doesn't matter. I was reflecting on why Americans love football so much, and I think its simple, its very easy to watch, the flow of the game lends itself to watching, with the fireplace on, my family around, and a football game on, does life get much better than that?

5.) Food- I love the food that gets kicked off around the Fall, in fact I love it so much that I let it continue all yearlong! Apple cider (I start drinking it in the Fall, and I don't stop) Ginger-snap cookies (Orange Box, Ridiculous) I eat those all year round as well. German Beer- you get the idea!

Those were only a couple things I could think off, I will add more as they come to me!

The Lord of the Rings, and falling deeper in Love with the world

I am just now finishing Tolkiens classic work, The Lord of the Rings, I started the book just to read it to my kids, and quickly became absorbed in it myself. There is great reason that every time a vote is taken by mass amounts of people about the greatest work of fiction ever written, the Lord of the Rings almost always wins. I am actually starting to believe that all of the books critics never read it, because its that powerful. Just for fun, read the reviews on amazon.com's website about the book for yourself, this book has rightfully had a powerful impact on people.

I wanted to make a larger point though that has been resonating with me ever since I read the book, that there is incredible beauty in this huge world. According to Peter Kreft in his book, The Philosophy of Tolkien, that was one of the main points that Tolkien wanted to express to the reader, how big the world is, that there's dragons, but fear not, because there's also hero's.

The point of this post, is how much Tolkiens art has helped me fall in love with the world even more. Every tree top, every sound of water, either the ocean or a river, every flower, and most importantly, every person, every smile. Tolkien describes these things in almost painstaking detail. In one point in the book, the fellowship is blindfolded, and Frodo remarks that the experience made him appreciate the incredible sounds that are all around us, that in our noise we take for granted. As I read those lines, I was struck by the beauty of the sounds all around me.

God went to even more painstaking detail in creating the world around us, it would seem to me a great act of pride, not to constantly, and I mean constantly take notice. Beauty- Its everywhere, and I am determined to fall in love with it a little more every day, just take a second to listen the next time you step outside, and allow God to invite you into His world of beauty!