The Beauty of New Year Resolutions

There's a story that told about John Paul I, who was only the Pope for about 30 days before John Paul II, but right after a Wednesday audience, he met a group of young people, and one of the women in the group confessed to having led a very dark moral life up until that point. John Paul I offered her great advice, which I think is extremely helpful as we approach the New Year. He could have offered her some pious reflection, but the first thing he said was, "how old are you", and she responded, "I am 35," and he said, "perfect, you might live to be 85, in which case, you have 50 years to get it right," or she might live 50 days more, in either case, the only thing to do is to begin again! Which as the story goes, she did, and became a great person.

There's no better time to start anew then at the begginning of a new year, here's a simple suggestion that I am going to try and keep in 2010, Less News, and Less Media. Think about the fear that the media creates in our culture, this is not how we are meant to live. Every time I bring up the distaster that is the media, most people agree, but we keep going back to it for more, its like how many stories of crime and sin can our humanity take? Its like drinking poison on a daily basis, and most of it is rootless. Chesterton has the great analogy, where the media reports on the man that fell off the scaffold, it was terrible and sad to be sure, but the media doesn't report on the 1 million men that worked in total peace on scaffolds throughout the world that day, they only report on the one man that fell off, and they report on it, as if men are falling off scaffolds across the world, and that we must do something to stop men falling off scaffolds. At some level the news only reports on what is not happening, so what's the use? I have decided to keep my news intake to a minimum this year, and without a doubt get rid of the 24 hour news, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, etc, if enough people cleaned their system of these channels, then first off they would go out of business, and more importantly we would have a much happier country; wouldn't that be nice!

Happy New Year.

Pope Benedict on Christmas- Please Read

This article is from Amy Welborn, who is a terrific writer and student of Pope Benedicts thought!

"The sentiment of the secular Christmas season might provoke a few mixed feelings. Although it seems ungrateful not to be, well... grateful that despite the unrelenting merchandising and secularisation, the basic points of love and giving seem to hold. On the other hand, Love who? Why? How? We know how even words about the highest truths can be drained of meaning and manipulated for base or even evil ends. So we do sense the truth and promise of Christmas. But mired in postmodern vacuity and scepticism, we wonder, indeed, what we really could possibly mean as we sing: "Holy Infant, so tender and mild..."And what does that long-ago event it have to do with my life, right now?Enter Pope Benedict and the Child.The Holy Father, we all know very well, is a brilliant theologian, but that is not as intimidating as it sounds. For with theologian Joseph Ratzinger, whose writing is consistently lucid, humble and even charming, the line between "theology" and "spiritual writing" frequently slips and even disappears. So in a meditation composed during his time as Archbishop of Munich, Joseph Ratzinger, beginning as he often does from something quite concrete, reflected on the devotion to an image of the Christ Child still preserved in a tree in Christkindl, placed there in the 17th century by a man suffering from epilepsy or, as the chronicler terms it, "the sickness where one falls down". A church was eventually built around the tree, and devotion grew. Sweet, but is there anything more than sentimental piety here? Well, yes. Ratzinger, in just a few words, links this tree with the tree of paradise, with Mary, the life-giving tree who gives us the fruit, Jesus, with the circular shape of the church, recalling the womb and baptism, our call to be born again as children, which is possible because God became a child.For, as he writes, in a passage that never ceases to prompt me to pause in recognition, "we are all suffering from 'the sickness where one falls down' ". How true. How very true."Again and again, we find ourselves unable interiorly to walk upright and to stand. Again and again, we fall down; we are not masters of our own lives; we are alienated; we are not free." What is the answer? God's love - and there is nothing vague about this. God's love so very real and concrete that it is enfleshed and God himself comes to earth in the most startling of ways - as a baby. We need not look far for the "tree" holding the baby, Ratzinger says, the One who heals us from the sickness where we fall down: "Jesus, who is himself the fruit of the tree of life, and life itself, has becomes so small that our hands can enclose him", we can know him - and be redeemed.In another meditation, then-Archbishop Ratzinger highlights St Francis of Assisi's role in shaping Christmas devotion in his creation of the original crèche at Greccio. He points to the radical implications of the Word-Made-Flesh as a Child, that this is not about mere sentiment, but about how we must be: "his existence as a child shows us how we come to God and to deification ... One who has not grasped the mystery of Christmas has failed to grasp the decisive element in Christianity" - that to enter the Kingdom we must become like Him. Like a child. As we continue to read what the Holy Father writes about the Christ Child in his homilies as Pope, the same idea emerges again and again: if we want to know who God is, look at the Child. If we, in our emptiness, sin and hopelessness, want to know if our lives have meaning and if we are loved, look to the Child. If we want to know how to love, look to the Child. Most important of all, if we want to not just have the right ideas, but to actually live in love now and forever, know and love the Child. At Midnight Mass in 2006, the Holy Father's words bring the Good News about God, us and this broken world: "God's sign is simplicity. God's sign is the baby. God's sign is that he makes himself small for us. This is how he reigns. He does not come with power and outward splendour. He comes as a baby - defenceless and in need of our help. He does not want to overwhelm us with his strength. He takes away our fear of his greatness. He asks for our love: so he makes himself a child. He wants nothing other from us than our love, through which we spontaneously learn to enter into his feelings, his thoughts and his will - we learn to live with him and to practise with him that humility of renunciation that belongs to the very essence of love. God made himself small so that we could understand him, welcome him, and love him."My own favourite object of Christmas meditation is a real, actual baby. Now that I have none of my own, I must seek one out - at a Catholic Mass that is not too hard - and consider the tiny thing, eyes wide open staring at me and the rest of the world, or closed in blissful sleep, nestled against its mother's neck. "God is so great that he can become small," Pope Benedict said at Midnight Mass in 2005. "God is so powerful that he can make himself vulnerable and come to us as a defenceless child, so that we can love him. God is so good that he can give up his divine splendour and come down to a stable, so that we might find him, so that his goodness might touch us, give itself to us and continue to work through us. This is Christmas: 'You are my son, this day I have begotten you'. God has become one of us, so that we can be with him and become like him. As a sign, he chose the Child lying in the manger: this is how God is. This is how we come to know him." Real. Concrete. Flesh and blood. In such loving helplessness, helping us walk, because we have, indeed, all fallen down.

The Joy of Creating

The kids and I spent the day building the Snow Nativity Scene that is in this picture to the left. There really was no other alternative if we were going to avoid going insane. There is only so much spilled hot chocolate, and spilled syrup one family can withstand. So we ventured out to Create, to build something. As we were working on this small little project, the thought came to me, that man needs to constantly create or he will be living against his very nature.

There's a line in the movie Wall Street where Martin Sheen says to his son, "son, learn to create, and not make money off the buying and selling of others". We are made in the Image and Likeness of God, and when we create, even small creations, we are living in line with our nature. Here's the major point as we approach Christmas, its very possible to live outside of our nature, and destroy. We destroy ever time we spread gossip, every time we spread scandals, every time we use the gift of language to tear others down, to spread anger, or jealously, or even our bad mood. This was not what we were made for. We were made to create. Creating can be a million small things- Cooking, building, creating ideas, works of art, creating joy within our families, and our places of work, smiling, rising above our moods and feelings. There's a great line in Dickens, "A Christmas Carol", where Scrooge is observing his old boss, Fizziwigs, and he is spreading joy at the Christmas party, and affirming everyone there, that the ghost of Christmas past says to Scrooge, "Its a small thing isn't to spread this joy," Fizziwigs was literally changing the course of the world with his small decision to rise above his feelings, maybe rising above his moods was easy for Fizziwigs, maybe it wasn't, the point is he made the decision to do it.

As Christmas approaches, there are many ways to create, and there are many ways to destroy, its much harder to create, but living in line with our nature is where we will find the greatest satisfactions in life;

The Tragedy and the Lessons of Tiger Woods

As Christians we should never judge people, but we can and should judge actions. I am almost willing to guarantee that Tiger Woods would agree with everything that I am about to write.

If you went to any 19 year old college male, and said by the time your 33 years old, you will be worth 1 billion dollars, and your wife will be a super model. 99.9% of college males would probably say "that would be enough for me", their response may be a little more enthusiastic, I'm just guessing. Well meet Tiger Woods, that was his life, and it wasn't enough. There's three important lessons here that I want to point out that are so important.

1.) The heart was made for God, that's a lot of love to fill. So in this world the truth is, there is an enormous void that yearns to be filled. We can try our whole life to fill this void with stuff- Work, sex, drugs, food, etc, etc. Sadly, it will only make the void grow, the distance grow. St. Augustine said it best in his book "Confessions", "my heart is restless O Lord, until it rests in you," Some people think that quote refereed to death, but I don't think that's true, I think our rest can happen now. "Come to me all you who are burdened and I will give you rest," Here's the good news, God can fill this void with Himself, we're made for this union. The Eucharist offers us so much here, because its God Himself that we receive, Who fills us. St. John Vianney said, "When we leave the holy banquet of Communion, we are as happy as the wise men would have been if they could have carried away the Infant Jesus." Lesson # 1, only God can fill our heart.

2.) Gratitude for what we have, This was the second powerful lesson for me, because you can't live your life in a constant state of wanting more, you have to learn to be thankful for what we have. This doesn't mean we stop seeking, but the gift of gratitude just gives us so much more vibrancy, its hard but its such an amazing habit to form. The Eucharist is again the answer, in fact the meaning of the word Eucharist is "Thanksgiving,"

3.) Finally Self control, Denis Prager has a great quote that I have cited here in the past, "without self control we can never be happy", but with it, we can be extremely happy. There's a quote from I believe the Church fathers, "1 Thousand temptations do not equal 1 sin," God gave us a great gift in self control, and its healthy to use it.

When you look at some of the more famous philanderers, John Kennedy, Tiger Woods, David Letterman, Mark Sanford. They are all high achievers, my point is that desire is not bad, its only bad when we channel it in the wrong ways, when we channel it in the right ways, it can give us the strength to be a great man. Below is an awesome quote from JRR Tolkien "Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament ... There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth..." Notice the last sentence, the true ways of all your loves on earth, the Eucharist can help us direct our loves where they are supposed to go!

This is very good!

1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
24. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
25. Frame every so-called disaster with these words ''In five years, will this matter?".
26. Always choose life.
27. Forgive everyone everything.
28. What other people think of you is none of your business.
29. Time heals almost everything. Give time, time.
30. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
31. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
32. Believe in miracles.
33. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.
34. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
35.. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.
36. Your children get only one childhood.
37. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
38. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere..
39. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'dgrab ours back!
40. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
41. The best is yet to come.
42. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
43. Yield.
44. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift.

What's wrong with your knees

Anyone that reads this blog knows that I love the Comunita Cenacolo (http://www.hopereborn.org/), its a community for recovering persons, whether serious drugs, pornography addictions, eating disorders, depression,etc, etc. They cover all the serious problems that the world throws at us, and they do it in a simple fashion, with the Eucharist, Community, the Rosary, and work. Sister Lucia of Fatima has said that, "there is not a problem that can not be overcome with the rosary,". This should give us so much confidence, and Comunita Cenacolo proves this everyday. The Rosary that I pray with was made by a man in this community who is recovering from a heroin addiction, the Cross on the rosary is handmade by him, and every time I start my rosary I grab that cross and remember how powerful the rosary is.

The point I am making is that not everyone needs a School of Life like Community Cenacolo for heroin addictions, or eating disorders, but we all have our blindness, we all have our weakness, we all have our sins, and the 4 things I mentioned above can help us with these things. God is that powerful.

There's a great story about a drug addict, whose life was transformed in community, three years go by, and its discovered that he has advanced stage lung cancer. He gets brought into the hospital for a full body check, and as he is lieing in his bed in the hospital, the doctor comes in and says, "son, I know what's wrong with your lungs, but you have to tell me, what's wrong with your knee's," The man said, "thankfully for the first time in my life, I have learned to pray, and spent the last 3 years on my knee's,"

Advent is the perfect time to fall in love with the Rosary, because our Lady will lead us to meet Jesus.