Prison Mass

So folks, today I went to a Mass in a prison. I know some of you were praying for my safety and that things went well as far as the Mass itself was concerned, and for that, I really do thank you all! It's been a long and busy month, but there are certain things you make time for amidst hundreds of pages of reading, dozens of writing, and all the other fun schoolwork...this was definitely one of them.

It was a beautiful day outside. Low 80s, not a cloud in the sky. The Steelers were playing. It was for these three reasons that some of the people with me, normal volunteers who go all twelve months in a year, felt we'd have an especially low turnout; I can't blame them for being skeptical, these guys are giving up their free time of the day to come to Mass with us. That said, the other student in the group argued that we should set up even more chairs than usual, and since he and I did most of the lifting, the normal volunteers were happy to let us!

I'm really glad they did too. We had fifteen inmates show up. The Steelers were on TV in the common area of their pods and the weather was beautiful outside for recreation, but still people came and were happy to sacrifice their time to do so. I've never seen joy so uniformly displayed on people's faces at a Mass!

It's strange yet wonderful to see that. They were genuinely happy to be there, even though it was a true sacrifice for them in the form of their free time. I don't think I'm used to seeing such joy at the Mass, which is somewhat sad of itself. Also wonderful today was that we welcomed a catachuman! Even inside of a correctional facility, RCIA it seems, goes on.

All in all, it was a very humbling hour. I know that at one point, I was living Mass to Mass in my own depression; the only hour of the week I felt as if I was myself again and could escape my mental prison. I couldn't help thinking of that as I saw the earnest joy on these men's faces and in their demeanor, not to mention the sheer reverence. For an hour a month, there is no razor wire or possible threats from others, just fellow believers and Christ truly present in the Eucharist.

Reflecting on the Past, Looking to the Future

Today I read an entry on how my ex, since that's apparently how we call one another now after swearing not to use the term, has moved on and become vibrant again. I felt truly happy for her, that she's able to be that life loving person I had fallen in love with years ago, instead of being constantly scared like I'm better known for being. To read that she is healthy and strong in the physical, mental, and spiritual arenas was a godsend to me. I made a smile not to hide my pain, not to be polite, but because I was honestly happy to hear how well she's doing.

I still feel as if I am to blame however, for all the pain and all the suffering that went along with the end of our relationship and the months that followed. I've not been told how vibrant I am, how wonderful I'm coping, but rather people who see me often remark on how pale I've become, how I seem to look like Hell and how I've lost my spark for life. At least that's the way people at home treated me and told me.

I've been up here for nearly a month now, and I cling to those words spoken by my ex about my time up here, "You'll flourish up there". I can only hope to be so lucky, and it is precisely what I am hoping for. I was often jealous during our relationship that she had a family she could turn to outside of her family and her old friends, that she had made at the Newman House. This evening I found the nearly mythical Catholic Student Association when they set up a table after the Mass...and as I chatted amiably with a Sophomore guy who was answering questions and as I looked through the brochures, I noticed something. The pictures were all a small group of students.

Ever since coming up here, I have felt adrift, but still relatively happy in our university parish. It's just a really big and vibrant place, and even helping out with the used book sale book sorts I was mainly running into people older than myself. I deeply have been desiring to have that sort of personal small group relationship that my ex has been having with her friends at the Newman Center. With the Catholic Student Association I think that I've found that, or hopefully have found that. I need them to get back to me about a meeting time before I go to work on Monday, so that I'm able to work them into my schedule...because let's face it, work is one thing, but becoming the person you once were and more than what you were, that's more important.

I want to meet people my own age, who share my beliefs, and to have friends again that don't consume my entire life. To know that I'm there for them, and they for me, but not feeling the need to wait upon them hand and foot for all their needs and do my best to make sure that they never feel a moment of sorrow. I did not realize until recently, what sort of emotional bondage I had placed myself in to my ex; I doubt she realized it either to be honest. Each day I would do my best to be good for her, to tell her everything would be okay and to make her feel better about herself...but the cost on myself was, I guess, more than I thought.

I will admit it freely, I have fallen apart in the time since she dumped me, and more so since she cut off almost all contact. I've had so much time to sit here and dwell on all the things that I've done wrong, what I could have done better, what I should have done better, how my emotional clinginess probably hurt and weakened both of us. I've sat here and not enjoyed my summer to the fullest, partially due to my own emotional breakdown, but also because if it could go wrong, it did more or less:
*I had some unknown thing on my hands, the conflicting medicines and such laid me up for a good bit of time feeling like I was going to die.
*I screwed up big time with my ex, and hurt her, and hurt myself in a giant way.
*I spent the first two weeks of my summer break after my last graduation sick in bed.
*My uncle's father has masses in his lungs and his pancreas after we buried his wife last year.
*Family drama has been at an all time high with the extended family.
*I've moved away from home for the second time, but this time instead of being 30 minutes away, I'm nearly four hours and a state away.
*I underwent a series of blood tests, it turned out that the hospital's machines had been screwing up my results. But what had been an innocuous "Here let's just run a blood test for a baseline" had become "We need to run more, certain levels of things are elevated that may be cancer related". It eventually ended up just the calibrations apparently being off and my levels of everything were normal; no cancer, thank you Lord.
*My relationship with my father continued to worsen, despite my efforts to mend it.

Now that I've been all "oh poor me", let's look to the future shall we? I'm starting a prestigious program with an opportunity few people get in life, a chance to earn their doctorate. I'm nervous sure, but not as scared as I once was about it. I think the main part of my reasoning there is that my ex assured me she thought I would flourish up here, and her opinion still matters to me more than most people's. The second reason is that my father tried to scare me out of it, and to be honest, in this month of gloomy introspection, I've noticed that without his daily interjections of telling me how much I suck, I've become a bit stronger. I won't say I'm vibrant, I won't say I'm strong, but I will say I am definitely not the weak wreck emotionally of July...and the lack of his constant negative reinforcement has definitely helped in that.

I've met the professors I'm working for. One of them is a renowned author in our field for textbooks, and I will be updating his bestselling one for a new edition as part of my job. He seems like a pretty good guy and believes my education comes first and foremost in our relationship, with the book second. If anything else, that dedication to my well being will ensure I do my best work, even though I would have before, it only reinforced it.

The other is in our advising center, where Monday after class I'll be engaged in frenzied on the job training. We've got one of the largest undergrad programs for our field in the nation, and if someone has a minor, they come to our advising center as well. If you're on academic probation, you come see us as well on a bi-weekly basis. If you're changing majors into ours, you come see us as well. If you're wanting to repeat a class, you come see us as well. And we also make sure people have the classes to graduate on time. It's going to be consistently busy work, but rewarding to an extent I think. It will also give me a chance to get to know all eighteen members of the faculty for our department, instead of the handful I'll have for classes in the next two years.

Hard but rewarding work I'm sure. In all honesty, what has given me hope for the future in the past four or five years has been dual; my ex is the first and my professors have been my second. She loved me and I loved her, we believe in each other still I think, as human beings, and that we will both go forward and be the people that God wants us to be. The professors made me realize that I could actually do something with my life, and that my opinions were not always wrong as my father has hammered into me for more than two decades. They taught me not merely facts, but also what I had been missing out on as a human being; of all I have learned thus far in six years of higher education and with two degrees, the knowledge that I'm not doomed to be a pale and hollow shadow of humanity is the greatest thing I have gleaned. If, after getting my doctorate, I can even help one person the way that my teachers helped me, then all this hard work will have been worth it.

So here, my friends, if any of you actually read this still, is to the future. May I be the person that those teachers and my ex seem to think I can one day be, and may I become what God wants me to be. May I make friendships stronger than those who have gone before if possible, and maybe if I'm lucky, I can find love once more (but not undergraduate love, that would get me fired...and I don't mean love as in sex) to help fill the void.

Untitled

Today I could not help but laugh a bit inwardly at the holy sacrifice of the Mass. You see, it seemed to be in utter chaos at one point compared to the ordered structure one would have expected of the liturgy. Some of us were standing, some of us were kneeling, some were shifting between the two in confusion, and at the end of the Mass the reason for our confusion was revealed. Two pages had stuck together and Father Willie omitted a section of the Mass. He pleaded for forgiveness from all present at his self described liturgical abuse by doing so and asked that no guests present at the Mass called up the Bishop in Greensburg to complain that he was some sort of heretic or blasphemer. Many laughed at that, but perhaps unlike myself, they do not know people who would do such a thing…and for Father Willie’s sake, I hope that the older man who was angry at what he saw as some sort of hippie liberal Mass and left early does not call the Bishop to complain.

That was the funny part really, but the readings themselves really kicked my butt:

Hebrews 12: 5-7, 11-13
Brothers and sisters,
You have forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as children:
“My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord
or lose heart when reproved by him;
for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines;
he scourges every son he acknowledges.”
Endure your trials as “discipline”;
God treats you as sons.
For what “son” is there whom his father does not discipline?
At the time,
all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain,
yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness
to those who are trained by it.

So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees.
Make straight paths for your feet,
that what is lame may not be disjointed but healed.

and

Luke 13:22-30
Jesus passed through towns and villages,
teaching as he went and making his way to Jerusalem.
Someone asked him,
“Lord, will only a few people be saved?”
He answered them,
“Strive to enter through the narrow gate,
for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter
but will not be strong enough.
After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door,
then will you stand outside knocking and saying,
‘Lord, open the door for us.’
He will say to you in reply,
‘I do not know where you are from.
And you will say,
‘We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.’
Then he will say to you,
‘I do not know where you are from.
Depart from me, all you evildoers!’
And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth
when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
and all the prophets in the kingdom of God
and you yourselves cast out.
And people will come from the east and the west
and from the north and the south
and will recline at table in the kingdom of God.
For behold, some are last who will be first,
and some are first who will be last.”

both hit me with far greater power than that of the Old Testament reading. Far too often I allow myself to become discouraged by what I see as punishments in life, as discipline. It's like I do not allow myself to be happy sometimes, because I feel that as part of that continuing discipline from God that I am unworthy of happiness, of friendship, and of love. Far too often I find myself living for the holy sacrifice of the Mass, because it is the only time of my week where I can find true happiness.

Yet what do these readings say? Keep your chin up son. Take your discipline as it comes, but do not add to it yourself that which God has not truly given you. That extra, those emotions of grief and sorrow, of unworthiness for happiness in earthly life is excess baggage that can't allow you to pass through that narrowest of gates. Back in the time Jesus told this parable, the terms were much more vivid and clear as a city's narrow gate was large enough for a person, but not for their camels and donkeys, not for their worldly possessions, not their baggage as it were. I need to dump my pity party garbage, I need to drop the baggage of anger at myself I've held on to for ten months now as I blamed myself for everything that had happened. I need to remember who and what I am, and that I must one day be fit to cross through that narrow gate as He has demanded of me.

The Feast Day of Saint Maximilian Kolbe

Today is August the fourteenth, of the year of our Lord, two thousand and ten. It is the Feast Day of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, my own patron saint that I took at my Confirmation over a year ago. His story is one of inspiration, one of absolute faith, and one of a pure and Christ-like love for his fellow men and women.

On January 8, 1894 he was born with the name of Rajmund Jolbe in Zdunska Wola, a part of the Russian Empire in what would later become the nation of Poland. His early life was hardly remarkable for his time, he had four brothers, of which two died before the age of five. His family moved to Pabianice where they were basked weavers, sold groceries, and worked in the mills. In 1914 his father was hung for fighting for Polish independence.

During his childhood, he had a vision of the Virgin Mary that would influence him a great deal, one that he would later describe thusly, “That night, I asked the Mother of God what was to become of me. Then she came to me holding two crowns, one white, the other red. She asked me if I was willing to accept either of these crowns. The white one meant that I should persevere in purity, and the red that I should become a martyr. I said that I would accept them both.”

In keeping with this vision and his response he and his elder brother Francis would illegally cross the border between Russia and Austria-Hungary in 1907 to join the Conventual Franciscan junior seminary in Lwow. Three years later the future saint would enter into the Conventual Franciscans as a novitiate, a year after that were his first vows and where he adopted the name of Maximilian; then in 1914 as the First World War would break out, he made his final vows and adopted the names Maximilian Maria in order to show his fealty and devotion to the Blessed Virgin. By 1915 he earned his doctorate in philosophy (Ph.D.) from the Pontifical Gregorian University, and would earn his doctorate in theology by 1919 at the Pontifical University of Saint Bonaventure.

It was during these academic years that he would come to witness a number of demonstrations against Popes Saint Pius X and Pope Benedict XV, which would inspire him to create the Militia Immaculata, or more commonly known, the Army of Mary; whose goal was to work for the conversion of sinners and enemies of the Catholic Church through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. To say that this endeavour was successful is an understatement, and it is shown easily why he is a patron saint to journalists amongst others; the Immaculata would have a monthly circulation with a daily newspaper that reached 230,000 and a monthly magazine with a circulation of more than one million subscribers.

He became a priest in 1918 and as he worked on his burgeoning devotion of love to the Blessed Virgin in the form of media, he was able to raise the money and supervise the construction of a monastery that was founded near Warsaw, a seminary, a radio station, and more printing offices. During the Great Depression he would travel to Japan to carry out missionary work at a time when that nation was still firmly rooted in Shinto beliefs, and against their advice, would build a monastery on a mountainside that many told him was against harmony with nature. This monastery remains prominent to this day amongst Catholics in Japan, and is a site of pilgrimage for many. Furthermore, by defying Shinto beliefs about the building site, he saved his monastery; you see the monastery was built in a city called Nagasaki, and years after its construction the second and last atomic weapon used in anger would be dropped there, the monastery was saved because it was on the other side of the mountain than the one which took the brunt of the blast.

World War Two broke out only three years after he returned to Poland, and he would end up sheltering up to two thousand Jews from persecution in his friary. However, as so many discovered during that war, doing the right thing had a price. Up until this point, his life had been lived with a white crown of purity as seen in his childhood vision, but soon he would come to wear the red crown as well. On February 17, 1941 the Gestapo came for him, and imprisoned him at Pawiak, transferring him to the death camp of Auschwitz on May 28 where he would be known simply as prisoner number 16670.

Two months went by, with Kolbe doing his best to celebrate the sacrifice of the Mass in his barracks in secret and singing devotional hymns to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Then, in July, a man vanished from his barracks. The Deputy Commander of the death camp called the men out to face him and he selected ten of them at random to be starved to death in Block Thirteen to deter any further attempts at escape (even more tragically the man who supposedly escaped was found drowned in a camp latrine not long after). One of the men who had been chosen at random, Franciszek Gajowniczek would actually cry out about his wife and children, at which point the future saint volunteered his life for the other man’s. When asked who he was, his reply was not a name or his prisoner number, simply the words, “I am a Catholic priest from Poland; I would like to take his place, because he has a wife and children.”

While in the starvation cell he celebrated the Mass each day as long as he was able and gave Holy Communion to the prisoners. Despite it being a starvation cell, sympathetic guards would give them wine to use, and he would lead the other men who were condemned to the long death in prayer and song. Three weeks of dehydration and starvation, despite some sympathetic guards, would leave only Kolbe and three others alive. He did his best to encourage his fellow prisoners that death was not the end, and that soon they would be in Heaven. Each time the guards would look in on him, he would be standing or kneeling in the middle of the cell and look calmly at those who entered.

Eventually he was the last of the men left alive, having watched them precede him on life’s final journey one by one. A group of SS soldiers came in to give him a lethal injection of carbolic acid, and some of those soldiers who survived the war would later testify that he calmly raised his arm to them, fully accepting what was about to happen. The red crown of martyrdom he had accepted so long ago had come to him, and he could pass on to the life that awaited in Heaven. In a fitting manner to his Marian devotion, his remains were cremated on August 15, the Feast of the Assumption of Mary.

As for Franciszek Gajowniczek, the man that Maximilian Kolbe gave up his life in exchange for, his story did not end in the death camp. His sons were killed during a Soviet bombardment, but he would be released after surviving five years, five months, and nine days in the infamous place that many would later come to identify with the ultimate evil of the Nazi oppression and tyranny. His wife, he would be reunited with, and would spend another three decades with her until she passed away. In 1971 he was a guest of Pope Paul VI at Kolbe’s beatification in Rome.
In 1994 he would visit Saint Maximilian Kolbe Catholic Church in Houston, where he told his translator that “so long as he…has breath in his lungs, he would consider it his duty to tell people about the heroic act of love by Maximilian Kolbe.” On March 13, 1995 he would die, not too much longer than fifty-three years after his life was spared, and he was survived by his second wife, Janina.

Why did I choose him as my patron saint then? I am certainly not martyr material, nor am I a journalist, despite my thesis on media impacts of people’s perceptions of crime. I am not a drug addict or an amateur radio enthusiast. Though my inner history buff could certainly relate to the “Patron Saint of our difficult century” as Pope John Paul II would call him.

So often in his life, Saint Maximilian Kolbe was told that he was doomed to failure in his endeavours. His superiors thought him mad for wanting to publish a newspaper and a magazine in poor rural Poland and told him to raise the money and get the subscribers on his own; despite the impossible odds of doing so, he prevailed with God on his side. When the Japanese told him that it was an affront to their Shinto beliefs to build a monastery on the opposite side of the mountain from the city, he refused to back down, and his monastery was spared the wrath of an atomic bomb. When he was told, after replacing Gajowniczek that it would take only a week or two to die, he survived for three.

Of all the things that I am in life, I am a survivor and I am stubborn. I can truly identify with the strive to overcome odds, no matter what stands in the way. Plus there were little signs along the way: the novena to him when I was considering my conversion that seventeen people apparently took part in, that he kept popping up in random places while I was discerning whom to pick (including a friend’s mother meeting a concentration camp survivor in a hospital she worked at, telling her the most amazing thing he had seen during the war…some big Catholic missionary giving his life for a man with children and a wife), and that I could think of no one else who quite resonated with me. Maximilian Kolbe was not born to riches and privilege, but rather to having to strive for everything. I was fortunate to have loving and supporting parents, just as he did, although mine mostly paid for undergrad in college thanks to their own funds, a SMART 529, and my own scholarships; but everything after undergrad, I’m responsible for. I’m now a candidate for a doctoral degree, and with the love and support behind me, just like this saint, I have gone forward to strive for what I know is possible with God’s aid.

I suppose I will end this entry with a reflection of sorts on the time when Saint Maximilian Kolbe would lay down his life for his fellow man and acknowledge that his sacrifice during this time period also probably drew me to him. The Second World War showed us the worst of humanity; the extermination of millions, the intentional destruction of civilian targets by all sides. We can only hope that never again will the human race be subjected to a war of such scale and nature, that we may never again lose sight of who we are as a species, and as a people. Imprisonment, torture, and execution…by all sides. The specter of genocide which still haunts this world in certain areas must never again reach the levels that were perpetrated by the Nazis, for we have failed as a species to honor the words “never again”. As Primo Levi wrote shortly before his death, “it has happened before, and we know that it must happen again”, but let us make sure if it is truly inevitable, that this sort of suffering and hatred remains minimized and contained if at all possible.

Upon visiting Auschwitz last year, Pope Benedict XVI most likely put it best in saying that there was no adequate theological response, nor perhaps even an adequate response at all in the sum of human knowledge for the horrors that had taken place there, “In a place like this, words fail; in the end, there can only be a dread silence - a silence which is itself a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this? In silence, then, we bow our heads before the endless line of those who suffered and were put to death here; yet our silence becomes in turn a plea for forgiveness and reconciliation, a plea to the living God never to let this happen again”.

Maximilian Kolbe did not show hate for those who put him to death alongside so many others over the course of the death camp’s history. So before we give in to our anger over silly little things, let us remember that instead we should take a moment of silence, and take things stoically. Let us not allow ourselves to grow angry and accuse God of tolerating the intolerable, but rather, let us bow our heads and think of all those who have gone before us throughout the ages, and remember that far worse things have happened to the innocent than the minor problems of our own brief lives.

Mary, Martha, and Me

Luke Chapter Ten, verses thirty-eight to forty-two were the Gospel reading at today's Mass:

Jesus entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him.
She had a sister named Mary who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me."

The Lord said to her in reply, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part
and it will not be taken from her."

Today, I found out that on Thursday, Father CT had left us because of a sudden retirement of one of the priests elsewhere in the state; it was a surprise to the Bishop as well, but there was no one else to send, even if Father CT's recovery from his anyeurism is not yet done. I have a friend who has had many confessors reassigned every time she got used to one, but this is the first time I've had a priest reassigned on me.

It's not that we were really that close, when I went to his confessional, bar one time, I was never surprised at what he said or the penance he gave. In fact, the only penance I ever received from him that was a total shock was when I prayed before going in, "Lord I know the penance that I'll be given, so let's just get this over with" and I was totally humbled by getting another as if God were going, "Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. my child. Don't get comfortable."

I will still miss Father CT though, as I would have when I left for my new university. It's just a little sooner with no time to say goodbye is all. Father CM was telling our seminarian today that it was time for him to learn the fine art of fundraising, and he, along with Father CM, would be facing wet sponge bombardment this afternoon at the parish picnic in order to raise money for the local Catholic grade school.

Anyhow, why is this entry titled "Mary, Martha, and Me" one might ask, if anyone reads this still hehe. Well the truth is simple, like many people who read this passage and think about it, I can easily identify with Martha. Martha is defined by her worries, by her anxieties; she's so busy being, well, busy, to do anything else.

She's most likely a godly person, she welcomed this great teacher whom she did not realize was the Messiah into her home; she was serving He and His Disciples a meal. She was letting them in out of the heat and offering them a great deal of hospitality. She was keen on helping others, something I often try to accomplish as well. Yet that was not enough for the Christ.

Instead He chides her when she asks for her sister to aid her rather than to sit and listen to Him. He says, without condescension, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her."

I at least can hear my own name in those words. For the root of almost all my issues is that of fear, and allowing those fears to grow into worries and anxieties about every little thing, just like Martha did when serving her honored guests.

Today for instance in the bulletin, was the announcement that there are no Confessions next week due to Father CM doing a wedding out of town, and for an instant I panicked; those who know me know my struggles and why this would be such a panic worthy moment since I've gone two weeks now without needing to confess a certain sin in particular. I'm still worried about the contracts for the school and for the apartment. I'm still worried about having hurt the person I cared most for. I'm still worried about driving mom to fly out on Thursday. I'm still worried about if I can pay my bills when I move, or if I can complete the program and get my final degree. I'm still worried about whether or not I can make friends in my new university and I'm still worried about if I'll ever meet my future wife, or if she even exists.

In the Gospel reading today, it was like I was being spoken to directly, "Phil, Phil, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing." I must bear that one necessary thing in mind, and I must not let it slip from my grasp. For in the face of that one necessary thing, all others pale in comparison, and my fears and worries, my anxieties, are all drowned out and eclipsed by the glory of His divine love.

In the show Babylon 5, Valen asks, "Will you follow me into the fire? Will you follow me into darkness?" Christ asks, "Will you love Me? Will you let Me help direct your life? Will you allow the Holy Spirit into your heart? Will you give praise to my Heavenly Father?"

I know that I say yes with my mouth to these things, but that I often fall short. And that has often worried me; scrupulosity, I'm told, is one of my great sins. We all fall short of the glory of God. The key is to pick ourselves back up, embrace that love, and to say, "Yes Lord, I'll do my best not to fall again". And when we do, we do. But He will always take us back.

Corpus Christi

Today was the Feast of Corpus Christi, in which we celebrate the Blessed Sacrament. The readings began to Melchizedek, the mysterious Priest-King of Salem (later Jerusalem) who not only held the dual rank which was so strange, but offered sacrifice to God in the form of bread and wine. A precursor, one must think, to the Priest-King who would come, and Who would also break bread and wine and make them into His body and His blood.

The second reading was the most commonly quoted Sacred Scripture for Communion in the Protestant churches where I grew up. First Corinthians, Chapter 11, verses 23-36.

Brothers and sisters:
I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you,
that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over,
took bread, and, after he had given thanks,
broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me."
In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying,
"This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,
you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.

And that, sadly, is where the Mass reading stopped, just as that passage did at those Protestant churches. The next couple of verses are part of what convinced me of the validity of the Church and of the Eucharist. 1 Corinthians, 11: 27-31.

Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord.

A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup.

For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.

That is why many among you are ill and infirm, and a considerable number are dying.

If we discerned ourselves, we would not be under judgment;

An examination of conscience, but more than that, answering for unworthily receiving the body and blood of the Lord. If Communion was a mere symbol, than how would we been unworthy to receive a symbol? Rather, Paul states that it is the body and the blood of the Lord. Let me just repeat that in a paraphrased manner, in keeping with those who say "show it to me in the Bible", Paul says it's the body and blood of Christ!

Then came the feeding of the five thousand in Gospel. Which, if one is to look at it one way, is a misnomer. Christ and His Disciples did not feed a mere five thousand. The Gospel only counts the men, not the women and children. The number was most likely far larger!!

Fr. Chris's homily today spoke about how many times in life, when we encounter a major event, we have a dinner of some sort, a big one. Weddings, funerals, graduations, etc. Yet after this large gathering and preaching to a crowd, there was so little food, yet the King of Kings used what little there was to make it a feast.

So too, Fr. Chris reminded us, does God give us a feast in a small package today. The Host, so tiny and bland tasting, contains the fullness of God, the source and the summit of our Faith! The greatest gift of all, and a foretaste of the Feast of Heaven. He did what so many priests are afraid to do, and he spoke of the Real Presence!

Yesterday on my birthday in Confession, I was treated with genuine care and compassion, both for my spiritual needs and for my physical problems with my hand. It did more to re-awaken in me my faith than anything else could have. Today I attended this Solemnity, and thanked God for each moment of it, even in the pain. As one nun once said after failing to witness any of the miracles associated with the supposed apparitions of the Blessed Virgin in a Bosnian village, "I don't need to see, because I witness a miracle every time I go to Mass".

Bread and wine, body and blood. So many would not have died for the Faith if it were not the Truth. The Apostles would not have gone willingly to martyrdom for a lie. St. Tarcisius would not have sheltered the Eucharist as he was beaten to death, with his final words to a fellow Christian be to ask if the Lord was safe, if the Eucharist were a lie. So many have died for Him, that it is nothing to ask that we live for Him.

I wonder if anyone reads this

There are times I wonder if anyone is reading this any more, or if I'm just typing to myself. It doesn't matter one way or the other though, because as I said in a previous entry, writing is a cathartic exercise for me. And how I need catharsis...

It's a real roller coaster, fighting through this depression that has haunted me for around eight months now. I was promised by her that God had told her she would love me no matter what, even if we broke up, only to have her tell me that by responding to a certain something in a certain way that she had fallen out of love with me. That she had moved on at that moment.

I want to say I've moved on. I want to so badly that it hurts, but I don't think I have, nor do I know if I ever will. Have I learned that I don't need her approval to be happy? Yes. Have I learned that I'm capable of love, even without her? Yes. Have I learned that I am still lovable? Yes. Have I learned that I have friends who really and truly care about me? Yes. Have I learned that I have people I'd not pee on if they were aflame? Yes. Have I learned that it will break my heart anew when she gets together with someone else? Yes. Have I learned that I will eventually accept that, because of the dream I had? Yes. Have I used the beads she gave me, my first real Rosary beads since it all ended? Yes, for the first time in eight months the other week. Have I been enduring the Dark Night of the Soul well? Not really.

I want to feel again in my faith. I read the conversion stories of others with such awe, remembering that I felt that way and struggled to embrace the Catholic faith as well. It awes me, their faith, their love, and their all consuming passion for the Truth. It was a passion I shared until about eight months ago, when the darkness set in after my heart was broken.

Less than betrayed by her, I felt betrayed by God. And to be honest, I still do to an extent. I finally knew happiness for the first time in my life, true happiness and it was taken away. I crumbled, just like she predicted time and again that I would. Emotionally I had become so attached that the separation sent me into a self destructive brooding spiral. I felt like I was unloved. I felt like I would never care for anyone again. I felt like I didn't deserve to live, wishing that I'd not wake up the next morning.

So many people, even those who had never even met me, tried to claim that my conversion to Catholicism was all for her. It wasn't. I came to fall in love, not just with a woman, but with Truth. However, her struggles became my struggles, and vice-versa. That includes struggling with faith.

I've almost always had faith to rely on, she once said that it flows through my veins like blood. That's not true. Faith is a daily struggle, and some days...I fail. I pray every day. I pray for the souls of those who have gone before, I pray for myself to have the strength to move on, I pray for the intentions of others all the time. Yes I pray, but there are days like today, where I wonder if anyone really hears my prayers.

Then I tell myself of course there is. I've seen and experienced too many things in this life for it to be all simple coincidence. And even when I wonder that, even if I'm at Adoration assailed by doubts, my tongue can not form the words to say that Christ is not present in the Eucharist.

I just wish I could be the man I used to be and the man that I know I can be. The one who knew joy, and how to have fun. The one who loved to read about theology and truly excited about God, not all the time like some Pentecostals I know, but excited nonetheless. One who looked forward to going to Mass, not going for fear of going to Hell if I don't. I want to fall in love with Him again, because before I can love myself or love someone else, and before I can move on from lost love of another person...I have to love Christ.

Tomorrow I turn 24. I have to go to Confession. Please Lord, if You will it, allow that Sacrament to make me fall in love with you again, as if for the first time. I live in my past signs to keep me going, staring at the stars and feeling the kiss of sunlight upon my skin. Help me fall in love again, please...I want to love You. The Novena to the Holy Spirit recently was the closest I've felt to You in a long time Lord, a long time...so please, help me to draw closer to You.

Thinking and Realizations

I've realized a good bit about myself so far this summer, since she told me to take a break from her. I realized I don't need her approval to think of myself as a good person, but that it doesn't hurt. I realized that even though she gave me my Rosary beads, they are mine, and I can use them: I prayed with them for the first time in eight months the other night.

I realized that I do have a few friends I can count on in real life, but that I'll be leaving them in August. I realized that I'm still lovable, that I'm still a caring man for others, and that I'm still able to have fun in spite of personal pains.

I realized that I judge others way too easily, and while not all of it is contingent on my upbringing, I think a large part of it does lie in being raised to despise people who go outside, have fun, and spend money on leisure activities. I've also realized that I'm far too scrupulous for my own good; a fault I was reminded of this morning after Mass. I was going down the stairs and the loose one sunk more than normal by a bit, and I made sure not to be under it when dad came down to help me with the mower, just in case, and he nearly fell through. I beat myself up for nearly an hour trying to figure out if I was in mortal sin for failing to warn him that the loose stair was even looser than normal. In the end, I told myself that he was okay, and I was okay, and a warning would have done no good; and there was no malice there, despite all he has done to me.

I realized that I enjoy being outside in the sunshine, that it lifts my mood amazingly. I realized that I can and will move on, and perhaps, maybe perhaps, I have. The thought of her with someone else doesn't send me into tears like it once did, as long as they treat her with the honor and respect that she deserves, and they don't try to take her away from God. Likewise, the thought of me with someone else isn't as heartbreaking as it once was.

I've realized that I am a strong person, willing to be humbled. I have always struggled with humility, because I cling to those scraps of self esteem and respect that my father has not robbed me of, and I've placed them on a pedestal all my own. I was ready to crawl on my hands and knees to fast food for a job if it was necessary, to beg for a job from a place I once considered only a step removed from Hell; but He delivered me a week before I would have done so, only after I had swallowed the bitter pill of my pride and hubris.

Most of all, I think I realized how much I miss the times of faith being a simple matter...and I think this ties into my scrupulosity problems. I miss being able to just think of everything as truth, instead of being constantly assailed by doubts. Adoration has become difficult, where once my ultimate peace this side of Heaven could be found, I have frequently been buried beneath my doubts.

This is Trinity Sunday. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth. I believe in His only begotten Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the Comforter, and Advocate. Despite all the doubts, I will never cease to believe in the Holy Trinity. I've come to realize that while faith is a struggle, that core belief is as natural to me as the air I breathe.

A Good Day

Today has been a long, tiring, but good day. I've:
1) Received the Illusive Dean's signature for my signature pages which lead to...
2) Getting my thesis submitted to my printers, who...
3) Got them printed for me before the end of business hours. I'm now lovingly staring at a finished Thesis, bound and printed.
4) Cleaned out my desk except for knick-knacks and essential office supplies in preparation for the end of my position.
5) Submitted my final papers in White Collar Crime and Advanced CJ Studies.
6) Finished my last presentation of the year, and of my Masters program.
7) Had my Toshiba come in, too tired to set it up tonight -- I've got to be at FSU early tomorrow to proctor a make up exam.
8) Dr. M's baby arrived at 4:30 this morning; Brady is 6 pounds and 13 ounces, 19 inches long and healthy.
9) Did my Arabic homework in record time.
10) Finished Succubus Shadows, which ended on the first note of hope in like three books; granted, it was tempered by lots of angst.
11) Congratulated Missy on her new position as Copy Editor. (Told her she'd win if she ran. ;))
12) Went to Adoration!!
13) Watched one of the two episodes I missed of V.
14) Comforted some people.
15) Managed to keep up my positive attitude throughout the day!

Night everyone!

Musings of a Bookworm

I must admit that I have a weakness for books, and my latest weakness has tended to be the works of the urban fantasy author Richelle Mead. She captures characters in a believable manner, in settings that otherwise might seem absurd. Her Georgina Kincaid series in particular, holds a spot close to my heart; I even got someone close to me into it.

That said, since my breakup, her works have been harder to read as she captures heartache in breath taking detail. I find myself time and again going, "I've said that" or "I've done that". I pre-ordered the latest in the series, Succubus Shadows, and it has set unread for two weeks. I'm almost at the halfway point now that I picked it up, devouring it as I always do with her works. Yet my fears as to why I left it to sit were recognized on page 92, and my sorrows threatened to overwhelm me.

Then I put it to the side, and I prayed. I could feel my sorrow ebbing, and the thoughts of my dream returning to me. I'm better now, and I did read on another thirty pages before getting out of the bath. It astounds me, it was the first time I've ever been able to consciously push aside those feelings, even with the help of prayer.

It makes me happy. So much does really. Tonight I'm going to have dinner and then go to a friend's. Hopefully tomorrow, my thesis will go to the printers. Soon I will escape my father's tyranny and emotional abuse; and I'm informed by Missy that the parish on campus is a vibrant place where I can hopefully work on getting out of my shy attitude that has been layered upon me by a literal lifetime of emotional abuse. And this will be better than the last time I was thrust into a Church setting with people my own age; I will not allow myself to be ridiculed and mocked, to be scoffed upon as some sort of lesser Christian than thou. I will not be called anti-Christ, nor will I be referred to as a Satan worshiper or worshiper of angels.

Earlier today I heard a song for the first time that describes it best, Jimmy Needham's "Yours to Take":

This is my second chance
This is no song and dance
You came in and renewed a right spirit
This is grace at its best
This is taking a restless, messed up heart and having you clear it

I can feel the weight is lifting
I'm barely staying on the ground
And I can feel the wait is over
Finally the lost is found

(Chorus)
So, this is what it feels like to live life
So, this is breathing air for the very first time
The Son of man, He came here to give life
And in return He's asking for mine
I've Been captured by grace
I'm not going away
I'm Yours to take

Walk on the Water Part Two

Last night I cried myself to sleep, and I had a dream. Today, I soaked in the bathtub collecting my thoughts amidst the hot water, the steam rising around me, the place where I do my best thinking; entire term papers have been composed in such a manner. I took my glasses off and placed them to the side and I leaned forward to cry once more, when I saw my dream once more. I was at her wedding; she was radiant and happy. Her new husband was a good and Godly man, the sort who would give her the respect she deserved and take care of her for the rest of their lives. I was leaving, and I leaned over one last time to kiss her on the forehead and then left to my car, where I wept with tears of joy.

Saint Augustine of Hippo once said the following words in his seminal work Confessions:

But you, Lord, my god, give ear; look and see, and have mercy upon me; and heal me --you, in whose sight I am become an enigma to myself; this itself is my weakness.

Last night, that quotation described my inner turmoil before I went to sleep; but now I'm nowhere near as conflicted. I am a good person. I am here for my friends. I will never stop loving her, but it will change to a more sisterly love than anything else, and I will still always be an instant message or a phone call away. As I stared at a priest who doesn't know the whole story and confessed my sins of this week, as well as some of the things that were said on both sides, I thought he was going to die right there in the Confessional on me.

For so long, I was convinced that my feelings of despair and depression were all about me. I was partially right, and I will continue to work through those. But another part of them was that I felt I had failed the woman I loved by our breaking up; that I had somehow ruined her life by not being there for her later. I know now that she will be happy and will be taken care of, and the palpable relief of it is astounding.

Further...sometimes it's the little things in life that really make us smile and happy. Since Spring has come, I've been spending free time (little though it be) outside more and more often, enjoying the sunshine and the vitality of the newly green plants and the animal life all about. I've felt the warmth of the sun across my skin and had to smile that it was finally back after these past winter months where it's been only an occasional friend to us in the skies. Really, it's the little things: a bouncy ball, blowing some bubbles, playing with a frisbee, playing with my police stress car foam thingy, using the remote control on mom's car to lock it. They're all small things, but all have made me happy in this Spring season.

Today at Mass, I was sitting next to a woman with her three year old child. As everything happened, she was explaining the significance to him; when he tried to start yelling, she made him whisper, but still welcomed his questions. It was heartwarming to see someone taking the time to instruct their child that way, and it put a smile on my face when he toddled across the pew to shake my hand at the Sign of Peace. It's the little things, like the faith of a child.

I got to thinking about my last trip to Adoration, how I said I wasn't consoled for the first time ever. I never even gave Him the space to try to console me; I was angry, I was venting, even as I prayed for guidance and for forgiveness, I was railing at him with the fury of an angry child who has just been denied dessert.

What if I've just been so emotionally raw that in my sorrows, I've been pushing Him away even as a I cry for Him to come closer? I've been embraced by loved ones over these last six months, well a loved one at least; I've had friends online and in real life offer their support (regrettably at times by saying nasty things about her), but has that support really penetrated this wall I've thrown up around myself, trying to protect myself from the world? I think it has been kept at bay by my own insistence to work through and solve my own problems.

Perhaps my greatest inconvenience in my healing has been my own stubborn and solitary nature. Perhaps I should face that inconvenience head on, after all, the great thinker G.K. Chesterton once said, "An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered." Despite my solitary nature, despite my being a bit of a homebody at times (in spite of being well traveled), I love adventures. It's funny; I hate roller coaster rides, and that's what this has all been. Yet, I love other things that promote adrenaline; riding in the car with someone who drives fast, exploring new cities via the public transit system, riding at the fore of a speedboat to feel the wind and water whip across my face, riding the personal watercraft of relatives. Given the chance, I would sky dive in a heartbeat. But roller coasters, like this hardening and softening of my heart, of my wildly diffuse emotions, are something I can't stand; a long build up followed by insane turns and dips and going head over heels, only to face another short or long build up to be followed by more of the gut wrenching same.

I've definitely got a place at IUP, even if Josh finds nowhere new. I can do this. :)

I'm calm, I'm peaceful. I've seen a sliver of what the future holds...and that was enough. I'm here my Lord. You've shown that You can begin to heal me, now carry on, I'll not stand in your way any longer. What's more Lord, I can not do this alone, so please, listen to the prayers of others for me that I am assured are out there; I'll never refuse someone's intercession on my behalf. To hearken back to the dichotomy of today's Gospel reading, I want to be like the perfect Disciple, the beloved Disciple John who never questioned and stayed with Christ even through the Passion. I know though Lord, that I am more akin to Peter; flawed, quick to flee from You at times after stating I would die for You, and needing reassurance that I have been forgiven for my trespasses against You. If I might close this blog entry with one final bit of a request, it would be this: Just because I'm flawed like Peter, doesn't mean I need to die like Him. So please, don't end my life one day in the (hopefully far off) future by a violent act carried out because of my belief in You.

Pray for me everyone, please. That I can continue like this. It's nice to know the feeling of Hope again, and it's nice to look forward to the future and feel, finally, a positive outlook on what is to come.