Sunday Sermon: The Voice of God

Let's not duck the obvious challenge to the main theme of this version of the Sunday Sermon series. "Follow the Voice of God" brings with it the possibility that any particular individual will get it wrong. It won't be the true "Voice of God" that they are hearing, but instead may be a hallucination brought on by anything from an abused substance to a mental or physical illness.

That said, there is no doubt in my mind that not only famous individuals throughout history, but also ordinary men and women every single day, receive messages directly from the Almighty. Sometimes these are specific lucent and palpable words and phrases of command. More often they are whispers of direction.

When you as a normal, rational, thinking human being feel yourself being consistently and repeatedly guided by what you might simply describe as "something inside me" towards a certain path, be it in your familial relationships or career choice or general life direction, you should seriously consider that this may very well be that 'Voice of God' whispering into your mind and soul.

God has many important things that he wants done in our world. I believe that he repeatedly has used the actions of human beings who have accepted his message and direction, have listened to it fully, understood it correctly, and not been afraid to embrace it and follow through on it in their lives in order to make a difference to humanity in large and small ways.

Today is the anniversary of the beginning of the trial of Saint Joan of Arc in 1431 at the English-occupied city of Rouen in Normandy, France. Joan was a young girl at a point in history when that was a particularly difficult time for someone of her age and sex to be taken seriously. But Joan heard the 'Voice of God', listened to it fully, overcame doubt and fear, took His message to action, and changed the course of world history.

Joan was born and raised at a difficult time for her home country of France. The historic rivals in England had taken advantage of a number of internal French leadership tragedies and political problems to conquer and control large portions of the country. At around age 12, Joan was alone in a field when she experienced a vision
in which Saint Michael, Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret appeared to her and told her that she must drive out the English and return the King of France to power in a coronation at Reims.

At around age 16 she first attempted to make contact with the French ruling aristocracy in order to discuss the visions that she was continuing to receive, but was laughed off and turned away. She returned a few months later and managed to convince some influential men with the passion and intensity of her testimony. After a prediction that she made of a military battle came true, she was finally granted an audience with the French royals.

Charles VII of France, also known as Dauphin Charles, was out of options and likely felt that it was just a matter of time before he lost the entire land to England. Historians make little other sense outside of complete desperation of his willingness to allow a simple peasant girl who came from nowhere with nothing but a self-proclaimed 'Voice of God' message to don the armour of a knight and take a place at the head of the French military forces.

Within a short time of her arrival at the battle front, the tide began to turn for the French. She inspired the army with her religious fervor, and led it to victory through both her tactical expertise and her aggressive leadership from the front. Joan's repeated victories led to Charles eventually appointing her command of the full army. She was wounded at different points by an arrow to the neck, a cannon shot to her helmet, and a crossbow bolt to her leg, but continued leading by example from the front of the troops. Reims was eventually taken, and the coronation of Charles given her as a her mission by the Saints finally took place.

While leading troops during a skirmish with English troops in May of 1430, Joan was finally captured and imprisoned. After many political negotiations involving her imprisonment and attempts at escape by Joan herself, she was finally put on trial in the seat of the English occupation government at Rouen for the charge of heresy due to the religious nature of her claim that it had been that 'Voice of God' having guided her actions.

During the trial, no evidence could be found to convict her, and so a theological trap was set for her. The prosecution asked her whether she knew that she was in God's grace. The trap is in the answer. Were she to answer "yes", she would be a heretic, because the Church taught that no one can be sure of being in God's grace. If she were to answer "no" then she would be admitting her guilt in her very answer.

The notary at the proceedings later stated that her interrogators were "stupefied" by her actual reply: "If I am not, may God put me there; if I am, may God so keep me." At bottom line, none of her testimony nor the fact that no real evidence against her could be proven mattered. Evidence was manufactured against her, she was found guilty, and was burned at the stake on May 20th, 1431 at the age of just 19 years. Her body was burned three times so that no trace remained for collection as relics, and her executioner later stated that he "greatly feared to be damned."

What became known in history as 'The Hundred Years War' continued for 22 more years, with France using Joan's tactics to maintain control of their land. At the end of the war, Joan was posthumously retried and cleared during proceedings in which she was described as actually having been a martyr. She was finally beatified by the Church in 1909, and was canonized as a Saint by Pope Benedict XV in 1920. She is the patroness of France and of all soldiers everywhere.

The story of the true life of Jeanne d'Arc, the teenage peasant girl from eastern France who followed the 'Voice of God', changed the course of world history, became inspiration for an entire nation and finally a Catholic Saint should be example enough for all of us. It doesn't matter your age or your sex. It doesn't matter the times in which you live or the difficulty of the task ahead. What matters when you receive a true message from God is that you have the courage and perseverance to follow His voice.

NOTE: this is the continuation of the regular 'Sunday Sermon' series, all entries of which can be enjoyed by clicking on that label below this entry at the www.mattveasey.com website

Lent: Still Time to Re-Dedicate Yourself

You've had two shots at it now. First came your 'New Year Resolution' to quit smoking, begin a diet, start exercising, read more, go back to school, end a damaging relationship, whatever. Then came Ash Wednesday, and with it the beginning of Lent, and yet another chance to give something up, this time sacrificially.

Okay, so maybe you're 2010 batting average is suffering with an '0 for 2' start to the year. Or maybe you wish that you had added some other item to your list of things to give up or begin as that new beginning or that sacrifice. Maybe you never made any resolution or made any Lenten sacrifice to begin with. It's not too late to begin to dedicate yourself, or to re-dedicate yourself.

As for the idea of a resolution, it's still very early in 2010. We just began March this past week. Almost 10 full months remain in the calendar year. There is plenty of time to make the positive changes to your life that you wanted to make, plenty of opportunity to make 2010 a different year than any other.

And as for a Lenten sacrifice, there is still a full month until Easter Sunday. If you 'gave up' something for Lent but then backslid or caved in to whatever the temptation, you can still make a statement that means something. Whatever your vice, be it smoking, alcohol, dietary, sexual, habitual, giving it up as a sacrifice to the Lord for a full month is a legitimate sacrifice.

Remember what Lent really is all about. It is a time of voluntary self-denial, a time to reflect on that ultimate sacrifice that Jesus Christ is about to make for you as an individual. He is about to go through the process of being imprisoned, publicly mocked, tortured, and put to an agonizing death, all so that you might have an opportunity to have your sins forgiven and may earn a place in Heaven for eternity.

Whether it be something as mundane as giving up drinking soda beverages or something as sexually addicting as viewing pornography, your personal sacrifice can never equate to what Christ went through on your behalf. The important thing is to focus on making a sacrifice, and then doing your personal best to stay with it for a month.

And also remember that your attitude during this sacrificial period is important. It matters that you don't pull out the "I Survived Lent" t-shirt on Easter Sunday morning and shovel a pile of jelly beans into your mouth. It is not enough to simply give something up, or make increased church donations, or whatever your sacrifice, but you should do so joyfully in the knowledge that God is recognizing your change.

If you began a period of sacrifice a few weeks back when Lent officially began, but fell off the wagon, get yourself right back up and get back on. There is a four weeks long journey ahead to Good Friday and Easter, and your slightly shortened time of sacrifice would be no less valid. It's the idea of caring about it that matters. Don't give up, there's still time.

NOTE: this is the continuation of the regular 'Sunday Sermon' series, all entries of which can be enjoyed by clicking on that label below this entry at the www.mattveasey.com website

Resolve to Come Back to Church

In these first few days of the New Year many of us are struggling with beginning resolutions to improve our lives. For many this involves losing weight and getting in better physical shape. For some it involves straightening out their financial lives. No matter what your particular resolution, deciding to go back to Church, or perhaps even to go to Church regularly for the first time in your life, would be the single most important and rewarding for yourself and your family.

Going to Church requires taking care of a few formalities first, such as which Church to attend. There are many 'fly-by-night' operations out there disguised as churches. There are also any number of churches run by a strong pastor wholly dependant on that one person, always a dangerous proposition.

At the risk of alienating some, I am going to make a very brief case for you to give the Roman Catholic Church a try. Most of you probably already know which Catholic parish in which you live. If you don't just visit the Archdiocese website at archphila.org or give them a phone call at 215-587-3600.

The Catholic Mass is one of the most solemn and comforting services that you will ever experience. The solemnity comes from it's respect and reverence for the experience of worship. There is rarely any jumping around or hollering or dancing here. Prayer, scripture, and sacrament are the highlights of a Catholic Mass.

When you attend a Catholic Church service you are getting virtually the same general Mass service being experienced by hundreds of millions of Roman Catholics the world over on any given Sunday. There is a structure to the Mass involving two main parts: the Liturgy of the Word involving scriptural readings from both the Old and New Testaments, and the Liturgy of the Eucharist involving the preparation for and receiving of the Body of Christ.

In the Liturgy of the Word there are three readings. The first is always going to be by a lector and will come from the Old Testament, giving a teaching or passage from the traditional books of the Bible familiar to both Christians and Jews. The second is also from a lector and is going to be from the New Testament, usually from Paul's mission and that of Jesus' disciples in the aftermath of his death. Finally there will be a reading by the Priest from one of the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John relating to some incident directly involving Jesus Christ.

In the Liturgy of the Eucharist the priest will present and bless the bread and wine, and with God's help will turn it into the body and blood of Jesus Christ in a process known as Transubstantiation. During this portion of the Mass there will be traditional praying of the Lord's Prayer, the 'Our Father', a greeting among the community in offering one another a Sign of Peace, and then the actual receiving of the Lord in the Eucharist or Communion ceremony.

The entirety of the normal Catholic Mass service will take up about an hour of your time on any particular Saturday evening or Sunday morning. Depending on the size of the parish, Mass is offered 3-4 times on Sunday mornings. Also at many Catholic churches the Mass is offered in a 5pm or 6pm service on Saturday evenings for those who have to work or otherwise cannot make it to church on a Sunday morning.

As far as financial responsibilities, there are collections taken up as 'offerings' to the Church. Usually there is one main collection that will be for the support of your particular parish. There may be a 2nd collection directed towards a particular purpose, such as supporting the Church in a particularly difficult area of the world.

If you become a registered member of a parish, which you can and should do once you determine to which you belong, you will receive weekly envelopes in which to place your collection offering. There are guidelines suggested, but give as little or as much as you feel you can afford. If you cannot afford a formal offering on a regular basis, go to the Church anyway, and perhaps find some other small way to support the efforts, including through your prayers.

The Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination in the world with more than a billion members made up of 1/6th of the planet's population. By joining the Church you join that support system in an institution tracing it's origins directly back to the Apostle Peter, Christ's hand-picked choice as "the Rock upon which" the Lord's Church would be built.

There are some usual criticisms that you will hear about the Catholic Church that usually come across in four usual challenges by non-believers or advocates of other churches. These challenges involve staleness or blandness of the Mass ceremony, the priest sexual abuse, praying to statues or images, and the Papacy.

First, Catholics do not ever pray to statues or paintings or any other image. We put no image above or in place of God. What we will do regularly is ask for the intercession of Jesus' mother Mary or the holy men and women from the Church's past known as 'Saints' to pray to God on our behalf. We can and do pray directly to God, and believe that the intercession by these other holy individuals can help as well.

Secondly, where one man or woman might find the Mass boring many others find it beautiful, and I am firmly in that second group. Within that one short hour you get many opportunities to participate in group prayer, personal reflection and prayer, sacramental participation, and the singing of hymns. One Priest will indeed be more dynamic or personally charismatic than another, but it is the content of the Mass that is most important, not the individuals making the presentation.

Where the Priest abuse scandals are concerned, they are a fact of Church history that would be a mistake to ever ignore or deny. That denial and cover up went on for far too long, and no one is more ashamed or angered by that fact than Church members. Here I always point out an old saying to critics: "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water." There are many, many thousands of good men around the world today serving God as Catholic Priests who have no taint of personal scandal, and who deserve our admiration and respect for giving up a worldly life in service to God and our community.

The Church is much more than the actions of rogue, degenerate men in Priestly garments. We are the community of God's people, and we will overcome this challenge and defeat Satan the same way the Lord's people have always done, by learning from mistakes and strongly addressing them, and by standing together and leaning on prayer and on the Word of the Lord in moving forward.

Finally, those outside the Church simply are wrong when they say that we the Pope is the "head of the Roman Catholic Church" and that we place the Holy Father above Jesus or put him right along side God. The fact as all Catholics know is that Jesus Christ is the head of the Catholic Church. The Pope is the spiritual leader of the Church, and has himself lived a life guided by and inspired by God.

Just as with any large and historically established institution, there will always be critics of the Church. Don't let their easily defeated challenges influence your decision to join or come back to the Catholic Church. Pray for your own personal inspiration from God, set aside one hour for a few weeks and actually come to Mass, and open up your heart and mind to the opportunity. I personally have experienced the power of returning to the Church myself and can tell you without hesitation that it will be the most rewarding resolution that you can keep this New Year.

A Good Catholic Boy

During the course of our lives most of us are going to have any number of labels placed upon us by others. Some we will wear with pride: hard worker, strong willed, high energy. Others will cause us to reevaluate ourselves: lacks effort, undisciplined, tardy.

Recently, someone hung on me the moniker of being a "good Catholic boy" based on limited knowledge gathered by my writings and commentary at this blog. I believe that it was meant to be somewhat complimentary, but it also has caused me to evaluate whether or not it is actually true.

The only way to figure out if I am indeed a 'good Catholic boy', in fact if anyone can be described in such a manner, is to determine what exactly that phrase means. To do that, I think we need to break it down, word by word. What does it mean to be good, to be Catholic, to be a boy? And then we need to figure out if, taken together, those words would constitute a compliment. Would they be something of which to be proud?

Let's start off with being 'good', a virtue the meaning of which most of us could probably agree. Webster's primary definition of 'good' states "of a favorable character or tendency", and secondarily as "virtuous, right, commendable". Sounds 'good' to me. But do I personally fit the bill?

Examining the totality of any American citizen's life is going to reveal specific incidents of what most of us would consider 'good' actions and 'bad' actions. It is not only possible, but it happens in fact that people who are good the majority of the time, good in their nature, do sometimes commit bad acts. Conversely, people who many would consider as bad or even 'evil' can sometimes do a good act.

I would like to consider myself as falling into the former category, where I feel that most of us fall. An honest evaluation of the person that I know myself to be inside, and the reactions that people generally have towards me, lead me to believe that I am indeed a generally 'good' person. That I know also for a fact that I have committed some 'bad' actions in my life does not detract from that basic goodness, it simply keeps me striving to improve as a human being.

While being 'good' or 'bad' as a part of your basic character as a person is really not that hard to determine in most instances, even easier to determine is the idea of being a boy. It starts with the premise that you are sexually a male, so that part is easy. The real difficult point is to draw a line between boyhood and becoming a 'man', an adult male.

Putting an exact age on this shift is troublesome. Just because someone reaches the age of 18 for instance, where in America you can do such things as vote, is not enough. Even reaching the age of 21, where again in America you can legally consume alcohol and by which point many people have or are about to graduate from college is not enough.

Moving from 'boy' to 'man' is not about some numerical, chronological age. It is about combining a certain minimum age with reaching a maturity level at which you begin to think outside of yourself on an egotistical level. Some can reach this point at age 16, others at 18, others at 21. Some males take decades to reach the point where they can legitimately call themselves a 'man' in real terms.

Being a man means taking care of your responsibilities to home, family, and career. It means placing the needs of your family ahead of your own personal needs and desires. It means setting a good example, working hard, and taking important issues such as faith, politics, and morality seriously. During my own life, moving from boyhood to manhood came in fits and starts.

I had some tremendous responsibilities put on my shoulders at a time when many would still have considered me a boy in chronological age. Parenthood, marriage, and taking care of a sick parent all came to me at very young ages. Over the years I handled most of those responsibilities, but in retrospect I know that I didn't always handle them the way I now believe that a true man would. I absolutely can be accused of being selfish, ignorant, and unreliable at times, especially when I was younger.

But I certainly feel that the totality of my life experiences has left me as a 'man' today. I know that I have grown as a father and grandfather, as a husband in my second marriage, as a homeowner, as a professional in the law enforcement field. So at this stage of my life I feel pretty comfortable in accepting someone calling me a 'good man', even if I still may act a bit childish from time to time.

The final term to look at here is that 'Catholic' label. That one might indeed be the hardest, even though for some it might seem the easiest to determine. Let's face it, anyone can call themselves whatever they want and justify it in some way. People who consider themselves 'Catholic' as a matter of faith do that frequently. You grew up Catholic, or you go to a Catholic church at times, or you send your kids to a Catholic school.

Does any of that make you 'Catholic' truly? If not, what does make one a Catholic in deed, not just as a label. The roots of the word go back to Greek origin, and basically are going to lead you to 'universal' as a definition. In the early Church, if you were a Christian you were catholic. Of course as we all know there were many doctrinal splits in the Church over the millenia.

Today being a Catholic with capital 'C' signifies to most that you belong religiously to the Roman Catholic Church. You can call yourself a member if you are baptized into the Church, and then more fully as you progress through receiving the Sacraments, particularly Confirmation. Stronger commitments are reached with regularly attending Mass and receiving the Eucharist at Holy Communion, and in cleansing yourself of sin in Penance and Reconciliation.

But these are acts of physical or emotional commitment on ones part. What is truly needed to really be able to call oneself 'Catholic' is an understanding and living out of the basic creed of the Church to be 'one, holy, and apostolic' in nature. You follow the 'one Church' established by Christ whole-heartedly, you always attempt to live your life in a holy manner even if you fall short most times, and you try to spread Christ's word in apostolic fashion by your own words and deeds.

In this sense, I feel comfortable calling myself a Catholic. I do believe in the Church and it's creed, in the teachings of Jesus Christ, and I do feel inspired by the Holy Spirit as a direct presence in my life. I read the Bible. I go to Mass and receive Communion. I go to Confession and perform Penance (though not as often as I probably should), and I have been both baptized and confirmed in the Church.

As I have gotten older I have begun to express my Christianity and Catholic beliefs much more frequently, particularly here at my blog. I have volunteered as a lector in my own church. I have supported my wife as she herself converted to Catholicism some years ago now. I have subtly tried to pass along my faith to my children, something that I failed to do strongly enough when they were young. I pray every single day that they come to a full faith in Christ during their lifetime. I believe that I still have much more to do, but that 'Catholic' is certainly a term you can use to describe me at this point.

So in the end, the term that was hung on me of being a "good Catholic boy" is a bit misleading. I am only 'good' most of the time. I still have much room to grow in my 'Catholic' faith. I have mostly shed the habits of a 'boy' and take my responsibilities as a man far more seriously. But I know inside that I am a 'good' person, I am happy to practice and express my 'Catholic' faith, and am confident enough in my manhood to still allow the 'boy' in me to come out at times.

"A good Catholic boy." I have some work to do still, but I think that I can happily live with that. I hope to be able to live up to that label going forward in experiencing this gift of life that God has given to me. I would invite anyone reading this to also try living up to the challenge one day, one action, one moment at a time.

Remaining Thankful in the Worst of Times

If we live long enough here on earth, every single one of us is going to experience difficult times. Some of those are going to overwhelm us, challenging us to the limits of our ability to recover feelings of joy, peace, and thankfulness.

This coming week here in America we will celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving Day, a day specifically set aside for us all to give thanks for those blessings that we have received in this life. Though it may indeed be difficult, it is important that we remain thankful in the worst of those difficult times.

As this wonderful holiday approaches, I have been reminded recently of a pair of heartening messages, the first taught by Jesus Christ and the second by the apostle Paul: "In this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world" and "Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

In the first of these statements, Jesus let's all of us know in no uncertain terms that we are indeed going to experience difficult times in this world. We are going to experience physical illness and injury. We are going to experience other people in our lives, at times the very closest and dearest to us, letting us down. We are going to experience death, both of our loved ones and ultimately our own.

But also in no uncertain terms, Jesus declares that He has overcome the world. We have all been promised that if we remain strong in our faith, that one day we too shall overcome the world and join Him in His kingdom in Heaven.

Have you experienced the sudden, tragic death of a loved one, perhaps someone who was your best friend, your partner in life, your husband or wife? Perhaps you have experienced the incredibly tragic pain of losing a child, one whom you raised and taught and played with? Many of us have experienced the loss of a parent, a mom or dad who helped preserve our own deepest feelings of security.

I cannot imagine how those with no faith can deal with these situations and remain sane and functional as human beings. With faith we understand that all is in God's loving hands, and that we are all offered a chance at eternal peace, health, and happiness.

We will all pass on from this earth, that is a fact. Tens of billions of people have lived on this tiny planet over the millenia. Every single one of them has died. That includes our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, his mother, Mary, and every single great or holy secular or religious leader that was ever born.

The great gift that we receive when we have faith in Jesus Christ comes in the knowledge that He died for us. His suffering and death were enormous, painful, and difficult. If you have never done so, watch Mel Gibson's truthful, passionate retelling in "The Passion of the Christ."

Jesus Christ experienced people turning away from Him, from the very Word of God. He experienced His closest friends denying they even knew Him. He experienced physical pain and psychological torture. He experienced public mockery and challenges to His sanity and His soul. And He finally experienced suffering and death on a cross.

He experienced all of this so that we might learn the truth that there is more for us beyond this world. He has promised us that if we follow and believe in Him, that we will join him in eternal peace and joy with God in Heaven. Every one of our friends and family members who has ever passed away has also had this opportunity.

We can be secure that those who have died believing in Him, even should that sincere belief have come in their final days or moments, are with Him now in Heaven, and that we will see them again one day. Also, those who left us as innocents are absolutely together with Him this very moment. It should be our life's primary purpose to ensure that we accept Jesus with faith so that we can indeed join them one day.

In the second statement that I mentioned earlier, Paul implores us to "give thanks in all circumstances" because whatever it is that we are going through, if we truly understand God's love in faith then we understand that we are never, ever alone in our difficulties.

Many of us have been given the gift of family and friends to help us through the difficult times that will inevitably visit us. These people are the ones who will stand by us and stay with us, no matter our troubles. They will be there to offer a shoulder to cry on, arms to wrap around us and comfort us, words to encourage and strengthen us.

But even if we have few friends and family, we are still never alone. Even when your friends and family are not physically there with you, you are still never alone. Even if it is that one person who seemed to always be there for you who has been taken from you, you are still not alone. In every moment of your life, God is there. You only need turn to Him and acknowledge Him.

Paul teaches that it was God's will for you to be thankful in all circumstances, including the worst, most difficult, and most painful. He teaches that it is in Jesus Christ and His teachings and example that we are to find the ability to give that thanks.

No matter how difficult the event, no matter how painful the experience, there are others here on earth who are suffering more right now and who have suffered more in the past. Every one of us is promised that peace, joy, and love with God in eternity if we remain faithful.

As this day and season of Thanksgiving comes to us, we should always remember and be grateful for every good time that has come to us on this earth. We should be thankful for the gift of every good moment that we were ever given with every good person in our lives. But no matter what, most of all we must overcome earthly pain and loss, and remain thankful for what will last forever - God's undying love for us.

The First Pentecost

The Greek traveler stood bewildered in the Jerusalem crowd. What was happening? All about him Jews from many nations milled excitedly and pointed to a group in the center of the square.

The traveler had heard that the Jerusalem holidays were exciting, but he was not prepared for this. The crowd was electrified. What was that group up to? He tried to weave his way closer.

"You are drunk!" someone shouted at the group.

The traveler heard one of them, the big man with the gray-streaked hair, respond: "We are not drunk. We are stunned with joy because we have had an experience like Israel had at Sinai."

The Greek traveler wondered what he meant by that.

"Why not own up?" heckled another. "You've been to the wine bottle once too often."

Then the big man raised his hand for silence. The crowd fell quiet.

"Do not judge by appearances," he began. "Listen to our words. At Sinai, God called Israel to be a community of faith. God called our ancestors there to be a holy nation. That meant they should form a community that would worship God and live a worthy life. God also summoned them to be the light of nations, that is, to be a missionary witness helping all people to know God."

"I think I can agree with your first point," ventured a Pharisee in the crowd, "but I don't really believe God wanted us to be missionaries."

"My friend, you have forgotten the meaning of the story of Jonah," the big man remarked. "He was a preacher told by God to go on a missionary trip to Nineveh. Recall that Jonah resisted the call at first until God overcame him. Jonah was an example of how Israel, too, resisted the call."

"Who is that man?" the traveler asked of no one in particular.

"His name is Peter," a tradesman replied.

"He is their leader," said a woman nearby.

A young woman in the crowd, moved by Peter's sincerity, asked, "How is it you were speaking in a language we all could understand when you burst upon us here in the square? How did you manage to unify all of us who speak so many different tongues?"

"Perhaps I can explain this best to you," Peter answered, "by comparing this to the old story of the Tower of Babel. That was a tower of human pride that resulted in a breakdown in communications. The people at Babel could not understand each other.

"Our Master, Jesus, asked us to spend time in prayer to await his Holy Spirit. We followed his word and meditated for nine days in the Upper Room. Into that tower of prayer this day came the Holy Spirit, whose greatest work is to bring all people to unity in Christ. At Babel, people babbled. Here we speak a message that will unify people in mind and heart."

"Is that why you said you've had an experience like that which Israel had at Sinai?" asked an elderly man.

"Exactly," replied Peter. "The difference is that what happened at Sinai was but a shadow of the promise and reality that has happened here today. It is because of Jesus, who died and rose for us, that it has happened. Because of him and his Spirit, we really can be a community of faith and a light for the nations."

"How can we have this experience?"

"Is there any hope for us?"

"Go on, tell us more."

"As I look out over the vast crowd in this square," answered Peter, "I think of a world full of dead bones. I know that my comrades and I must go into this valley of the dead and bring life. Don't you remember the story of Ezekiel and the dry bones?"

[God] said to me, "Mortal, can these bones live?" I answered, "Lord GOD, you know."

Then he said to me: "Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!…I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin,...and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD."

The traveler listened to Peter's voice as it carried over the square. It is like a wind, he thought, bearing good news to the world.

On that Pentecost day, Peter asked the people to repent, to change their way of life, to seek a new life in Christ. And they did respond. The Holy Spirit of Jesus moved into the valley of dry bones and brought three thousand to life.

A new Church began!

"Your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams," Peter exclaimed.

That's what happened. The young let loose a flood of heart-expanding ideals across the earth. The old suddenly realized that their dreams of a happier tomorrow were no longer foolish thoughts, but a reality come true.

WRITTEN by Alfred McBride, O.Praem. and posted at AmericanCatholic.org on May 31st, 2009

Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?

Like many Catholics of their generation, Daniel Harrington's family wasn't made up of Bible readers. Harrington recalls two Protestants coming to his house when he was a child. "We'd like to discuss the Bible,"they said, to which his mother replied, "We're Catholics. We don't read the Bible."

Harrington, however, has spent his professional life helping Catholics do just that, not only by teaching scripture for decades but by preaching Sunday after Sunday in the same two parishes for many years. "One of the pastors used to stand at the entrance of the church and tell people they got three college credits for the liturgy," Harrington says of his preaching style.

For Harrington, though, reading the Bible is not just intellectual but spiritual as well. "Immersing oneself in scripture won't necessarily make this or that decision easier for you," he says. "But it does help answer big questions such as: Who am I? What is my goal in life? And how do I get there?"

Harrington admits that Catholics have yet to fully embrace the Bible as their own. "I think religious education perhaps hasn't emphasized the Bible enough," he says. "But the Sunday readings are a great tool for people to learn the Bible. People sometimes don't realize how much Bible they're exposed to."

Harrington sees facilitating that encounter as part of his job. "A preacher has to help people get familiar with the scriptures-and not be afraid of them."

Pope Benedict XVI's book Jesus of Nazareth (Ignatius) makes a very strong point that the gospels present Jesus as not simply a human figure but a divine figure as well. And if you read the gospels with sympathy and not fight against them, I think you have to acknowledge that the pope has made a very important theological point.

Can you introduce Jesus through the lens of each one of the four gospels?
They all share a common stock of titles: Son of Man, Son of God, Son of David, Lord, Messiah. Those are foundational. But they each take a distinctive approach to the figure of Jesus.

For Matthew Jesus is a teacher, and so he has Jesus giving five great speeches, beginning with the Sermon on the Mount in Chapters 5 through 7. While Mark wants to show that Jesus is a wise teacher and a powerful healer, in that gospel Jesus is also the suffering Messiah.

For Luke Jesus is the great example. In other words he practices what he preaches. This comes up especially in Luke's narrative of the death of Jesus, in which Luke highlights three things that Jesus taught throughout his career: forgiveness of enemies; giving hope to marginal people, such as the so-called good thief; and trust in God, as in Jesus' last words, "Into your hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 23:46).

In John, Jesus is the revealer and the revelation of God. He's the Word of God in the sense that he reveals what's on God's mind, but also he's the revelation of God in the sense that if you want to know what God is like, look to the person of Jesus.

What about Paul? How does he present Jesus?
Paul emphasizes almost entirely Jesus' death and Resurrection and their significance. He's interested in the saving effects of Jesus' paschal mystery. Only a few times does he ever quote a teaching of Jesus. And in one case-the teaching about marriage and divorce-Paul seems to give an exception to Jesus' absolute rejection of divorce.

Paul didn't meet Jesus personally. His experience was with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. Obviously it was such an overwhelming experience that it changed everything in his life.

What if you only had five passages to introduce Jesus to people - your five favorites from across the gospels?
I'd start with the prologue to John's gospel (1:1-18). It provides the New Testament context for the divinity of Jesus and echoes back to Genesis, which also starts, "In the beginning." I think it's a very important text.

The Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5 through 7, outlines what the disciple of Jesus should strive for and includes the Beatitudes.

Another would be Mark 8, the confession of Peter. That's a great turning point in Mark's gospel, as it is in all the other gospels.

The prodigal son, only in Luke (15:11-32), would be a representative parable because it emphasizes God's mercy and raises the question of what happened to the older son. We never find out whether he decided to change his mind and go to the party, or whether he just ran away.

And obviously the fifth and final would be the Passion narrative. I like all of the death scenes, but especially the hearing of Jesus before the high priest in Mark 14:62. All through Mark's gospel, when people would give Jesus titles such as Messiah or Son of Man, he would say, "No, no, keep this silent." He only publicly accepts the titles of Messiah, Son of God, and Son of Man at his lowest possible moment-that is, when he's been condemned by his own people. The truth is that he can only be understood on the cross.

If you could have been present for any of the gospel stories, which one would it be?
The first chapter of Mark's gospel beginning with verse 21. Mark presents it as a typical day in the ministry of Jesus with teaching, healing, and all sorts of interesting things. It takes place in Capernaum, one of the most beautiful places on earth, beside the Sea of Galilee, a beautiful setting, unspoiled still. Every time I visit there I read the first chapter of Mark.

WRITTEN by the editors of U.S. Catholic as an interview with Daniel Harrington, S.J. and published on May 26th, 2009. The above is an edited version. For the full version, as always, the title is a link to the original article.

On a Wheel and a Prayer

With St. Christopher riding shotgun, faithful motorists hope to have a safer journey.

With the fluctuating price of gas this past year and the growing economic crisis, the most common prayer uttered from behind the wheel these days is probably a plea for relief from the expense of filling up. While many families are suffering from job losses and other financial woes, I remember another, more serious supplication shared by my family at the beginning of any family road trip.

After my father would pack the trunk of our Volkswagon Beetle (later a VW Rabbit-no spacious minivan or SUV for this family of four!), we would take our places in the car: Dad behind the wheel; Mom riding shotgun, map in hand; and my sister and I in the cramped back seat. As we pulled out of our suburban Milwaukee neighborhood and headed toward the freeway, my parents would remind us to pray for a safe trip. Then they would lead us in an Our Father and a Hail Mary, punctuated by, "St. Christopher, be our guide," a nod to the patron saint of travel.

Then, and only then, did the radio go on, the car bingo games come out, and the pestering of "How long till we get there?" begin.

I later learned that the church had dropped St. Christopher's July 25 feast day from the liturgical calendar in 1969 out of concern that his story was based primarily in legend, although local and personal veneration is still allowed. It seems the tale of an 18-foot giant, perhaps with the face of a dog, portaging people across a dangerous river and later martyred, didn't pass the histor­icity test.

But the image of St. Christopher (literally "Christ-bearer") carrying people to safety still resonates, even in a century in which travel is so much safer that many of us don't even think about the danger involved in leaving our homes. The brisk sale of St. Christopher medals and statues attest to the desire for some totem to the gods to protect us while traveling. A bobblehead dashboard Jesus, who promises to be your "co-pilot through the valley of gridlock," is a more modern, kitschy version. Even Icon brand motorcycle jackets-most likely not purchased primarily by devout Catholics-often feature a St. Christopher medallion in an inside pocket.

I don't have a Jesus or St. Christopher statue in my car, but for years I have carried a St. Christopher medal in my passport wallet for overseas trips. Better safe than sorry.

Now that Hummers are out and hybrids are in, Americans may be spending less time on the road, whether out of economic necessity or concern for the earth. Unfortunately I am not one of them.

After five years of somewhat sanctimonious non-car ownership and reliance on public transportation, I purchased a used Toyota Camry, which I now drive a total of almost 100 miles round-trip, two or three times a week, to my job. I have become an über-commuter, joining the average American who spends more than an entire work week in his or her car each year.

Although it's easy to go on auto-pilot while driving the same route every day, I am occasionally graced with even more time to contemplate my new driving habits while I'm stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic caused by summertime construction or a lane-closing accident.

The latter reminds me of the sobering reality that I am maneuvering a several-thousand-pound machine. With some 6 million car accidents a year in the United States and a car-related fatality every 13 minutes, getting in the car is still one of the more dangerous things people do each day.

And in times of danger, we Catholics turn to our faith and to prayer. In the 1950s a Catholic priest founded the Sacred Heart Auto League to encourage "prayerful and careful" driving. Membership is free, but for a small donation you can receive a dashboard statue or visor clip to remind you to keep it under the speed limit and to be courteous to the guy who cuts you off.

A few years ago the Vatican also encouraged Catholics to take the high road with its "10 Commandments of Driving" in "Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road."

While the media had a field day with this quirky story, it's hard to argue with the church's advice to avoid road rage, help victims of accidents, and avoid drinking and driving. And though some may have chuckled at the recommendation to start each trip with a sign of the cross, it didn't seem odd to those of us who ask for God's guidance before putting the keys in the ignition.

I still do. Sometimes it's just a quick, "God, let me be safe" or "Be with me on this trip." Like many Catholics, I also pray when an ambulance passes by or when I see a disabled car or an accident. Both my sister and I and our families still start each long road trip with an Our Father and a Hail Mary.

St. Christopher, be our guide.

WRITTEN by Heidi Schlumpf at USCatholic.org on May 24th, 2009

Obama and the 'Real' Catholics

Passionate debates over doctrine, identity, and the boundaries of “communion” have been a staple of the American religious landscape for centuries: Trinitarians vs. Unitarians in 19th-century New England; Modernists vs. Fundamentalists in early 20th-century Presbyterianism; Missouri Synod Lutherans vs. Wisconsin Synod Lutherans vs. Other Sorts of Lutherans down to today. Yet never in our history has a president of the United States, in the exercise of his public office, intervened in such disputes in order to secure a political advantage.

Until yesterday (Saturday, May 16th), at the University of Notre Dame.

The principal themes of President Obama’s Notre Dame commencement address were entirely predictable; indeed, in some offices I know, betting pools were forming last week on how many of the Catholic Left hot buttons Obama would hit. In the event, he hit for the cycle several times over, mentioning “common ground”; tolerance and reconciliation amid diversity; Father Hesburgh; respect for those with whose moral judgments we disagree; problem-solving over ideology; Father Hesburgh; saving God’s creation from climate change; pulling together; Father Hesburgh; open hearts; open minds; fair-minded words; Father Hesburgh. None of this was surprising, and most of it was said with the president’s usual smooth eloquence.

What was surprising, and ought to be disturbing to anyone who cares about religious freedom in these United States, was the president’s decision to insert himself into the ongoing Catholic debate over the boundaries of Catholic identity and the applicability of settled Catholic conviction in the public square. Obama did this by suggesting, not altogether subtly, who the real Catholics in America are. The real Catholics, you see, are those like the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who are “congenial and gentle” in persuasion, men and women who are “always trying to bring people together,” Catholics who are “always trying to find the common ground.”

The fact that Cardinal Bernardin’s undoubted geniality and gentility in bringing people together to find the common ground invariably ended with a “consensus” that matched the liberal or progressive position of the moment went unremarked — because, for a good postmodern liberal like President Obama, that progressive “consensus” is so self-evidently true that one can afford to be generous in acknowledging that others, less enlightened but arguably sincere, have different views.

Cardinal Bernardin gave a moving and powerful testimony to Christian faith in his gallant response to the cancer that finally killed him. Prior to that last, great witness, however, the late archbishop of Chicago was best known publicly for his advocacy of a “consistent ethic of life,” in which the abortion issue was linked to the abolition of capital punishment and nuclear arms control. And whatever Bernardin’s intentions in formulating what came to be known popularly as the “seamless garment” approach to public policy, the net effect of the consistent ethic of life was to validate politically the intellectual mischief of Mario Cuomo’s notorious 1984 Notre Dame speech and to give two generations of Catholic politicians a virtual pass on the abortion question by allowing them to argue that, hey, I’m batting .667 on the consistent ethic of life.

The U.S. bishops abandoned the “seamless garment” metaphor in 1998, substituting the image of the “foundations of the house of freedom” to explain the priority to be given the life issues in the Church’s address to public policy — and in the consciences of Catholic politicians. The foundations of the house of freedom, the bishops argued, are the moral truths about the human person that we can know by reason. Those truths are embodied in law in what we call civil rights. Thus, the life issues are the great civil-rights issues of the moment. This powerful argument did not, however, sit well with Catholics comfortable with the Cuomo Compromise (“I’m personally opposed, but I can’t impose my views on a pluralistic society”), for these good liberals and progressives had long prided themselves on being — like Father Hesburgh — champions of civil rights.

So the “seamless garment” went underground for a decade, only to be dusted off by Douglas Kmiec and others in the 2008 campaign; there, a variant form of the consistent ethic was used to argue that Barack Obama was the real pro-life candidate on offer. As casuistry, this was risible. But it worked well enough that Catholic Obama-supporters on the Notre Dame board saw their chances and took ‘em, arranging for the president to come to Notre Dame to complete the seamless garment’s dust-off and give it a new lease on life by presenting the late Cardinal Bernardin — “a kind and good man . . . a saintly man” — as the very model of a real Catholic in America. Not the kind of Catholic who would ever criticize Notre Dame for bestowing an honorary doctorate of laws on a man determined to enshrine in law what the Catholic Church regards as a fundamental injustice. Not the kind of man who would suggest that, with the life issues, we’re living through the moral equivalent of the Lincoln/Douglas debates, with Barack Obama unhappily choosing to play the role of Stephen A. Douglas. Not a man, in other words, like Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, Cardinal Bernardin’s successor, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and one of the most articulate critics of Notre Dame’s decision to honor a president who manifestly does not share what Notre Dame claims is its institutional commitment to the Church’s defense of life.

Whether or not President Obama knew precisely what he was doing — and I’m inclined to think that this politically savvy White House and its allies among Catholic progressive intellectuals knew exactly what they were doing — is irrelevant. In order to secure the political advantage Obama had gained among Catholic voters last November, the president of the United States decided that he would define what it means to be a real Catholic in 21st-century America — not the bishop of Fort Wayne–South Bend, who in sorrow declined to attend Notre Dame’s commencement; not the 80-some bishops who publicly criticized Notre Dame’s decision to invite the president to receive an honorary degree; not the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which explicitly and unambiguously instructed Catholic institutions not to do what Notre Dame did. He, President Obama, would settle the decades-long intra-Catholic culture war in favor of one faction — the faction that had supported his candidacy and that had spent the first months of his administration defending his policies.

At the Seventh Provincial Council of Baltimore in 1849, the U.S. bishops petitioned the Holy See to grant the archbishop of Baltimore the title of Primate of the Catholic Church in the United States (as, for example, the archbishops of Québec City and Mexico City are the “Primates” of their respective countries). The Holy See declined and, ever since, the archbishops of Baltimore have had to settle for being the ordinaries of the “premier” see in American Catholicism. Barack Obama at Notre Dame was not so modest. Rather like Napoleon taking the diadem out of the hands of Pope Pius VII and crowning himself emperor, President Obama has, wittingly or not, declared himself the Primate of American Catholicism.

What the bishops of the United States have to say about this usurpation of their authority will be very interesting to see. Whether Obama’s Catholic acolytes will recognize a genuine threat to religious freedom in what they are already celebrating as their Notre Dame victory over the pro-life yahoos and reactionaries will also be instructive.

WRITTEN by George Weigel for the National Review and published by the Ethics and Public Policy Center on May 18th, 2009. As always, the title of this posting is a link to the original article

10 Tips for Married Couples

Almost everyone knows that the Catholic Church supports marriage, yet that the divorce rate in the United States hovers around 50 percent. It’s welcome news, then, that the Church has launched a campaign to help—not only Catholics, but all—married couples to strengthen their own marriage. Not long ago, the bishops launched the National Pastoral Initiative on Marriage. One thing afoot is the creation of an energetic Web site, ForYourMarriage.org, a treasure trove of helpful resources for all married couples. It includes marriage tips and short videos of on-the-street couples answering, “What have you done for your marriage today?”

An encouraging pastoral letter on marriage, which explains theological underpinnings and key issues for marriage, is also in the works. Given this emphasis on marriage, has anything changed in the way we marry and love? In this Update we’ll explore some of the key themes that make a marriage work and last. It’s really nothing new, but we always seem to forget!

Successful marriage is not so much a matter of finding the right person but being the right person. There are probably quite a few potential partners with whom an individual could be happy. The challenge is knowing when to bend and change yourself versus when to stand up for yourself. It takes a pretty flexible pair of people to make this dance work. Love is essential but not sufficient.

So what is there beyond love that fills in the gaps and makes marriage not only endurable but a joy? Typically, marriages go through three stages: the honeymoon, disillusionment and true love. The honeymoon and true love stages may sound similar on the surface, but the difference is time and testing. The length of each of these stages varies but the progression is pretty predictable.

There comes a point in most marriages when husbands or wives say to themselves, “How could I have been so blind? I didn’t notice that she was so wrapped up in getting her own way, or that he cared more about his status in the community than my feelings.” This disillusionment phase is the first big test of a marriage. If a couple can see each other, warts and all, and commit to “being the right person,” not trying to change the spouse, the couple moves into a more mature love.

Of course, being the right person doesn’t mean always being right. It means being flexible enough to love each other through disagreements, hard times and suffering. It often means changing myself in order to become more generous, more patient, more tolerant. It’s only having passed through these trying times that one truly understands the vows taken on the wedding day, “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.”

The sacrament of marriage becomes real when our idealistic love for each other is tested, when forgiveness overcomes annoying habits and when it shares in the sacrificial love of Jesus on the cross.

This doesn’t mean that sorrows won’t come and that couples won’t face serious failings like infidelity or addictions. To paraphrase 1 Corinthians 13: True love is a lifelong journey in which we are often yanked by love to become more “patient and kind, less jealous, boastful or conceited, less rude and seeking our own advantage. We grow in tolerance, trust and willingness to endure whatever comes.” It takes a long time, many mistakes and much forgiveness.

Following are 10 tips for both newly married and not-so-newly married to support your marriage commitment. After all, marriage is a perilous promise—and not for the fainthearted.


1. Be prepared for big challenges

One of the most reliable predictors of a lifelong marriage is the commitment to a lifelong marriage. It is for this reason that long-lasting marriages bury the D word (divorce). This doesn’t mean that we hide our head in the sand and pretend that divorce would never happen to us. It means being proactive and doing the daily work of nurturing the marriage so that divorce does not become the final escape.

The wedding day is only the first day of many “I do’s.” It is the commitment to look for a way through a troublesome problem that makes solutions possible, despite all odds. When boredom or weariness challenge your love, it is commitment that pushes you to renew it by dating each other again, attending a marriage retreat or, if necessary, consulting a counselor.


2. Befriend your spouse daily

The Web site Facebook asks you to confirm people who want to be your friend. Spouses need to be best friends! They need to talk—a lot—and not just about the kids and finances. Try committing to giving your spouse one compliment a day—that’s a way toward ongoing encouragement and love. At first this may seem like a no-brainer until you try to come up with a new, true, concrete compliment each day.

If the idea of offering an intentional daily compliment sounds artificial, try it anyway. As long as it is true and not so general as, “Honey, you’re beautiful!” it seems to work—even if you both know you’re doing it. Another benefit of the daily compliment is that it keeps you on the watch—looking for the good, the talents, the favors that your spouse does for you. Complaints, of course, are unavoidable, but the eye trained to look for a positive trait will counterbalance the negative.


3. Disagree without being disagreeable

Communication, however, is about more than just warm, fuzzy compliments. It gets harder when there are decisions to be made—especially decisions that find you on different sides. Whether it’s whose family to visit for Christmas or a faraway job offer—or anything else—when one partner wins the argument he or she still lives with the loser.

One unfortunate strategy many couples fall into is listening with an answer running while one thinks up more arguments. That’s not honest listening. An unfortunate companion strategy is merely to keep repeating your previous arguments with more vigor and specificity, what I call “self-summarizing syndrome.” Neither of these solves anything.

To disagree without being disagreeable means sharing feelings and using “I statements.” Use the formula “I feel discouraged when you...” or “I would like it if you would....” Remember, “Feelings are neither right nor wrong. They merely are” (as our friends in Marriage Encounter say).

One method for making fair decisions is to ask each other, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how strongly do you feel about getting your way on this decision?”

If one spouse is close to 10 (feels very strongly) and the other is closer to 1 (doesn’t much care), conceding would be the gracious way to go. If both of you are near the middle (4, 5, 6), consider compromising. If both of you feel strongly (7, 8, 9, 10), consider agreeing to disagree or create a new solution that is win/win. (An exception to this process is if the same spouse consistently claims to be at 9 or 10. This is just manipulation or selfishness and needs to be confronted.)


4. Strive for similar values

You can differ on all kinds of minor things, but if your moral compasses are at odds, you surely have significant stress and conflict in your marriage. Good communication can’t compensate for lack of common values. Couples don’t have to agree on everything, but they must have similar priorities in life.

For example, good communication skills are not enough to bridge the gap of differences about child-rearing. If faith in God and practicing one’s religion is important to one spouse and the other mocks those values, tension will be a constant companion. (This doesn’t mean the couple has to practice the same religion, but they both must respect the other’s choice and support it.) A couple can’t really compromise on whether honesty, fidelity, hard work and having a spiritual life are important.

What if these differences become apparent only after the marriage? If the differences are severe, it can be a real challenge to the couple’s commitment, since it’s hard to respect a person whose life assumptions are profoundly different from your own.

First pay attention to what you do share in common and what originally attracted you to each other. Sometimes one partner has new experiences not shared by the other, and it’s not so much a difference of values as an absence of common experience. If you can’t sort it out, consider marriage counseling to help you clarify which are essential core values and which are preferences that you can change. Sometimes a trained counselor can help you see things in new ways.


5. Be ready to accept differences

The differences between people are often endearing. You may love the way he takes charge of complicated situations while he may admire the way you deftly defuse tensions between colleagues. He may be good at reading maps while she’s good at asking directions, once lost.

What once was perceived as attractive and a strength, however, can turn into an irritation when overdone. The take-charge personality, perhaps, becomes a stubborn bully. The peacemaker is now seen as a wishy-washy people pleaser. The trick is to recognize that neither of you is right or wrong—just different.

It’s often difficult to let go of thinking that your way is normal and right, but is the extrovert morally superior to the introvert? Is spring better than the fall? Is yellow better than purple? We have our preferences, but that doesn’t mean our spouse’s personality is inferior! The complementarity of your personalities will be a couple strength—once you let go of your way being the right way.


6. Tightwad or spendthrift? Know your financial personality

Are you a tightwad, a spendthrift or somewhere in between? Unless you’re exceedingly wealthy, two spendthrifts will face issues of debt.

If you are at opposite extremes in your spending habits, the stage is set for quarrels. On the other hand, if you have good communication skills and common sense, you can work out compromises and hopefully balance each other out.

Even though two frugal people might seem like the healthiest combination, too much of anything can be problematic. It’s important to leave room for occasional splurges and spontaneity lest you crowd fun out of your ordered life.

Through it all, consider what your genuine needs are as a family. There’s a difference between being responsible and being a workaholic, after all. Many people work for more and more stuff that doesn’t really fill their soul with happiness. Strive for the balance between how much is enough and how much is too much. Seeking common ground in the middle is a valuable marriage skill.


7. Beyond sex to celebrating love

Our culture is saturated with sex, but what most married couples crave is intimacy. Sure, sex is important in marriage. It is the glue that holds us together in joy and soothes our ego when we feel discouraged. But the physical act of sex becomes even more powerful when it unites our emotions, minds and spirits. In fact, sex can be empty when loveless and painful when forced.

To move beyond sex to “making” love, as we commonly say, requires a 24/7 attitude. A husband cannot be disagreeable throughout the day and expect his wife to instantly feel amorous in the evening. A wife can’t be critical at supper and expect her husband to plan a romantic evening.

It doesn’t require a lot of expense or fancy clothes, but really making love means being loving throughout the day. Sharing vulnerable feelings and interesting discussions can bond you as deeply as an orgasm and heighten the desire to join your bodies physically also. A habit of attentiveness assures our beloved that our affection is more than momentary.


8. Keeping your relationship—among children

Having a child is one of the greatest joys of marriage. It is also, in one sense, one of the greatest burdens. Children pull virtues like patience, generosity and responsibility out of us—whether we seek them or not. When your love expands to include another person, it reflects the creative impulse of God, our creator.

As much as raising children requires extravagant energy from you as parents, remember that as Holy Cross Fr. Theodore Hesburgh said, “The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.” Dads and moms: Don’t let the rightful caring you must do for your children trump your primary vocation—to love your spouse. Sometimes you just have to trust that the kids will be O.K. and take some time to renew your marriage.


9. Find balance

It’s challenging in marriage today to find the balance among work, family and personal time. Sure, we have labor-saving devices and technology, yet many spouses end up working more hours, spending less time with their children and racing to parties or sports for relaxation. We may have more money, but where’s the fun?

Balance is the answer. Earning an income is necessary, but don’t let your job be your god. Control it even if it means a reduction in pay. Jobs, after all, can be changed; spouses are forever.

Spouse and children need our presence more than our presents. Recreation—both alone and together—refreshes our spirits. Build some of each into your weekly routine, but let your spouse be your conscience as to whether you’re spending too much time on a hobby or sport. That conscience can also be used to make sure there’s a fair balance in household chores. Neither males nor females are inherently better suited to cleaning the toilet. Household jobs should be divided according to skill, interest and time—not gender.


10. Don’t avoid the deeper questions

We humans are drawn, by God, to understand the mystery of life. Why do bad things happen to good people? Is there really life after death? How do we make sense of this world around us?

One can go through life avoiding these questions, but life is meant for seeking their answers. Couples are called together to seek God together. In whatever style fits your marriage, pray together. Marriage is, after all, ultimately a way to follow Christ, the one who laid down his life for us. Couples are called, in marriage, to lay down their lives for each other.

WRITTEN by Susan Vogt at AmericanCatholic.org in May 2009

Debunking 'Angels & Demons' Premise

A bomb. A secret sect of anti-Catholic scientists. A church straddling ancient traditions and the modern world.

Although the plot of “Angels & Demons” is a hunt for centuries-old clues that could lead to a hidden explosive set to blow apart Vatican City, a recurring theme in the movie revolves around the relationship between faith and science.

According to the movie, scheduled to open in theaters May 15, the two have been at odds since the springtime of science and today they continue to see themselves in antagonistic and sometimes irreconcilable terms.

But this perception is far from reality, according to Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno, an astronomer at the Vatican Observatory in Arizona and Castel Gandolfo, the papal villa outside Rome.

“Quite simply, the church has always supported science,” Brother Consolmagno told The Catholic Spirit, newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Modern science was born in European Catholic universities and some of history’s best scientists were clergymen, he noted.

That’s why the books of Dan Brown – the author of “Angels & Demons” and “The Da Vinci Code” – are in the bookstore’s fiction section, where they belong, he said.

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia whose column appears occasionally in The Catholic Review, said misunderstandings about the compatibility of faith and science arise because of the different “languages” they use.

In actuality, science and religion have distinct yet compatible domains, he added.

Brother Consolmagno said the myth of the “war” between science and religion grew out of the Enlightenment at the end of the 19th century. In order to attract students to the emerging German secular universities, Enlightenment supporters portrayed the church as anti-science and against progress, he said.

“It really doesn’t go back to Galileo; it goes back to the politics of what was happening in Europe and America 100 years ago,” he said.

The case of 17th-century astronomer Galileo Galilei is the often-used example of a collision between the church and science. Galileo was condemned by the church’s Holy Office for suspected heresy in 1633 for maintaining that the earth revolved around the sun but he was “rehabilitated” in 1992 by a special Vatican commission established by Pope John Paul II.

The Galileo controversy has taught the church to be careful when speaking on matters of science, Father Pacholczyk said. For example, on the topic of evolution, the church continues to engage in an ongoing discussion about the proper understanding of evolutionary science.

A person seeking to understand humankind’s place in the universe should seek to understand both faith and science, the priest said.

As Brother Consolmagno put it: “My religion tells me God created the universe. My science tells me how he did it.”

Although the church is not against science, he said it acts as a check on science’s rapidly advancing abilities. In the early 20th century, for example, the Catholic Church called for a stop to eugenics, which aims to improve the human species by selective breeding.

“Eugenics is bad science,” Brother Consolmagno added. “Even if it is good science, it still would have been wrong. That’s an example, I think, where people who treat science without religion can fall into grave error.”

Today, the church rejects technologies that devalue the dignity of the human person, such as cloning, embryonic stem-cell research and the production of weapons of mass terror.

WRITTEN by Maria Wiering as "Catholic Scientists Debunk Movies Depiction of Science, Faith Clash" at The Catholic Review online May 15th, 2009

The Pope Arrives in Jerusalem

At 4 a.m. Philadelphia time this morning (10 a.m. in Rome), Benedict XVI arrived at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, Israel, where he was greeted by Shimon Peres, president of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister, the country's civil and political authorities, and the ordinaries of the Holy Land.

In his address, the Pope expressed his thanks for the welcome to the State of Israel, "a land", he said, "which is held holy by millions of believers around the world, ... a land that is hallowed by the footsteps of patriarchs and prophets, a land that Christians hold in particular veneration as the setting for the events of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. ... I come, like so many others before me, to pray at the holy places, to pray especially for peace - peace here in the Holy Land, and peace throughout the world".

He also noted how the Holy See and the State of Israel "have many shared values, above all a commitment to give religion its rightful place in the life of society. The just ordering of social relationships presupposes and requires a respect for the freedom and dignity of every human being, whom Christians, Muslims and Jews alike believe to be created by a loving God and destined for eternal life. When the religious dimension of the human person is denied or marginalized, the very foundation for a proper understanding of inalienable human rights is placed in jeopardy.

"Tragically, the Jewish people have experienced the terrible consequences of ideologies that deny the fundamental dignity of every human person", he added. "It is right and fitting that, during my stay in Israel, I will have the opportunity to honour the memory of the six million Jewish victims of the Shoah, and to pray that humanity will never again witness a crime of such magnitude. Sadly, anti-Semitism continues to rear its ugly head in many parts of the world. This is totally unacceptable. Every effort must be made to combat anti-Semitism wherever it is found, and to promote respect and esteem for the members of every people, tribe, language and nation across the globe.

"During my stay in Jerusalem, I will have the pleasure of meeting many of this country's distinguished religious leaders. One thing that the three great monotheistic religions have in common is a special veneration for that holy city. It is my earnest hope that all pilgrims to the holy places will be able to access them freely and without restraint, to take part in religious ceremonies and to promote the worthy upkeep of places of worship on sacred sites".

The Holy Father continued: "Even though the name Jerusalem means 'city of peace', it is all too evident that, for decades, peace has tragically eluded the inhabitants of this holy land. The eyes of the world are upon the peoples of this region as they struggle to achieve a just and lasting solution to conflicts that have caused so much suffering. The hopes of countless men, women and children for a more secure and stable future depend on the outcome of negotiations for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

"In union with people of good will everywhere, I plead with all those responsible to explore every possible avenue in the search for a just resolution of the outstanding difficulties, so that both peoples may live in peace in a homeland of their own, within secure and internationally recognised borders. In this regard, I hope and pray that a climate of greater trust can soon be created that will enable the parties to make real progress along the road to peace and stability".

The Holy Father completed his remarks by addressing Catholics, recalling how he will be joining them in Nazareth for the concluding celebrations of the Year of the Family. "The family", he said, "is the 'first and indispensable teacher of peace', and hence it has a vital role to play in healing divisions in human society at every level.

"To the Christian communities in the Holy Land, I say: by your faithful witness to Him Who preached forgiveness and reconciliation, by your commitment to uphold the sacredness of every human life, you can make a particular contribution to ending the hostilities that for so long have afflicted this land. I pray that your continuing presence in Israel and the Palestinian Territories will bear much fruit in promoting peace and mutual respect among all the peoples who live in the lands of the Bible".

At the end of the ceremony the Pope travelled by helicopter to the heliport of Mount Scopus in Jerusalem, where he was greeted by Nir Barkat, mayor of the city. From there he was taken by car to the apostolic delegation in Jerusalem where he had lunch.

This afternoon the Holy Father is due to pay a courtesy visit to President Shimon Peres, to visit the Yad Vashem Memorial and to meet with members of organisations dedicated to inter-religious dialogue in the Notre Dame of Jerusalem Centre.

From the Vatican Information Service notice posted at the EWTN website

Behind the Angst at Notre Dame

It might be hard for alumni, sports fans and fundraisers to admit but, at the end of the day, not every educational institution matters. Few are unique; most are redundant and easy to replace.The University of Notre Dame, though, is different.

This is not merely because of past (and, we can hope, future) football success, a catchy fight song and savvy merchandising. Notre Dame matters because it aspires to be something different and interesting: a great research university that is excellent precisely because it is meaningfully and distinctively Catholic.

This project is not about nostalgia, heritage, school spirit or "branding." Instead, Notre Dame's aim is to achieve genuine excellence, and thereby to engage and improve the world through — not despite — its Catholic character. This character is to be pervasive, animating and enriching, not merely a decoration or garnish, a little "something extra" sprinkled on top of an otherwise standard-issue enterprise.

Notre Dame's project is challenging and vulnerable, but it's also exciting and important — and not just to Catholics. We all have a stake in its success. Conversations are made deeper and richer, and the diligent search for truth is helped by the presence of diverse, distinctive — sometimes dissenting — voices. Institutions, like individuals, provide these voices.

Peter Parker's Uncle Ben was right to say, "With great power comes great responsibility." Similarly, institutions that matter carry a burden. This is why Notre Dame's decision to honor President Obama with an honorary law degree is so controversial. Most graduation speeches, of course, are entirely forgettable hodgepodges of Dr. Seuss, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Starbucks-cup quotations.

This year, however, Notre Dame's commencement speaker on Sunday could hardly be more prominent or memorable. And yet, the choice has divided sharply not only the Irish Nation but Catholics generally and has prompted many of us who love Notre Dame and embrace its mission to ask: Is Notre Dame's decision consistent with the character and commitments that make it distinctive? That make it worth caring about? That make it matter?

To understand what the controversy surrounding Obama's invitation is about, it is important to understand what it is not about.

Most important, the issue is not, as some commentators have suggested, whether Notre Dame should welcome, engage, debate and explore a wide range of viewpoints. Of course it should. It was, after all, a central message of the Catholic Church's Second Vatican Council that "nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo" in Christians' hearts, and the same can be said for the work of a Catholic university. Such a university has nothing to fear from — indeed, it has the best possible reasons to welcome — inquiry, investigation, argument and testing. And so, no one could reasonably oppose inviting the president to Notre Dame for discussion and dialogue on immigration, education, health care — or even abortion.

The question on the table is not whether Notre Dame should hear from the president but whether Notre Dame should honor the president. A Catholic university can and should engage all comers, but in order to be true to itself — to have integrity — it should hesitate before honoring those who use their talents or power to bring about grave injustice. The university is, and must remain, a bustling marketplace of ideas; at the same time, it also has a voice of its own. We say a lot about who we are and what we stand for through what we love and what we choose to honor.

The controversy at Notre Dame is not about what should be said at Catholic universities, but about what should be said by a Catholic university.

It is also a mistake to frame the controversy in terms of academic freedom. Obviously, this freedom, properly understood, is central to the mission of any great university.

Even so, no one is proposing limits on what can or should be discussed, debated, taught, studied or written by students or scholars. The American Association of University Professors is right to insist that "the opportunity to be confronted with diverse opinions is at the core of academic freedom," but wrong to imagine that this principle requires a university to be indifferent to the messages it sends through the honors it confers.

No university is entirely neutral; every university makes decisions about what to affirm, through its policies, as good or true. One can (and should) affirm the right (and duty) of scholars at Catholic universities to be true to their scholarly vocations while still asking whether Notre Dame is being true to itself.

Next, some have suggested that it threatens the separation of church and state for Catholic bishops to express regret and criticism regarding Notre Dame's decision. This suggestion is badly misplaced. A Catholic bishop who calls on a Catholic university to be true to its Catholic character is exercising, not undermining, religious liberty.

Finally, the reason some say that an authentically Catholic university — even one that appreciates fully President Obama's appeal and the historical significance of his election — should not honor him with a ceremonial law degree is not because he rejects "Catholic" views on abortion. The worry, instead, is that Notre Dame will send the wrong message and say something that is inconsistent with its Catholic character and with its commitment to human rights by honoring — at this time, anyway — a president whose record so far on abortion and embryo-destructive research is glaringly in conflict with that commitment.

The Catholic view on these matters, after all, is that there is no specifically or narrowly "Catholic" view. The church affirms that human life is sacred, and that every human being, at every stage of development, should be welcomed in life and protected in law. This affirmation rests on the same foundational principles of human dignity and equality that animate the Declaration of Independence and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, principles that were celebrated not only by Pope John Paul II but also by Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln.

The president's error is not failing to submit to "Catholic" authority — why should he? — but aggressively and consistently promoting policies that are unjust because they deny the basic equality of every human being.

To doubt that a Catholic university should honor Obama at this time, and to worry about the message such an honor sends, is not to engage in partisan or "single issue" politics or to deny that there are many things to be celebrated and admired about our new president's life, campaign, election and vision. Indeed, these things make it all the more regrettable — tragic, really — that he is so badly misguided on such a fundamental issue of justice.

WRITTEN by Richard W. Garnett for USA Today and published on May 11th, 2009

When Love Makes Sacrifice a Pleasure

Once again Mothers’ Day is just around the corner. The mass media is these days are full of advertisements on the various offers to celebrate this day. Many of us make elaborate plans to celebrate the day in ways unique and special to us. Expensive gifts and grandeur banquets are common ways of commemorating this auspicious day dedicated to our mothers.

Amidst all the celebrations and joy let us go back in time to relive the days we spent with her. She gave birth do us, fed us, took care of all our needs as helpless babies, supported us during school going days, then as young men and women, was a maid to take care of our kids and keep our house.

Now she may be healthy and fit, striken with illness of various sorts, bed-ridden, terminally ill or she may even in her death bed waiting for a last glimpse of the children she loved so much. Some of our mothers could also be dead and gone. Whatever her state she may be in let us reflect a little on our lives with this extra-ordinary creature of God who was a servant of sorts to us throughout her life.

We make a lot of sacrifices for advancements in our lives but often we do them for a reward. There is only one person who enjoys sacrificing her time and energy as it is done for the real love for the other person. Undeniably it is none other than our own mother. For this special person, her immeasurable love for us makes her sacrifice a pleasure not pain.

As kids we did not realize all her sacrifices as our vision was masked by her love for us. It takes a long time, sometimes even 50 long years, to really appreciate all the sacrifices that our mother has done and is continuing to do for us. When we were young we took all her sacrifices her for granted. Only now that we are ourselves parents, wives and mothers we begin to truly appreciate the fine qualities of the love and affection our mothers had for us.

In the early days there were many children in the family and it was a real wonder how our mother could take care of all of them equally well. Every one of us was equal in her eyes although the weakest did get some special privileges as far as food was concerned.

We can recollect the sleepless nights she spent taking care of us when we were sick, the moments of anxiety she went through when we were involved in some accidents and the tears she shed during their intense prayers for our recovery.

All she lived for was for the well being of our future not hers. She did all that without any ulterior motive that one day we will repay that gratitude in cash or kind.

Today being parents ourselves, we understand insurmountable the pain and anxiety she would have endured when we suffered from all forms of ailments and failures in their lives. We realize the severity of the heartache we would caused her when we refused to heed her advice and meet disaster as a result.

In those days cooking was a real chore without all the modern gadgets we have today. Everything from grinding to cutting was done manually and you can imagine the difficulties encountered in preparing at least 3 meals a day for an extended family of over 10 people daily without fail. This has to be done with the meager income of their husbands who were the sole bread winners.

Apart from being a great mother to us she was an exemplary wife especially in those days when men were very over-demanding. We would agree that most of our fathers, however high and mighty, are totally dependent on mom for their successes. It is a fact that many men in advanced age do not survive long after the death of their views.

Sadly today many of her sacrifices are not appreciated by us, the children, which really hurts her to the core. Many of us simply forget the good old days when she toiled endlessly without sleep and rest for our well being, to make us what we are today. We are too busy with our own lives that we forget to spend time just talking and listening to her.

Among the siblings, we become calculative of who should take care and provide for her especially when she is left all alone after the death of her husband, our father. When she becomes ill or handicapped we conveniently pass the responsibility of caring for her to others. We give the excuse we are too busy and have no time and money.

Many of our mothers are now elderly and may be riddled with so many ailments. They are living in fear of loneliness at the twilight of their lives. The only companion they had, their husbands are gone.

We may not be able to cure all her illnesses, but the least we can give her is reassurance that we care and love her. We easily forget the days when as children, her loving embrace could allay all our fears. She did that willingly and with great love and passion.

Let’s not forget that our mother, in whatever state she may be, is our responsibility to care and love. We cannot and should not run away from that obligation of ours. It is not our money, gifts and food that she yearns for but for something priceless - our company, reassurance and love.

To a mother there is nothing more comforting than to see her children in good health and happiness. As children if we can convince her that she was the source and inspiration for our success and happiness in life, she would be the happiest mother today.

As Christians are we following Jesus in the way we treat our mother? Every day and often many times a day we say “Lord I love you”. If we do not love our mother, whom we can see, hear, touch and have experienced her love, then we will be lying when we say we love God, whom we cannot see, hear or touch.

A happy and blessed Mothers’ Day

WRITTEN by Dr. Chris Anthony at Catholic Online on May 6th, 2007

The Hardest Part of Being a Mother

Transitional labor is intense, contractions hard and fast, one toppling over another. This physical pain is surely, I think, the most difficult part of being a mother.

Push...push...push...and I have a daughter: Alison with tiny hands, pearl-perfect fingernails, brown eyes open even as she is being born.

Michael and I bring her home where her version of a normal infancy lasts about a week before she develops colic and a sleep pattern defying all the babycare books we had diligently memorized. She cries nearly constantly. When she isn’t crying, she’s usually awake, oblivious to her parents’ need for sleep.

Two o’clock in the morning of an unknown day. A black and white movie flickers on television. My daughter’s eyes close. I cautiously stand, ready to place her in the crib, myself in bed. Her eyes open, then her mouth, but a wail doesn’t follow.

Instead, she watches, curious about what I’ll do next. I settle back into the rocking chair, pull out a baby book and read her paragraphs describing a newborn’s typical pattern, hours and hours of blissful sleep interspersed with minutes of wakefulness. “Hear that?” I ask. “Get it?”

Alison stares at a Mexican wall hanging, neither interested nor impressed by anything Dr. Spock and his colleagues might have to say.

It is week after week of sleep deprivation. Had I once been clear-headed, articulate? This total exhaustion is surely, I think, the most difficult part of being a mother.

Alison outgrows colic, learns to walk, deigns to learn only a few words, having found grunting and pointing to be satisfactory modes of communication.

One late afternoon, I am preparing dinner while Michael sees to one of the endless tasks the house demands. Both the front and back doors stand open to invite a breeze. When my kitchen work is done, I step into the dining room. “Where’s Alison?”

“I thought she was with you.”

“No.”

We both stare at the open front door. I run through the house calling, “Alison, Alison!”

No answer.

I check the bedrooms and bath upstairs while my husband hits the attic and basement. Nothing. We bolt out the door, me to the left, him to the right. I run up the side street, frantically calling her name. No response.

“Have you seen a little girl? Blue shirt with ducks.” Is that what she was wearing? I can’t remember. “Red barrette?” Or maybe blue or yellow or green. “Brown hair?”

The man shakes his head, but seems to feel sorry for me.

“She doesn’t talk much. Mainly points and grunts.” I reach out a hand as if to demonstrate.

He takes a step back. He has not seen her and wants to be left alone.

She’s been kidnapped, run over by a truck, mauled by a rabid dog. I have been derelict in my duty, have not kept her safe.

“I found her!” my husband calls to me from the corner.

She is curled up on a pile of clean laundry I’d tossed on the bed in the spare room. In my panicked flight through the house, I’d missed her, camouflaged as she was by the bright colors and patterns of a toddler’s wardrobe. This realization of how easily I could fail my child is surely, I think, the most difficult part of being a mother.

Alison is invited to an overnight party for a friend’s sixth birthday. She chooses the nightgown she’ll wear, the stuffed animals she’ll take along. Then the friend reneges, her mother having decided four girls are too many, the friend having decided Alison was the expendable one.

Alison cries while I brood, consider calling the mother, begging an invitation or, if that fails, screaming about the insensitivity of herself, her daughter, their entire family—immediate and extended—pets too.

I take Alison for ice cream, read her favorite book seven times without complaint. But my bribes do not coax disappointment from her face. Watching that face, etched with sadness I am powerless to erase, is surely, I think, the most difficult part of being a mother.

Now she is eight, a biking pro allowed to ride around two blocks alone. I sit on the steps near the curb, watching her younger sister, Anne, pedal back and forth on the sidewalk, and waiting for Alison to reappear. She brakes in front of me. “Those boys make me mad.”

“What boys?”

She points to an apartment building a block away. “Every time I pass, they say, ‘There goes your girlfriend, Mac.’” She screws up her face, having reached the age when boys are more an object of ridicule than romance. “Other mean things.”

“What things?”

But that is not the part she wants to share. She recounts how she told them, “Your mothers must not know what they’re doing because they’re sure raising rude boys.” One arm akimbo, long braids jiggling, she waggles a finger at her imaginary foes. “Your mamas must be ashamed of you.”

“What did those boys say then?”

“They laughed. They’re boys,” she says as if that explains all.

“How many were there?”

“Four or five.”

“How old?” I try to keep my voice low and calm, not easy for a woman who sees danger under every leaf.

“Teenagers.” She throws a leg over the bike. “I told them, right, Mama?” She is proud, pleased.

“You sure told them,” I say.

“I’m going around one more time.”

“Again?” is the only word I allow myself when what I want to say is: Stay here, stay safe with me. But what would that tell her about her ability to keep herself safe? Keeping quiet is surely, I think, the most difficult part of being a mother.

In fifth grade, she is kept indoors for recess, reprimanded along with the rest of her class for some misdeed. But, she protests, she and Angela were in the hall when the trespass occurred. Why should they receive the burden of punishment when they did not enjoy the sin of misbehavior? Where was the justice in that? Trying to explain the world’s injustices to a 10-year-old is surely, I think, the most difficult part of being a mother.

Soon comes middle school, then high school with the complications of adolescence, the pulling away followed by the drawing closer, all of it going too quickly, our lives hurtling toward separation.

She struggles, emotionally, physically and intellectually, as she labors toward adulthood. Standing available but unable to help her bypass adolescent angst is surely, I think, the most difficult part of being a mother.

Senior year brings college applications, acceptances, the need to choose. Reaching a decision is difficult, but not impossible.

Here is what seems impossible: Emptying dear Alison’s bedroom. Seeing her walls bare. Walking on uncluttered carpet shining brightly from years of protection afforded by clothes strewn across the floor. Packing possessions, driving to New Haven, leaving her while we return to Kansas City, half a continent away.

How can I be sure I have taught her all the lessons she will need for a full, happy life? I needed more time, did not realize the days would speed by so swiftly. Surely, there are instructions I have not given: Never mix your whites with your darks, no matter how desperate you are for clean underwear. Know your mother and father and sister will always love and treasure you. Eat your vegetables—even broccoli. Remember the earth is populated mostly with good and kind people who want to do the right thing. Check your oil regularly and the air pressure in your tires. Open yourself to the whole world and let your star shine brightly across the universe. Get enough sleep. Strive for a balanced life—family and friends who love you, work that challenges and inspires you, play that renews you.

I have loved you as best I could, taught you what I knew. Now I can only hope you have learned, will learn from others what I could not teach.

Saying good-bye. That is the most difficult part of being a mother.

WRITTEN by Jaqueline Guidry for AmericanCatholic.org in August 2003