Journeys of a Catholic Poster Girl

Another good quote on Prayer from Rod, which he found in an magazine interview:

If you are successful in this prayer of repentance, you will come to understand that your prayer is your life, it is not a technique… “the technique of the Jesus Prayer.” It is not something that you are to combine with your breath, or with the beating of your heart. No, it is your life. All technical advice is something functional. Your prayer is your life - your life is your prayer. And if you are constant in this secret standing before the face of God, you will see that your heart begins to change. You will find your prayer becoming deeper and more attentive, and one day you will understand what it is to pray with all your heart, from the depths of your soul. When little children cry for something, they do it with all their being, and this is like real spiritual life. God will teach you how to conceal your pious intentions and thoughts, how to keep it such a secret that no one ever guesses what you have in your heart. You will be living a life completely unknown and unnoticed by anyone, and you will begin to love solitude as the most satisfying way of speaking with your Creator. The moment you begin to pray from your heart, asking for everything that the Holy Spirit finds appropriate and necessary for you, you will be instructed and enlightened.

Seems to me like an excellent approach to prayer to try this Lent.

I don’t usually do this, but I’m going to ask for y’all to say some extra prayers for me. Healthwise, things have been nutty since right after Thanksgiving, and right now I’m currently in Children’s (also known as “The Resort”) for testing and monitoring, etc., etc., etc. until we find out what this current issue is. It seems like after each infection I’ve gotten lately, we’ll get rid of it to reveal something more insiduous underneath. Oh well.For more info on all this, you can go to my other blog, Bucket of Parts. which is all about my transplant, before, after and what’s going on now.

Thank you!

** Since I was here on W, I didn’t get to attend Ash Wednesday Mass. I will, however, be having fish on Friday…I ordered it on the hospital menu.

Maybe in some places. This
piece from Crunchy Cons is rather disturbing.

I’m not saying I think we should all wear hairshirts and all that and go back to fasting everyday or whatever. But I do think that the penitential nature of Lent is one of (it not is sole) defining characteristic. We need a little deprivation, a little simplification, to get to the heart of things every once in awhile. Lent provides this yearly annual renewal. It is a spiritual springtime, a time of growth and reawakening. This can’t come without some sacrifice, some “winter” of the soul. So give me the ashes and all that. I can’t fast (I’m diabetic) but I can devote more time to God like all the rest of you. And I can certainly abstain from meat.

Speaking of Lent, what are you giving up? What spiritual practices are you adding? Does your church do anything special for Lent? Here’s what I’ve got going on:
–Joining a Faith Sharing Group at my parish.
–Reading from Magnificat’s Lenten companion
–Reading from Lent and Easter with Pope John Paul II –great book. They also have them from different saints and such, and they do them for Advent/Christmas, too.
–No meat on Fridays, like y’all.
–Soup Suppers at my church on Wednesdays, where different church groups make soups for the parishioners. Donations go to Operation Rice Bowl. It’s a great way to make a Lenten sacrifice (both by eating a “simpler” meal and donating the money, it doesn’t have to be much), and, practically, it’s right before my choir rehearsals. So a lot of choir members have dinner together at the soup supper and then go rehearse, which is fun, because ofte they bring their families and the kids are soooo cute.

I finished the Theresian spirituality book I’d begun about a week ago, and it was definitely better than I remembered it. The end, where Fr. O’Donnell talks about Therese’s charisms and spiritual gifts, I didn’t find quite as intellectually rewarding as some of the earlier chapters, but it is a generally good guide to her overall theology. It’s more “scholarly” the most of the books I’ve read, so if you’re just diving in, this may not be the best place to start. It was also written in 1997, before she was declared a Doctor of the Church, so the epilogue regarding if she should be named one is sort of moot by now. A revised version of this book, reflecting recent scholarship and, of course, the Doctoral designation, would make it a stronger piece of work in general. But overall, a good book, very well documented with emphasis on “original” sources, i.e., the true sources as written by Therese herself and not edited by her family or others.

From Fr. Z:

Pope’s Message for Lent released
CATEGORY: SESSIUNCULUM — Fr. John Zuhlsdorf @ 5:09 pm

The Holy Father’s Message for Lent was released today. I was at the Press conference with S.E. Mons. Paul Josef Cordes, President of the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum”, who made the presentation along with others.

The document was signed on 21 November 2006. It is very short. It constitutes quite a break with Messages of the past. This message is strongly theological, providing starting points. Messages in the past were strong practical, exploring themes like “Marginalization of the Poor” (1977) and “World Hunger” (1996). This time he is much more explicitly theocentric, returning to the fundamental building block of Deus caritas est. Cordes said that he could only speculate why the Holy Father has changed the style of the Lenten message.

Cordes, in his comments, seemed to desire to bring the discussion away from the theological dimension and right away pass to the concrete exercise of charity. In a way I had the sense that he wanted to talk about something other than the message. To accomplish this they enlisted the help of an old Italian priest Fr. Oreste Benzi, founder of the “Pope John XXIII” houses which work for the marginalized. Benizi gave a sustained fervorino (over a half hour). His experience working with the very difficult cases life can reveal reminded me that there are those who service the Church at a desk and those who serve at a gutter or a bedside.

Benizi, clearly a man who has zealous love for the poor pretty bluntly said that there should be no restraints on immigration and everyone should be given a job. I am not sure how that it is be done… perhaps some “redistribution of wealth”? Anyway, the guy had real fervor. One very insightful comment he made concerned the late and the present Holy Father and how they are seen by young people. Benizi said young people are not just following or “running after” the singer, but also after the song. This about the reaction that young people are having for Pope Benedict XVI in light of the great popularity of the late Pope John Paul II. In other words after the great cult of person that surrounded the late Pope people are very much on fire to hear what Pope Benedict has to say.

Back to the Message.

The first paragraph presents the major theme, “They shall look on Him whom they have pierced.” This is strongly reminiscent of the title of a book Joseph Ratzinger published years ago: Behold The Pierced One. It also calls to mind how the late Holy Father called us to direct our gaze, through Mary with the Rosary, to Christ’s face.

The Pope in the Message returned to the theme he addressed in Deus caritas est, that is, of apage and eros.

He starts with Biblical texts and moves to Patristic texts as well as the Neo-platonic Christian writer Pseudo-Dionysius. The letter is strongly Patristic. Cited are St. Maximus Confessor (Ambigua 91, 1956), and St. John Chrysostom (Catecheses 3,14 ff) on how the water and Blood from the side of Christ are symbols of the sacraments of Baptism (water) and Eucharist (Blood). The Pope quotes a certain N. Cabasilas. I am not sure who he is right at the moment.

You can read the thing yourself pretty quickly, and I advise you to do so. I will only point out a couple things I found immediately interesting.

The Pope returned to a Ratzingerian theme of self-sufficiency. I find this often in the Pope’s writings. In the Message he wrote:

“Unfortunately, from its very origins, mankind, seduced by the lies of the Evil One, rejected God’s love in the illusion of self-sufficiency that is impossible (cf. Gn 3:1-7). Turning in on himself, Adam withdrew from that source of life who is God Himself, and became the first of “those who through fear of death were subjected to lifelong bondage” (Heb 2:15). God, however, did not give up. On the contrary, man’s “no” was the decisive impulse that moved Him to manifest His love in all of its redeeming strength.” Also in the message: “We need to respond to such love and dedicate ourselves to communicating it to others. Christ “draws me to Himself” in order to unite Himself to me, so that I learn to love the brothers with His love.”

The reference to “fear of death” is not only biblical, it is greatly expanded on by St. Augustine of Hippo, whom the Pope has long studied.

Here is a nice point for those who are married. It reminds me of something I would stress in marriage prep:

“In all truth, only the love that unites the free gift of self with the impassioned desire for reciprocity instills a joy, which lightens the greatest sacrifices.” In this phrase we have the union of agape (gift of self) and eros (impassioned desire).

“Looking on Him whom they have pierced” will help us to see people with greater respect, recognizing the wounds inflicted on humanity, but also to “alleviate the tragedies of loneliness and abandonment of so many people.” This redirection of our gaze to the Crucified Christ should bring us to concrete acts of love toward neighbor are, as the Holy Father puts it, “Only in this way shall we be able to participate fully in the joy of Easter.”

H.E. Cordes can back strongly to the idea that in this Message it is not being suggest that service of God substitute the service of man. He tried to emphasize that there is a balance needed between them. The one should be made more authentic by the other. This is also a theme of Deus caritas est.

Looks like B XVI is going to take a different angle with Lent this year. From

Zenit:

Benedict XVI’s Lenten message seeks to show how faith leads to charity’s deepest dimensions, a Vatican official explained.

Archbishop Paul Josef Cordes, president of the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum,” presented the papal message today in the Vatican press office.

The message is centered around the mystery of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

The prelate began his address by explaining how the command of charity is culturally accepted.

He said: “Worldwide entrepreneurs, for example, Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, establish social foundations; film stars and politicians invite to charity dinners; governments create friends for themselves in public opinion thanks to international cooperation; and great fund-raising endeavors — at times for catastrophes — in some cases reach considerable quantities.

“As Christians we can observe, not without satisfaction, that in social life the biblical commandment of love of neighbor seems universally accepted.”

Theocentric

Archbishop Cordes pointed out that the Pope’s message for Lent “is considerably different” than previous ones, written by him or by Pope John Paul II.

Previous messages have focused on “works of charity in the sense of Christians’ social commitment,” the prelate said. This time, the Pontiff “forcefully places God the Father of Jesus Christ at the center.” Therefore, the focus is not anthropocentric but theocentric.

“The Holy Father is less concerned with the horizontal dimension, in order to bring into clearer light the vertical dimension of Christian living,” he added.

“This change of thought can be observed in general in Benedict XVI’s preaching,” Achbishop Cordes stated.

He added that in the Pope’s encyclical or in other discourses, the central theme is always the love of the Father in heaven becoming man in the Son Jesus Christ.

I’ve begun a new book of Theresian theology (well, it’s not new, it was published in ‘97, and I’ve had it for a few years), Love in the Heart of the Church by Christopher O’Donnell, ODC (I think he’s an ODC). The first time I read it was soon after my Confirmation, so I must’ve gotten it when it first came out. Anyway, at the time, it was way over my head and I didn’t really know that much about the young nun I had chosen as my patron saint, other than the biographical basics and the “Little Way” idea. (I was 14, come on) But now I’ve gotten fairly into it, have read Story of a Soul as well as some other works about her life, so I felt ready to dive back in.

So far he’s discussed her influences, the creation/finding of critical (i.e., not edited by her family) texts, and things like that. We’ve also covered the Oblation to Merciful Love and the difference between a Victim Soul and a Soul who has offered herself to Jesus’ love, not His justice. I have found this to be an interesting distinction, since so many of us think of “victim souls” or “offering up suffering” as a Justice thing. I will write more as this develops.

From today’s Magnificat meditation:

“Go on joyfully and with your heart as open and widely trustful as possible; and if you cannot always be joyful, at least be brave and confident.”
–St. Francis de Sales

The church actually recognizes three St.Valentines, so I’m not sure who I should be talking about here. But my version is that he was a Roman martyr. Unfortunately, my valentine is not here (bah long-distance relationships), but if you have one, be sure to spend some time being nice to each other today. Actually, you should be doing that everyday. But I digress.

(OK that might not be a PC title, but whatever)

One of the infamous Edwards bloggers has quit.

But she didn’t go quietly…from her blog yesterday:

No matter what you think about the campaign, I signed on to be a supporter and a tireless employee for them, and if I can’t do the job I was hired to do because Bill Donohue doesn’t have anything better to do with his time than harass me, then I won’t do it,” Marcotte wrote Monday night.

Earlier Monday, Marcotte wrote on her personal Web site, “The Christian version of the virgin birth is generally interpreted as super-patriarchal, where … women are nothing but vessels.

Here’s Rod’s take on it.

Rejoice O Heavenly powers!