Journeys of a Catholic Poster Girl

From Catholic Exchange, a series on Advent prep (and, ironically, written by a Dominican!)

Get the first installment here.

B XVI’s new encyclical, Spe Salvi (on Hope), can be found here.

No, that “on hope” is not a Latin translation.

These are the two communities I am discerning/talking with:

 Nashville Dominicans of St. Cecilia

Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist (SMME for short)

Please, all of you in blogger land:

please pray for me and for the order I am contacting, that they will be open to the idea of giving me a chance to try my vocation with them, even with my crazy health history!

I have never felt so strongly drawn to anything as I have to this order.

Jesus and Mary, pray for me!

I just called a convent and left a message inquiring about a vocation retreat.

To paraphrase, “God must be crazy.”

I hope all of you have a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving with your families (and enjoy the bird!).

I am headed off to Pittsburgh to see The Clan momentarily–back on Saturday!

As we know, I never favored embryonic stem cell research (ESCR). I thought adult stem cells was the way to go.

And you know, I, and the others who felt the same way, were right!

Yes!

Faith and science need not be opposites, friends.

For more on this, go to the WaPo or tyeh NYT (yes, the NYT. They are good on science coverage).

Or, as always, The Corner.  

Today’s gospel was perfect for my state of mind lately; Jesus spoke about not worrying what to say when you are questioned about your faith, because he will give you the words that no one can refute. He promised that “not a hair on [our] head[s]” will be lost. He takes such good care of us–I think that is something that we often forget.

We think that if God loved us, then He’d sort of “leave us alone”; that is, we’d have enough money, perfect health, etc., etc. Everything would be easy. But if you look at the lives of those God and Jesus loved, it was the exact opposite. Mary was told at Jesus’ presentation that a sword would pierce her heart. John, the “beloved disciple”, died in exile on Patmos. Peter and some of the other apostles were crucified. How many saints had illness, the “dark night”, doubt, pain, fear? Almost all of them. Look at Jesus himself, the “beloved Son”–crucified. For love of us. God’s love is, to our human way of thinking,a funny kind of love. But we have to remember that His knowledge is perfect. He wants us to be with Him in Heaven, and if that takes discomfort and pain, etc., then that’s what it takes. And it doesn’t take that for everyone. I’m re-reading St. Teresa of Avila’ s The Interior Castle, and in her discussion of the First Mansion, she discusses this point, saying, “there are different way of being in this castle”; she writes later that “if we start with the false principle of wishing God to follow our will and to lead us in the way we think best, upon what firm foundation can this spiritual edifice rest?” RTusting God is vital. But that doesn’t mean we can’t doubt. Mother Angelica said

Don’t worry if you have doubts. Doubts do not displease God. They are permitted by Him–permitted to bring out the depth of faith within us.

But this was all just one part of the Gospel. The other part, the first part, about not being afraid of what to say because Jesus will give us the words, is what I’ve been dealing with lately. So many people seem to want to blunt God’s truth and what His Church teaches. They want balance. They want other ideas presented. This is not a political arena. There are no other sides in the Catholic Church. There is right, and there is wrong. There is sin, and there is virtue. There is Heaven, there is Hell (well, OK, Purgatory too, but you know what I mean). I know people who want to present sin, heresy, blasphemy (all good old-fashioned words we’re too afraid to use anymore) as “alternatives” or “other ideas” or “balance.” Well, there isn’t balance when we’re talking faith. God will keep us from error, but I don’t want to have my parish end up like some Protestant denominations, who write statements like (and I’m paraphrasing), “abortion is bad, but if you really need to have one, then you should be able to. (Side note: What other sin do we talk about like this? None. We don’t say, “well murder is bad, but if you really need to kill someone, do it.” “Well, stealing is bad, but if you need to..” “adultery is bad, but…” Only abortion. Funny.) NO.

One among the many things I love about Catholicism is its total definitiveness. There is right and wrong. Black and white. This is what is good, and this is what is not. There’s no wishy-washy beating ’round the bush. You know what’s going on, and if you don’t, get thee to your CCC. If you’re Catholic, be Catholic. Believe what we believe hook, line and sinker. Or go find a church that believes what you believe. To pull the name of a blog, “The cafeteria is closed.” No more of this balance talk. We have to talk truth.

Nutmeg’s online book club is meeting again in January, and I am hosting over at the Bucket! Hop over there for my pick (it’s a Catholic novel!), and join us!

From Amy:

I have work to do, so I shouldn’t have really clicked on EWTN’s live feed of the USCCB. Because I did, and instead of the boring stuff I expected to hear, I catch Bishop Aquila of Fargo exhorting the body, in the discussion on the Faithful Citizenship document to replace language referring to “spiritual well-being” with “salvation”. Why? He says simply because it is the language of the Church and when one chooses intrinsic evil, such a choice does impact the state of one’s soul. Bishop Morlino of Madison is now speaking in support of Aquila, saying that too many of us have a mistaken notice of “conscience.” His point is that if conscience is a center point of the document, it should be clear what proper use of conscience means and what is at stake - salvation. Now Archbishop Lipscomb of Mobile is also speaking in support - if a choice for intrisic evil is made, the consequences of that should be laid out clearly.

Bishop DiMarzio (in charge) argues that they didn’t want to give the impression that one vote would put someone’s immortal soul in danger…

Voice vote was inconclusive, they’re going to their “clickers” (as they called them.) Let’s see what happens:

Amendment failed, but by a close vote: 51-48. Which is interesting.

ME: That’s my point–the conscience can mean a lot of different things to different people. You have to make sure people have a properly formed conscience. If saving baby seals is your top, top priority, then, well, you’re not going to vote the way a Faithful Catholic “should” (meaning you’re probably going to vote for the Sierra Club candidate, which, among other things, supports population control in ways that do not line up with the Church). We all know CINOs (Catholics In Name Only) like this. Several pro-choice politicians come to mind (Pelosi, Kennedy, le francais Kerry, etc., yet they feel they are voting their conscience.

Hmmm.