PathToHoliness

I may be away from home this week but it’s not for work for a change.

Tomorrow is my wife Cindy and my 30th wedding anniversary. So we decided to take a real vacation. This is something we can’t remember doing. Just the two of us for a week on the beach.

The weather and the water are beautiful.

This morning we took a walk on the beach before it gets busy with holiday traffic. We’ll be attending Mass at Holy Spirit Church in Pensacola.

I’m going to add a photo to this post later. I’m taking a CoffeeZone break to get at least one post on. My travel schedule really shouldnt be an excuse for not posting more often.

I’ve been meaning to write about the Rosary again for a while now. I wanted to let you know that Chelsea and I make them and if you leave a comment request well send you one. We make a variety of types of rosaries. My favorite are with cord and the beads are knots like the one you’ll see in the photo. We also make them with plastic beads and slender cord too.

The rosary is one of my favorite forms of prayer for a lot of reasons. For one thing, you can say it anywhere, anytime. I have a rosary ring that I wear at all times. I can use it while driving, in a boring meeting, on the plane, etc. But I also have a nice rosary in a small zipper case in my pocket. I also have one of my cord rosaries with me when I travel that I keep by my bed in a hotel room. Whenever I have trouble sleeping for any reason I just pick it up and start saying it. It calms me down and I often wake up with it in my hand in mid decade.

I’ve got quite a few rosaries. Two of my favorites are the one handed to me by Pope John Paul II and one blessed by Pope Benedict XVI. I have a few from relatives and my rosary given to me when I became a Knight of Columbus. They all have special meaning but you can only carry around so many rosaries.

So, here’s a word of encouragement to get a rosary if you don’t have one (or leave me a comment and Ill mail you one) and start saying it. I prefer daily but I recommend at least once a week if you can. You’ll be amazed at the difference it will make in your life.

Here’s the latest church I was blessed to attend Mass at, as well as confession. It’s St. Mark Catholic Church. I was traveling with my wife, Cindy, for a change. We were doing some work at a swine health seminar in Wrightsville Beach, NC. It’s a tough job but someone has to do it. The beach was nice but it’s good to be home.

“St. Mark is a Roman Catholic Parish sustained by God’s Word and Christ in the Eucharist, empowered in the Holy Spirit, which provides for the sacramental life of our community. As a welcoming and diverse people, we are called to evangelize, to teach and to live the Catholic faith. We do this through our parish and school programs and our commitment to stewardship that span all generations.”

In case you haven’t seen the trailer yet for There Be Dragons I found it on YouTube. The movie about the life of St. Josemaria Escriva is still due out in early 2011.

Follow There Be Dragons on Facebook and Twitter.

I’ve been in a blogging drought here the last several weeks. In that time I’ve been to events in Panama City Beach, FL, Minneapolis, MN, Denver, CO, Willamsburg, VA and Des Moines, IA. Finally got home at the end of last week.

So I may not have been real diligent in my posting but I did make it to weekday and Sunday Masses at several churches like Holy Ghost Church in Denver. I’ll try to be a little more frequent here now that the schedule has calmed down temporarily!

Is it just me or does the news today read like a fiction novel? The stories we’re seeing are surrealistic. What kind of stories? How about the stories about the billions and billions of dollars being “given” away, right here at home, overseas, just about any where you look. No matter what source you look at it’s clear there is no money to be given away by our government. So where is it coming from? I have no idea and no one I know does either. By some estimates I’ve read, just the stimulus money can never be repaid much less items like the $500 million just announced as U.S. aid to Pakistan from a $7.5 billion package approved by Congress last year. Sounds to me like there will be 500 new millionaires in Pakistan.

Are people so far removed from personal responsibility and common sense that they can’t function without the government supplying them with money for everything? How about health care? Why should our government supply health care to anyone? Why does it become government’s responsibility?

I could make a long list of stories that defy reason but all you have to do is look at the news to see stories for yourself. From ideas like animals having rights to sue humans (they actually voted on this in Switzerland) to the idea that we should tax people for creating carbon emissions due to global warming, it seems like we’re living in a world dominated by insane people. I think the reality is we’re living in a world with a growing number of people who have no grounding in faith in God. You don’t see God and faith mentioned in news today unless it’s just to point out what church someone belongs to as a side note to a story or in a negative way like blame for something.

Besides these things it seems like people today are constantly feeling panic. Of course if you listen to the news much you’ll hear the word “crisis” applied to just about everything. We don’t have a crisis except a crisis of loss of faith. With true faith in God there is no need to worry or feel threatened by anything and that includes where your next meal is coming from or whether the Gulf of Mexico will still have fish living in it tomorrow.

I don’t think I ever did a post about the new version of iBreviary which is now iBreviaryPro. It’s another app I use almost every day. I’m finding it harder and harder to carry around and use my Liturgy of the Hours books, especially doing a lot of air travel. These apps are really helping make saying your norms easier.

The Vatican Council for Social Communications has approved an iBreviary application created by Italian priest Fr Paolo Padrini for the iPhone.

Infomobile reports it brings complete missal and principal prayers in Spanish, French, English, Latin and Italian. “That’s cool, but what really sets this application apart from all others in the AppStore is that it’s the first app with approval of the Vatican!” Infomobile says. “As with almost any iPhone app, iBreviary is easy to use, sporting iPhone like user interface. In addition, size of the characters can be increased, landscape mode is supported (using accelerometer) and much more.

Excerpt from CathNews.

After Mass this morning I was talking to a couple and the subject of mobile phones came up. Turns out they had been wondering why I was looking at my iPhone during Mass. As the wife put it, “I was thinking, Can’t he leave that alone during Mass?” It gave me a good chuckle but at the same time made me realize how many people aren’t aware of what new technology can do today. So I used it as a teaching moment and they were amazed.

So, here’s the app that I was using. iMissal by Cantcha, Inc. It has become one of the apps I use frequently since I go to daily Mass. It’s very solid and contains much more than just the daily readings. Here’s a full list:

Here is what is included in iMissal:

Mass Readings: All the Mass Readings for every liturgical cycle (A,B,C,I,II) are included! This includes First Reading, Psalm, Second Reading, Alleluia, and Gospel for all Sunday and Weekday Masses. Reading text is always available for every day, no WIFI connection necessary. Uses translations officially approved for Mass in the U.S. Great resource for Lectors.

Read the rest of this post…

I just had the joy of watching oldest daughter, Chelsea, appear as the guest on EWTN’s live show, Life On The Rock. It will air again on EWTN tomorrow at 1am and 1pm, eastern and again on Sunday at 11pm eastern. They did a good job of promoting her blog, Reflections of a Paralytic.

We of course recorded the show. Chelsea is a regular contributor here on Path To Holiness and her Mom and I are very proud of her. She is a very courageous young woman who has a challenging “path” to take through life and is doing so with full faith in God. During the show they talked about her auto accident that left her paralyzed, holiness, sanctity of life and stem cell research. During the program we were getting messages via Facebook from friends who were watching.

The show is archived so you will be able to watch it on your computer.

It has been a year since I was diagnosed with pneumonia and that’s made me think back on all that’s happened since. After the initial diagnosis it took a couple weeks before I wound up in the hospital where I stayed for 11 days and had multiple procedures that ended with some major chest surgery to get rid of the infection. Some time afterward one of my doctors used the term “near death experience” referring to the condition I was in before surgery. So this holiday weekend has been a good time to reflect on the experience and what it meant to me then and now.

Let’s just say that I’m glad to be alive. Every day is a wonderful opportunity to serve our Lord more. But more than that the experience taught me another lesson in patience and it has provided many opportunities to offer up some pain and suffering.

I remember hearing a number of family and friends say that maybe it meant I should “slow down” and not travel so much for work. I wondered about that and prayed for guidance on the issue. I don’t think it has been that simple. I’ve done quite a bit of travel since then but have had more periods of no required travel. One reason is that we lost a significant amount of work that required travel from one of our clients. That has meant more stay at home time but also more pressure on our cash flow. It seems like there’s always something.

I’ve found myself working harder to live a healthy lifestyle but now that I’m mostly back to normal I’m back to battling the same old temptations to eat too much and not exercise enough. Realizing that I’ve hit this one year milestone has made me re-commit to my resolutions though. It has made me think about how blessed I am to have a wonderful faith and family. My wife just had some major surgery of her own recently and now I can pay her back for her extra efforts when I wasn’t able to do much around the house!

So there you have it. A year since I didn’t think I would be here at all. But thank you Lord for allowing me more time to make amends for my sins and serve you more.

As I have often found to be the case, my guardian angel led me to Mass today. Usually when I’m in a place I don’t know and I’m about to give up finding a church, it’s then that I suddenly come across it.

Today that’s in Utrecht, Netherlands where I’m attending a dairy conference that starts tomorrow. I had some free time before my first dinner this evening so I got some very approximate directions to a church. It turned out to be St. Augustine’s and I arrived while Mass was in progress which started at 12:30pm.

As I was leaving I met one of the priests who celebrated Mass. He pointed me toward the St. Catherine’s Cathedral which proved to be a really nice walk along the riverwalk that goes through town. I first stopped at St. Martin’s Cathedral (or Dom Church) thinking I was there but it turned out to be the original Catholic cathedral which was taken over by protestants.

I like to find a statue or image of our Blessed Mother in each country I visit so I was looking for a gift shop. At St. Catherine’s I was directed back to St. Martin’s where they have a nice little shop. Interestingly, since it is now protestant they had quite a few images and statues of Mary and I purchased one. They also sell rosaries and holy water founts. I guess they get a lot of Catholic visitors.

So, it has been another interesting day and another opportunity to visit our Lord in His Blessed Sacrament!

Cindy adds: Reminds me of a Dan Fogelberg song “Netherlands”

Off in the Netherlands
I heard a sound
Like the beating of heavenly wings
And deep in my brain
I can hear a refrain
Of my soul as she rises and sings
Anthems to glory and
Anthems to love and
Hymns filled with early delight
Like the songs that the darkness
Composes to worship the light.

The latest in an ongoing series from Opus Dei about the life of Mary was just published on their website.

Life of Mary (V): The Annunciation

The fifth reflection on our Lady’s life during this Marian Year in Opus Dei. This month we consider the Archangel Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary, and Christ’s entry into the world.

On Father’s Day I really enjoyed myself working at the Iowa Corn Indy 250 in Newton, IA. Of course I missed being with my family but I did get home at a reasonable time in the evening.

Once again IRL Ministry took care of us spiritually. Fr. Phil DeRea celebrated Mass in the Driver’s Mtg. Room at the Media Center. One of the drivers, Helio Castroneves, attended along with team members, media and other people involved in race day activities.

As a special treat, Fr. DeRea brought a number of rosaries to give away. He was in Rome on the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and had them blessed by Pope Benedict. I was lucky to receive one.

After Mass I spoke with Fr. DeRea. He says that Father’s Day is an emotional day, especially when you think of the wonderful memories of our fathers. He calls IRL Ministry a “Parish on wheels.” He, along with another minister, provide Mass and church services at races around the country. He also performs other services like weddings and baptisms. He says IRL Ministry has permission from the Vatican through Pastoral Care For People On The Move.

You can listen to my interview with Fr. DeRea here: Fr. DeRea Interview

IRL Ministry is a 501c3 not-for-profit, non-denominational organization, which was developed to help the racing community. We exist because of the donations we receive from the racing community and great partners that join with us to reach out to the people that are part of this great sport. Our financial records are available for review by contacting our office. We desire to be good stewards of the blessings we are given.

I uploaded quite a few photos from the race which you can find here: Iowa Corn Indy 250 Photo Album.

Well it’s not quite Father’s Day but I thought I’d make sure I mentioned it.

This father will be doing some “work” at the Iowa Corn Indy 250 on Sunday. Fortunately, IRL Ministry makes sure we’ll have a Mass here in the Driver’s Room at 10:30am. I’ll be there since I’ve got to attend a photographer’s mtg. at 8am.

So, I’ll get more active after this weekend. I’ve been road blogging most of the last 2 weeks (7 events, 7 cities, 7 states). You can check out my photos from this event here: Iowa Corn Indy 250 Photo Album

Thanks to Chelsea for the heads up about the new iPhone 4 and especially the Facetime application. Apple has been pretty good about keeping apps out of their store that contain pornographic content. But keep in mind that it does have a full web browser.

Apple has a very cute, family centered ad for its new iPhone, complete with a pregnant woman sharing her baby’s ultrasound image with her husband serving overseas. Click the screen shot above to watch.

Speaking of Apple, check out the Pampers “Hello Baby” iPad app if you haven’t seen it already: