PathToHoliness

I just heard an advertisement for the People Magazine’s Best of 2008 issue that contains things like the top 25 celebrity quotes of the year and a whole bunch of other inane listings. It just made me consider how much our society seems obsessed with what other people are doing, saying, thinking or feeling. Then when I was working out at the YMCA I could see a certain cable news channel group of anchors sitting on a couch pontificating about their thoughts on “news” items. That brought up the same thoughts I’d had earlier. Our new information age seems to be focused on what everyone is doing (activities) and not much on how everyone is drawing closer to God on a personal level.

How about looking inside ourselves to figure out what we’re feeling and why and by the way, what about our relationship with God?

My latest spiritual reading is “Soul of the Apostolate” by Jean-Baptiste Chautard. I’m finding it a great read since it really helps you understand the absolute necessity of a well developed interior life. All the activity we participate in, including good works, can actually become a danger to our salvation if we don’t first devote time and attention to our interior life.

Somehow I think we’d all care less about what others do if we spent more time contemplating what we’re doing first.

Merry Christmas from mid-Missouri.

Here’s a picture from midnight Mass at the Cathedral of St. Joseph with Bishop John Raymond Gaydos celebrating.

Our family has been going to midnight Mass for a number of years now. Then we come home and open presents and have a very early morning breakfast. It was nice having all my daughters home. I hope that you and your families all have a very blessed day too.

To listen to our “mainstream” media you’d think the world is in some sort of crisis at every moment and in every way possible. I think the word crisis has got to be one of the most overused words in the last couple years. People I know who spend way too much time focusing on every word from the mouths of cable news channel anchors who know absolutely nothing about what they’re talking about (just trying to fill time) seem to be developing a heightened sense of fear. I’m not going to get into what that can do to a person’s decision making much less to society as a whole.

I’d rather focus on something positive like telling these people to turn the tv off and say some prayers. I know people who have been laid off recently or are working for a company that is discussing cut backs. Some are very nervous. Some are not too worried about it. I’ll bet these latter ones have a more developed interior and prayer life. So I thought I’d offer one of my favorite prayers for times of uncertainty and worry. This comes from a prayer card I have for a priest I knew when I was younger. I’m not sure of the source of it. If you know, please feel free to comment.

“He’s got the whole world in His Hands.”
And now, Lord, You have my problems:
My seemingly insoluble problems
Which I have been worrying over incessantly,
My own million-dollar, 24-carat problems,
And I leave them with You.
If You can keep the earth revolving,
If You can keep the galaxies in place,
If You can supervise creation,
I guess You can manage My problems.
They’re yours now, Lord,
These million-dollar problems.
My task is not to worry now.
I’ve got to trust You, believe You, Love you,
And not interfere with Your resolution
Of what Once were
My problems.
Thank You, Lord.

Hey iPhone lovers. There’s an app for the phone (and iPod touch) that you may want to get. It’s the iBreviary. I’ve got it thanks to Chelsea pointing it out to me.

She found out about it on American Papist. You can also read about it on Cath News:

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

“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.

The text from the Pope’s last general audience of the year prompted me to write today. I realize how much I’ve neglected this website and have used the excuse that I am working too hard and don’t have time. The Advent season is supposed to be one of personal reflection and that has allowed me to notice how much more I can be doing to evangelize. That’s actually why I started Path To Holiness in the first place?

Here’s the segment from Pope Benedict’s message that really caught my eye:

“Christmas is the encounter with a new-born baby, wailing in a wretched grotto”, the Holy Father added. “Contemplating Him in this crèche how can we not think of all the children who still today, in many regions of the world, are born amidst such poverty? How can we not think of those newborns who have been rejected, not welcomed, those who do not survive because of a lack of care and attention? How can we not think of the families who desire the joy of a child and do not have this hope fulfilled?”

“Unfortunately, under the drive of a hedonist consumerism, Christmas runs the risk of losing its spiritual meaning, reduced to a mere commercial occasion to buy and exchange gifts. Actually, however, the difficulties, uncertainty, and the economic crisis that many families are living in these months, and which affects all humanity, can truly serve as a stimulus for rediscovering the warmth of the simplicity, friendship, and solidarity that are the typical values of Christmas. Stripped of its materialist and consumerist trappings, Christmas can become the opportunity to welcome, as a personal gift, the message of hope that emanates from the mystery of Christ’s birth”.

Hedonistic consumerism are the words that stood out for me. Our work utilizes computers, cameras, audio and video recorders, iPods, microphones, etc. Many look at them as gadgets. I look at them as cool tools and am blessed to be able to use them to make a good living. However, it’s easy to want the next best thing just for the sake of having it too. Something we all need to be careful about.

Angelo Porciuncula is a Filipino student at the University of Navarre in Spain. He has set up a great website (EarlyChristians.org) for young people about the life of Jesus Christ’s early followers. There’s an interview with him on the Opus Dei website. Here’s an excerpt:

How did the idea of making a web page about the early Christians come about?

Catholics can consider this web page as a family album. It is designed in such a way that anyone interested can learn about the life of the early Christians and later tell their friends about it. St. Josemaria always encouraged people to imitate the life of the early Christians, who with the example of their ordinary lives were able to change the world. Moreover, we want to echo the catechesis of Pope Benedict, who devotes his Wednesday audiences to the principal figures of early Christianity.

This past week I wound up in Emmetsburg, IA to attend a farm field day. The weather wasn’t very nice but at least it wasn’t snowing, just rain.

I found Holy Family Church and attended Mass on Thursday morning before the event I was in town for got started.

Right nearby to Emmetsburg is West Bend, IA. A number of years ago I was driving by and saw a sign for the Grotto of the Redemption. I visited and spent the night there. Mass that next morning was in the upstairs of the house an elderly priest lived in. I’ll never forget it. I wish I’d had time to stop in for a visit this time but it didn’t work out that way.

Your slacker blogmaster really needs to get with it here and with election day today I just had to get back on track. It’s an important day in America and I hope everyone will exercise their civic and moral duty.

I attended a Sarah Palin rally here in Missouri yesterday and it was a lot of fun. Estimates are 18,000 at the State Capitol. You can see more pics here.

You’ll get the distinct impression from this post that I support voting McCain-Palin.

You are correct. I see this as a very clear choice. Unfortunately, I have some very liberal friends who I believe have convinced themselves so much that they hate our current President that they’ll vote for anyone without seriously thinking it through. They argue that there’s really not much one man can do so why worry? But then why are they so angry at President Bush? I know. It doesn’t make sense and it’s all based on emotion and not thoughtful and prayerful consideration.

We need to move our country back toward the kind of faith filled values that started it. Our country’s founders weren’t liberal anarchists. They very carefully and prayerfully considered what they were doing and acted accordingly. I thank God they did.

You should know how pro-life Chelsea and I are and I believe that’s enough reason to vote for McCain-Palin. However, there are so many more. I’m a small businessman and there’s no way I could support the policies of the O-man. We’re looking at a socialist who could have full Congressional support. That should be pause for anyone who wants to have a job and opportunities in the future.

Oh and btw. Hank Jr. sang a variation of one of his hits, called “McCain-Palin Tradition.” I think you will enjoy it.

This week I got to travel to my home town of Sarasota, FL.

I went to daily Mass at St. Martha’s right downtown. You can read a history of the Catholic community and the church on their website. Here’s an excerpt:

The Sarasota mission post of the Tampa Jesuits became a parish when Father Charles L. Elslander, as a young man, said Mass in the little frame church facing east on Adelia Street on October 1, 1927, and the congregation numbered 132.

The little church came to be known as St. Martha’s in honor of the patron saint of Owen Burns’ mother, Martha, who had suggested to her son that he donate the first lot.

St. Martha’s feast day is July 29.

Yesterday was the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi. I chose him as my confirmation saint a long, long time ago. The picture is the statue of St. Francis under the deck to my house. I can look out my office door to see him when I need some inspiration.

Here’s some details about him from Wikipedia:

Francis of Assisi (Giovanni Francesco Bernardone; born 1181/1182 – October 3, 1226) was a friar and the founder of the Order of Friars Minor, more commonly known as the Franciscans. He is known as the patron saint of animals, the environment and Italy.

Here’s an excerpt from the homily by Br. José Rodríguez Carballo, OFM, Minister General of the , the order founded by St. Francis. He gave this during Mass yesterday:

This is the path which Francis points out to us, the path which he also travelled, because it was that chosen by the Son of God in order to become man. Christ Jesus, though “His state was divine, yet he did not cling to his equality with God, but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave, and became as men are” (Phil 2,6f). This unlimited love of God for humanity, which led Him to strip Himself of His divinity in order to participate in the fate of man, even to die naked on the cross for us, is the love which Francis sought to live throughout his existence, up to the final instant when, right here, he wished to die, like his Lord, naked on the ground. Francis made himself little because he wished to imitate his Lord, who, to love him, had become so little as to be born as a defenceless child from the womb of the Virgin.

You can learn a lot more about St. Francis on this website.

Our Lady Queen of Peace was the church I got to attend Mass at once again this year on my annual fall visit to Madison, WI for World Dairy Expo.

The church has a 6:30am Mass each week day which is perfect since I usually need to be on location at the Alliant Energy Center by 7:30am for different activities.

I’m planning on starting an online photo album of churches where I get to attend Mass soon.

Since there continues to be confusion about just what Opus Dei is, a resource you can go to to find out the facts is the Opus Dei website. They’ve got a very up to date and easy to understand section on the facts about the Prelature. Here’s an example:

Mission & Characteristics: Saint Josemaría Escrivá founded Opus Dei in 1928 to help people live by the Gospel in their daily activities and make Christ present in every endeavor. Opus Dei focuses on work and daily life as an occasion for spiritual growth and an opportunity to contribute to a better world. Opus Dei also emphasizes divine filiation, unity of life, prayer and sacrifice, charity, apostolate and fidelity to the Pope.

Activities: The chief activity of Opus Dei members is personal effort to grow in holiness, carry out apostolate and improve society. In support of these efforts, Opus Dei provides spiritual direction, prayer and study meetings, retreats, classes and workshops. These activities take place in an Opus Dei center, or in a church, office or private home. Members also sometimes join with non-members to organize educational, charitable, and cultural projects, which may include spiritual formation carried out by Opus Dei.

I hope you’re getting ready for the visit from our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI starting tomorrow. There’s been a lot of speculation about his trip which I think the video Chelsea posted helped clarify.

I see lots of news online about the trip including a story in the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram which says that President Bush will be picking the Pope up personally from the airport and escorting him back to the White House. Here’s his explanation for why he’s doing so:

“One, he speaks for millions. Two, he doesn’t come as a politician; he comes as a man of faith,” Bush told the EWTN Global Catholic Network in an interview aired Friday. He added that he wanted to honor Benedict’s conviction that “there’s right and wrong in life, that moral relativism has a danger of undermining the capacity to have more hopeful and free societies.”

One of the people I heard mentioned on my recent retreat was Mathew Kelly. So, of course I Googled for him at my first chance today. The first result I looked at is an article he wrote called Classroom of Silence. I work in a profession that’s all about noise and I do mean audio. We produce a lot of it for online agricultural communications. I attend a lot of conferences where all you do all day long is talk to people and hear lots of noise. I like my music-filled iPod but I have to take time every day to just sit in silence and this article struck a personal note with me so I thought I’d share it with you. Here’s an excerpt:

Silence presents both sides of the Christian challenge. Firstly, silence introduces us to ourselves – our faults, failings, flaws, defects, talents, abilities, and potential. And secondly, silence introduces us to God – greatness, fidelity, and perfection. It is these two discoveries together – self and God – that propose the Christian challenge. Seeing ourselves as we are, and God as He is, we are always challenged to change, to grow, and to become more like God.

Blaise Pascal, the French philosopher, scientist, mathematician, and writer of the seventeenth century wrote, “All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.”

How can we examine our conscience when there’s too much noise? Kind of difficult if you ask me. So, many people I work with might be surprised but this makes perfect sense to me and I highly recommend it. Silence that is.

I’m on the final day of my annual retreat which is put on by the Wespine Study Center in St. Louis, MO. It’s actually held at the Cedar Creek Conference Center in New Haven, MO. I like to think of it as my time to re-charge my spiritual batteries for another year. The retreat usually comes at a time when I feel like I really need it. Maybe after a number of years your soul gets into a rhythm.

We have a wonderful chapel in which the priest presents a series of meditations and where we hold daily Mass.

Wespine offers weekend retreats for working men seeking to further develop their relationship with God. The schedule includes daily Mass and Gospel reflections by a priest of Opus Dei, with Confession and spiritual direction available throughout the weekend.

The retreats are held during the spring at Cedar Creek Conference Center, 14 miles west of Washington, Missouri. The retreats run from 10:30 a.m. on Friday to 2:00 p.m. on Sunday.

There are also retreats held here for women that are put on by the Lindell Center, which is located in St. Louis as well.