Views on the English Translation of the Roman Missal

               Catholicism is a little bit like a secret club. Catholics have rites of initiation, regular meetings, and it seems that people who aren’t Catholic don’t know exactly what Catholic doctrine is. After all, the majority of Catholics don’t know what their church teaches… but that is neither here nor there.

               The kicker concerning Catholics is that their worship is so different. The standing up, the sitting down, the kneeling, the standing back up… It is like Simon Says without a winner. As if this wasn’t enough to confuse the ordinary visitor, the flood of call and responses can be quite overwhelming:

The Lord be with you. –And with your spirit

Lift up your hearts. –We lift them up to the Lord

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. –It is right and just  

The Lord be with you. –And with your spirit

Go in peace. –Thanks be to God

               This is only a small sample, but the list could go on and on. Somehow Catholics just simply know what they are supposed to say. Yet, all that is changing.

               With the start of advent, the new English Translation of the Roman Missal is now in use. And now, for a few weeks at least, everybody will be equally confused. I see this as an opportune time to join the church. Of course I think that all the time is an opportune time to join the church.

               It is mildly amusing to be in a seminary at this historic time. For many of us, it is a matter of pride to get all the responses correct. “And with your Spirit” tends to be a little bit louder in order that all the bumpkins who are saying “And also with you” are drowned out. For quite a while, there will be a lot of “and also with your spirit” going around.  It is difficult to teach an old dog new tricks. Especially a dog as old as the Church.

               I think it is going to end up being a little bit like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luU9j6mPKe4

Thanksgiving Break

               Thanksgiving is a much needed and well appreciated break from the academic year. This does not mean that it is a break in any other sense of the word. Thanksgivings are always big affairs at my house. This year was a small Thanksgiving with only a dozen people showing up. A couple years ago I counted over fifty people in one room.

               The frantic rush of preparing meals spills over into the rest of the break. It may be due to the 20 plus hours of traveling time, but I never feel as though the break is long enough. I never seem able to finish the things I need to do or see the people I want to see. This year I made a list of things I wanted to do on my break. I did half the things on that list.

               Things I need to get done are not necessarily on this list. I need to study for an exam, write dozens of letters, and get a new tire put on my car. There is a hierarchy in the things I do. There are things I want to do. Above that there are things I should do. Above that there are things that I must do. Someday, I will be a responsible adult and start at the top of that list instead of at the bottom. Today is not that day. Today, I update my blog.

Flat Tires

            While I was driving home this Tuesday, I had my first flat tire. I was on the west side of Wichita Kansas and still had almost 250 more miles to drive. I was not so much as worried as I was aggravated. I had already been on the road for 6 hours, and simply not in the mood. It seems that my patience had blown along with my tire.

 After pulling over, and moving all my things out of my trunk, I was finally able to reach my spare tire. I spent another 10 anxious minutes trying to find my tire iron, but I had never done so from my car, so I was unsure if I even had one in the car. I vaguely remember checking the trunk when I bought the car, but couldn’t recall ever finding one. After what seemed like an eternity, I did find my tire iron.

A kind Lieutenant from the Sheriff’s department stopped while on his way home from work. After a few minutes, we had the tires changed out only to find out that my spare donut did not have any air. Whether this was due to a leak or simply because of age was yet to be seen. I spent half an hour waiting for the county’s downed motorist rig. It ended up that my tire did hold, and I was soon on my way.

I felt quite ridiculous praying about such a trivial matter, but I think that God really appreciates these prayers. I imagined an angel with its lips on the Schrader valve blowing air into my tires at the same rate that it was leaking out. I ended up trying to do the math of how fast such an angel would have to barrel roll in order to keep up with the revolutions of my tires. Such is my mind.

            Although the ordeal was stressful, I ended up being a little bit more thankful this Thanksgiving than I would have been.

Happiness As a Priority

               Priorities are incredibly difficult to define. The difficulty is not in defining what I should think my priorities are, but the hard part is taking stock of what I actually value the most. I can say my highest priority is serving God, but when examining my actions, it is quite apparent that this is not the case.

               I would say that my own happiness is my number one priority, but this leads into a logical mess. From my own experience, I realize that I am unable to make myself happy through following my own desires. Happiness is an emotion. Emotions do not necessarily follow reason, but this is not to say that they are always unreasonable either.

               It is easy to understand that sometimes we feel happy and have no tangible reason why. Sometimes we feel happy when everything around us is crashing down. I do not intend to imply that feelings have no cause and that human experiences of joy are subject to the wrathful randomness of the cosmos, but only that the causes for emotion are not always clear.

               The conclusion from this is that one’s desires are not directly connected to one’s happiness. Happiness is not about getting what you want. We think that something will make us happy, but that is not the case. This desire is at its heart lust and greed. We believe a lie that God is holding out on us. If we only had a better job, a bigger home, better friends, if we were only more productive, or a better person we could be happy.

               God does not have our emotions as his top priority. This isn’t to say that our emotions aren’t a priority. This is reassuring. After all, a parent should not be wholly concerned with the happiness of their child, but should care about their entire well-being. God’s priority number one is our well-being. Our service to God is working towards our own well-being as well as the well-being of those around us.

Top Ten Video Games

               I figure that half of my readers are looking for some spiritual insight. The other half is simply wasting time online. If you belong to the former group, take a hint from the title and skip this. If you are wasting time, I would highly recommend the following.

               Looking at my blog, I am surprised at how incredibly religion oriented it is. To take a break from this spiritual monotony, I will do what I normally do: turn to video games. Hey, the fact that I can’t get married does not make me any less of a boy. So for no particular reason and in no particular order: a list of my top ten PC video games.

               10. Assassin’s Creed- A brilliant blend of role-playing, stealth, and combat, Assassin’s Creed provides an epic open world environment that even sandbox games have a hard time replicating.

               9. Star Craft- An incredibly well balanced classic that is the measuring stick for every RTS that comes out. Three unique and playable classes keeps things fresh.

               8. Bioshock- Amazing plot, good characters, innovative combat system. What isn’t to love about the grand city of Rapture?

               7.Modern Warfare- The point where Call of Duty made its resurgence. Although the new games are just as good, they are mere carbon copies of the original.

               6.Rainbow 6 Vegas II-Rainbow 6 has long been king for tactical shooters. Hunting terrorists can be hard as nails and is guaranteed to keep you busy for hours.

               5. Portal 2- A wonderfully new concept, gut-busting humor, and a surprisingly nice plot for only having one human character. Notice that this is the only game on my list that doesn't require killing things. Its that good.

               4. Team Fortress 2- A hysterical and incredibly in-depth shooter with 9 playable classes. The best part? IT IS FREE.

               3. Jedi Knight II Jedi Outcast- It is simply the best Star Wars game I have ever played. I mean who doesn’t enjoy dicing up a platoon of stormtroopers?

               2. Battlefield Bad Company 2- The single player is mediocre, but the squad-based multiplayer is the best I have ever seen.

               1. Half Life 3- Simply the best FPS in the world. 

Being Nice>Being Right

               Religion is incredibly important to some people, and for good reason. This importance often manifests itself in defining doctrine. After all, it is difficult to be passionate about a thing that is vague or ambiguous. Unfortunately, doctrinal distinctions can be quite detrimental to unity. This is, of course, only natural, and I do not intend to imply that such distinctions should not be made.

               My point is that many of these distinctions end up being a way to ostracize others. I belong to the right and true religion which worship within the vein of orthodoxy. This is a comforting thought but only to the exclusion of everyone else. Would I be so proud of my religion if no differing party existed? After all, this is how it will be in heaven.  Too often one develops a sense of superiority over others. It should be clear that this air of superiority is in no way Christian.

               We must realize that nearly every movement in the church has some sense of legitimacy. Even if the movement is utterly absurd, there is a legitimate motivating factor behind it. It is a pastoral work to address these motivating factors. For example, there is a great tension in American Catholicism between using traditional music and contemporary music in the mass. There is tension between Catholics and Protestants over the role of works in salvation. One could generate hundreds of examples.

               Often I find that people will argue a point when they are in fact saying the exact same thing. Each side is simply emphasizing a different aspect. For example, Protestants fear that Catholics do not understand the wonder of grace. Catholics likewise fear that Protestants will simply fail to uphold moral standards.

               I don’t mean to say that doctrinal differences don’t exist, but to put it simply…

Being nice>Being right.

But sometimes you need to pull a Mattathias

 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Maccabees%202:22-26&version=GNT

                

                

Hate God

               I am a strong advocate for hating God. What I mean by saying this is very specific, but I hope that you find it understandable. I think that nearly everyone in the world has a reason to hate God.

               Who has not been touched by the sufferings of this life? Family members die excruciatingly painful deaths as cancer eats away at their bodies. Children are buried by their parents after being forced to fight in an unjust war. Spouses leave each other. The list can go on and on. How can an omnipotent and benevolent God allow all this to happen? God is responsible. God made this happen, or at the very least, he could have prevented it.

               The problem of evil is one that deters many from believing and brings doubt to the hearts of believers, and I don’t think it can easily be dismissed or ignored. I don’t intend to attempt an answer here. To my standards, I can satisfactorily make sense of this contradiction in my own mind, but rational answers don’t help.  Having answers doesn’t make the dead come back to life. Answers don’t make the pain any more bearable.

               Faithful believers often feel like it is a travesty to harbor a hatred for the divine. Through my own experience I can say that God is plenty big enough to deal with your infinitesimal wrath.  No matter how large the stones, or how great the velocity, you cannot throw a stone large enough, or with enough force to deal any damage to the gates of heaven.

               I wonder how often, if ever, the unbelievers of the world tell God how upset with them they are. I think that God would rather have someone speak words of hate to him than to continue their detestation in silence. The fact is that people are pained. I think we do our humanity a disservice by not admitting our pain.

               And maybe… just maybe, if you are lucky, do I dare say that God will make some of that pain go away?

Megachurches

Its not as big as it looks...its much bigger.

In Milan, I saw the 4^th largest church in the world.  What made the greatest impression on me was not the art, nor the relics, but how empty the building was.  Even with crowds of tourists, it was incredibly empty.  Of course much of this was due to the immense size of the building, but it brought a point home to me.

The Catholics had the original mega-church.  It was not built to just impress people.  It was built, first and foremost, to be used.  I could not help but imagine how brilliant it would have been to be worshipping in that church surrounded by thousands of people.  What if thousands came to daily mass?  What if our buildings of worship were always full?

I did some research later and found out that about 9 masses are said there daily.  Somehow the church felt more like a museum. It felt hollow.  To me, all this emphasized that WE are the church.  We Christians animate these wonderful works of art much like Christ animates us.  Such a wonderful piece of art needs a great deal of life to be full, and we should accept this as a personal challenge.  We must provide life equal to the splendor of the world’s greatest churches.    

A little bit on my rational.

               I wonder about trivial little things like: Why is this furniture arranged in this way? Why is the handicap door closer to the stairs than to the elevator? And why does the kitchen staff put the gravy before the biscuits 39.8% of the time? I think to myself that people have rational for acting in the ways they do, but I am ignorant to what it is.

               My ignorance of underlying rationality often leads to irritation because I begin to wonder if there is any reason behind anything at all. If any of my readers are like I am, this post is for you. I would like to give some reasoning behind what I do insofar as this blog is concerned.

               Firstly, I attempt to keep my posts short. The average person reads about 250 words per minute which would hypothetically allow a person to read a post of 300 words in 72 seconds. I find when I am surfing the wondrous wave that we call the World Wide Web, I do not stop to read an article if it will take a lot of time and effort to comprehend. I shorten my posts to the detriment of development because I do not find it necessary to expound upon a basic idea. All I try to do is present the basic idea as clearly as possible.

               Secondly, I do not laboriously proofread my articles. As a lazy college student, I do not laboriously proofread anything. Be assured that I do proofread, but I always post articles that I am less than 100% pleased with. I do this for one simple reason: if I waited until I was fully satisfied with an article to post it, I would never post anything. What can I say, but that I have high standards?!

               Thirdly, there are not a lot pictures on my blog for one simple reason: I don’t take very many pictures.  The format is also lacking due to the fact that I am too ignorant to figure out how to change it. Someday, I will find someone knowledgeable about such things, or better yet, learn myself, but until that day comes, you will simply have to put up with lackluster graphics.

               Lastly, despite the urgings of my high school English teacher, I do not often provide adequate conclusions. This is partially due to the constraints of space and time. More importantly, avoiding conclusions creates a psychotic effect in the reader which suspends the aura of finality, and so requires the reader to return to the blog in attempts to find resolution.

               Ok, I made that last one up… but it almost sounded good enough to end on.              

Everything I say is right

               I am right.

               It is difficult to find anyone on earth that does not hold this belief. Being a Catholic, I believe that my beliefs are right.  As a philosophy student, and as a skeptic, I am unsure whether any of my beliefs are true.

               I can give reasons for my faith, but these reasons do not make my beliefs true. I understand the world, and my faith in unique terms. I cannot honestly say that I hold all the beliefs of the Catholic Church. This seems like a really bad thing for a seminarian to say, but when you think of all the nutjobs out there who honestly think that Christians should kill all the unbelievers, or believe that God will consign a little girl’s soul to eternal torment just because she had never heard of Christ, it is not hard to conclude that perhaps I don’t have it all straightened out either.

               Catholicism is so incredibly big. It is so old, and there are so many dogmas and defined beliefs that it is near impossible for an ordinary working man or woman to know them all. One is almost bound to slip up in his or her understanding somewhere along the way.  I think a great sin lies in believing that ‘I am right about everything’. Even if one had an institution –such as the Church- that would communicate the entirety of truth, one would make mistakes.

               I try to talk about what I know. If I have not already, I will most likely end up proclaiming a heresy. That is not such a big deal. It is not a big deal to not accept the truth. Often I find that the truth is incredibly hard to swallow. The real sin is not being open to being wrong.  Heresy can be recanted, but recanting can only be done if one is open to being wrong.

               If we are ever to come to the truth in our beliefs, we must first admit that not all our beliefs are right. So let us swallow our pride and be a little bit more open to being wrong.

Brevity is the Soul of Wit

               There is a priest that occasionally celebrates mass here. He has a maxim concerning preaching: Be brilliant and brief, and if not brilliant, then be brief. This seems to be a dictum of American Catholic preaching. And although, the attempt to be concise is a pastoral effort, I think that it often does a great disservice to the people of God.

               There is a guideline here at the abbey that during the week, a homily should not exceed three minutes in duration. Do not get me wrong, I appreciate these time constraints as much as anyone, but I find it interesting that a Catholic priest runs the risk of being flayed alive if the mass runs over an hour. I think this is a rather interesting phenomena of our culture.

               I do not mean to imply that short homilies should not be given; on the contrary, I have experienced a number of one minute reflections that have struck me like bolts of lightning. I only think that time expectations are petty and trivial. For example, when a guest bishop or archbishop speaks, one can expect at least fifteen minutes of oration. But this extra time does not mean that the bishop has anything more to say.

               Chief amongst my complaints is that priests often try to sound intelligent. There seems to exist an unspoken requirement to use high-sounding theological and liturgical wording. What the people need is not a exegesis concerning the transcendence of the eschatological man. We need someone to simply talk to us. The best sermons I have experienced here are when the priest puts away his notes, steps away from the ambo, and talks to the congregation as a friend.

               If I imagine myself as a priest, I do not think that my messages would be delivered more professionally, have better content, , or in any way be more effective than the very sermons that I critique. Much like this blog, I doubt that I will ever be ‘consistently brilliant’. Like my future homilies, I hope and pray that my condensed blogs do not do a disservice to my audience. I hope that I do not leave you hanging by not fully developing my thesis.

…or by providing an adequate conclusion…

                

Monks are people too

After a brief introduction to his lecture, my monastic professor said

               “So, tonight is…”

               The class was clearly baffled as to what the answer was. We were thinking… what religious holiday was November 3^rd? or was he referring  II Vespers for a saint or feast for tomorrow? Or perhaps there is some monastic significance on the date? A few students tentatively responded “The junior class meeting?”

               The junior class meeting is tonight, and I count myself blessed that I am not classified as a junior anymore, but this was obviously not the answer. No, Brother Anselm responded “It is the season premier of Burn Notice”. Although no one could have guessed, no one was really surprised, and I think this says a lot.

               Now I am sure that somewhere on a high mountaintop there are plenty of monks that live much more austere lives than the ones here at Conception, and the very thought of those monks loyally following a television series is a travesty. These monks are not those monks. It is not unusual for the TV lounge to be taken up by the chaplain rooting for his football team.

               I think people need to realize that religious people are ordinary people like you and me. Ok, well I admit that I’m not normal, but then again, neither are you! Being a monk doesn’t mean you can’t be a Kanas City Royals fan, but in my opinion, you are pretty crazy if you are either of them. My point is that spiritual matters are not for ‘some man on a mountain’, but are for each of us… but more on that later. Right now I have an episode of How I met Your Mother that I need to catch up on.

                

Windmills

http://3d.xkcd.com/556/

               For those of you who do not know, wind powered generators dot the horizon around Conception. For the most part they go unnoticed save for the calm nights where a faint whoosh...whoosh…whoosh… can be heard. Now, in all technicality, these enormities are not windmills since they do not mill anything. Yet I refer to them as windmills. I apologize if this insults your sensibilities. Deal with it.

               Two things baffle me about these behemoth structures. First, how do they get those little red lights on top to blink on and off at the same time? Secondly, how is it that one windmill turns quickly, while the adjacent windmill barely manages to move at all?

               This calls a certain verse to mind: “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; ….”  John 3:8a. How is that for taking a verse out of context? No matter how much you stretch the meaning of multivalence, I doubt that one could say that Christ was referring in any way to wind turbines.

For me, windmills serve as a reminder that comparisons are unfair.

               I am no engineer. I do not understand what it takes for a windmill to move. Perhaps a particular slow windmill is actually generating more electricity than the windmill adjacent to it. It is doing its job better, yet being judged as inferior in comparison to its neighbor. Perhaps a stationary windmill is undergoing repairs   or upgrades.

               If something as simple as a wind turbine cannot be understood by a simpleton such as myself, how can the complexities of a human person be understood? I tend to make excuses for other people –this is probably carryover from the plethora of excuses I make for myself-. I don’t really have a point to make in all this, it is just something that I think about.

But if I did have to make a point, I would say that  I AM GOING TO CALL THEM WINDMILLS. Don’t judge me!