(Thank you all for your previous feedback; I hope that this story proves to be helpful and healing for everyone. I try very hard to not blog too much about myself, but if something occurring in my life might prove spiritually beneficial for others, I will make an exception. I hope this is one…)

 PART ONE

First I must go into some background.

While I was growing up, it was my father who was the one from whom I learned all of my most basic beliefs, especially regarding religion and morality. He taught me how to be a man, how to make tough decisions, how to stand firm for what I believed in. So, keep this in mind.

In February of 2010 I was praying and thinking about how in the future I will be called “father.” Even now when I am wearing my Roman collar, many people address me as “father” because, well, I look like one. While I am quick to explain, deep inside of me whenever someone calls me “father” I am so humbled…already I realize that while I am not technically a father yet, already God is cultivating inside of me a fatherly heart, and even moreso He has already brought several spiritual daughters into my life, most of whom who are younger than me or around the same age, a few of whom are many years my senior. Yet I feel as though a father to them, and they often look to me for such support. So humbling; who am I to receive such trust from them, or from God for that matter?

As I took all of this to prayer I asked God to teach me how to be a good father for His many children. Holding onto that prayer it struck me that a man learns to be a father from his own father; in other words, from first being a son. In order to learn to be a father, a son must permit himself to be fathered, to be raised and taught, disciplined and loved. If I desire to love God’s children as He loves them, I must lend myself to being taught by Him to be such a Father, and thus I must lend myself first and foremost to being His son. This realization hit my like a ton of bricks, and my whole world turned upside down.

You see, as a Jesuit and even a little before I entered religious life, my image of Christ was that of a King and my relationship with Him was one of service. What I felt so deeply called to in this experience of prayer was to cast aside my armor and enter that special place where Christ normally stands, not that I would suddenly become King but that I would enter into that special school where God the Father is the teacher and I am more and more made to resemble Jesus Christ (really the goal of every Christian!). And so my relationship with Christ, my whole way of praying, simply would not do. Christ did not desire me to be a servant any longer, but very much a friend and a brother, and not in a kind of soldier-comrade kind of way. A blood brother, a baby brother of sorts, heir to the same upbringing as He received. In the months following that experience I experienced a long stretch of frustrating, dry prayer. I had a very difficult summer as a hospital chaplain, and while my interactions with patients were for the most part wonderful (some were utterly life-changing), prayer was pretty much impossible. I knew God was out there, but where was my Father? So I just kept forging ahead as best I could figure how. Once in a while something would click and I’d get the sense that I was still on the right track, but it seemed like the dry spell would never end.

Meanwhile my father (here on earth) was experiencing some changes in his own life which did not concern me too much at all; really I was pretty indifferent.

Then just before Christmas I received a phone call from my sister, who was very upset. She shared with me that she’d had a discussion with my father and discovered some things about him that seemed completely contrary to the man who raised us. We were both totally heartbroken, and as I hung up the phone I felt this gaping sinkhole forming in my heart. However I wanted to give my father the benefit of the doubt; I did not want to judge or condemn him just yet. Over Christmas Break this past January, however, all doubt was dispelled and I indeed had to come to terms with the fact that I nolonger knew the man and that it was time to mourn the father I once knew, in the hopes of having space in my heart to learn who he had chosen to be now. I felt very much orphaned.

But college life waits for no man and especially would not wait for a mere pseudo-funeral! Classes began and I did my best to get right back into them. Constantly, however, I was thinking about my father and the decisions he had been making, mourning quietly in my heart and in prayer for the “loss” I was feeling and wondering what I was to do. I updated my superior about everything and at the end of our meeting he recommended that I look into possibly going on retreat for a couple of days during Spring Break just to rest and to take all these things to a deeper time of prayer. I was more than happy to oblige.

I had no idea that two days alone in this little shack…

…would change my life forever.

Part Two coming soon! (In case y’all thought this was all there was; there is much more!)

Hello my Xanga brothers and sisters!

So I have a free moment to blog more than merely a copy-paste of something wonderful. Yet I’m afraid that I will likely leave you unsatisfied with this as well since I have more of a question as opposed to anything profound to share, though I hope that this entry is merely the antechamber to an actual post.

I was considering writing about the retreat I went on recently but I became very hesitant. Why? I am concerned that were I to share about it, some of those who read of it might be disheartened because they have not had similar experiences of prayer, or think they see a person for whom prayer comes easily, etc. Basically I’m concerned that though I would share simply for the sake of sharing and in the hopes that my own experiences would encourage others in their own spiritual pilgrimage toward Heaven, others might become disheartened or maybe a bit envious. I would be heartbroken if such sharing led to the further hurt and sense of abandon someone might be experiencing out there. 

I also realize that by even bringing this up your curiosity is likely frothing at the mouth. I remember back in 2007 I posted the journal I kept during the Spiritual Exercises and while I’ve considered taking those posts down for the above concern and also because many of those thoughts and insights have since matured a great deal (praise God!), they have yet proven to be of help to many. But before I add anything like them, I thought I would get a sense of what you all think.

So what do you think about people sharing personal, life-changing experiences of God? Have you ever read such accounts and felt even more neglected by God, less special, less blessed, etc.? Do you think that such experiences are private gifts and are not meant to be shared abroad, should be shared or does it depend? 

Hello all my brothers and sisters, 

I will be on retreat starting tomorrow morning and will not be checking my email, Xanga or anything else until Sunday evening. Please know that I am praying for all of you. Have a very blessed weekend!

Two full days.

Hermitage in the woods.

Complete silence.

Prayer.

Rest.

I.

Can’t.

Wait…

No secret here; I love J.R.R. Tolkien. I was an instantaneous fan of the recent films, which eventually inspired me to read the books two summers ago. I tried reading them in high school but I could never finish Fellowship of the Ring. I then felt a powerful tug to read them again when I was doing the Spiritual Exercises during my novitiate, and I had a difficult time not thinking about Aragorn while contemplating the Call of Christ the King!

When I finally did read the novels my heart just melted; they are so beautiful. I realized that God knew that words like Tolkien’s would touch my heart deeply, and so I think He gently maneuvered my life around so that I would not read them in their entirety until I came to appreciate something else first: my Catholic faith. Once I had begun to understand the work of God throughout history, began to know Christ and to know His Blessed Mother, began to love the Eucharist, the Church and everything else I think my heart was ready and open to the whole depth of Tolkien’s story. I was hardly surprised at all, then, when I discovered that he was a devout Catholic with a very, very deep devotion to Mary and the Blessed Sacrament (Galadriel and lembas, anyone?). The story takes on a whole new richness and relevance for me now that I am reading them with the same “eyes” with which Tolkien wrote them in the first place!

All that being said, I recently checked out a book of his collected letters and read one that was both beautiful and heartbreaking. He is writing to his son, Michael, who among many things is really struggling with his faith. Tolkien, now a very old man, tries to encourage his son but also shares his own regrets where he feels he failed as a father and as a Catholic. Here are some sections of that letter for your enjoyment, contemplation and edification.

“You speak of ‘sagging faith’, however. That is quite another matter: In the last resort faith is an
act of will, inspired by love. Our love may be chilled and our will eroded by the spectacle of the
shortcomings, folly, and even sins of the Church and its ministers, but I do not think that one who
has once had faith goes back over the line for these reasons (least of all anyone with any historical 

knowledge). ‘Scandal’ at most is an occasion of temptation – as indecency is to lust, which it does

not make but arouses. It is convenient because it tends to turn our eyes away from ourselves and our
own faults to find a scape-goat. But the act of will of faith is not a single moment of final decision :
it is a permanent indefinitely repeated act > state which must go on – so we pray for ‘final
perseverance’. The temptation to ‘unbelief (which really means rejection of Our Lord and His
claims) is always there within us. Part of us longs to find an excuse for it outside us. The stronger
the inner temptation the more readily and severely shall we be ‘scandalized’ by others. I think I am
as sensitive as you (or any other Christian) to the ‘scandals’, both of clergy and laity. I have suffered
grievously in my life from stupid, tired, dimmed, and even bad priests; but I now know enough
about myself to be aware that I should not leave the Church (which for me would mean leaving the
allegiance of Our Lord) for any such reasons: I should leave because I did not believe, and should
not believe any more, even if I had never met any one in orders who was not both wise and saintly.
I should deny the Blessed Sacrament, that is: call Our Lord a fraud to His face.

If He is a fraud and the Gospels fraudulent – that is : garbled accounts of a demented
megalomaniac (which is the only alternative), then of course the spectacle exhibited by the Church
(in the sense of clergy) in history and today is simply evidence of a gigantic fraud. If not, however,
then this spectacle is alas! only what was to be expected: it began before the first Easter, and it does
not affect faith at all – except that we may and should be deeply grieved. But we should grieve on
our Lord’s behalf and for Him, associating ourselves with the scandalizers not with the saints, not
crying out that we cannot ‘take’ Judas Iscariot, or even the absurd & cowardly Simon Peter, or the
silly women like James’ mother, trying to push her sons.

It takes a fantastic will to unbelief to suppose that Jesus never really ‘happened’, and more to
suppose that he did not say the things recorded of him – so incapable of being ‘invented’ by anyone
in the world at that time : such as ‘before Abraham came to be l am’ (John viii). ‘He that hath seen
me hath seen the Father’ (John ix); or the promulgation of the Blessed Sacrament in John v: ‘He that
eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life’. We must therefore either believe in Him
and in what he said and take the consequences; or reject him and take the consequences. I find it for
myself difficult to believe that anyone who has ever been to Communion, even once, with at least
right intention, can ever again reject Him without grave blame. (However, He alone knows each
unique soul and its circumstances.)

The only cure for sagging of fainting faith is Communion. Though always Itself, perfect and
complete and inviolate, the Blessed Sacrament does not operate completely and once for all in any
of us. Like the act of Faith it must be continuous and grow by exercise. Frequency is of the highest
effect. Seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals. Also I can recommend
this as an exercise (alas! only too easy to find opportunity for): make your communion in
circumstances that affront your taste. Choose a snuffling or gabbling priest or a proud and vulgar
friar; and a church full of the usual bourgeois crowd, ill-behaved children – from those who yell to
those products of Catholic schools who the moment the tabernacle is opened sit back and yawn –
open necked and dirty youths, women in trousers and often with hair both unkempt and uncovered.
Go to Communion with them (and pray for them). It will be just the same (or better than that) as a
mass said beautifully by a visibly holy man, and shared by a few devout and decorous people. (It
could not be worse than the mess of the feeding of the Five Thousand – after which [Our] Lord
propounded the feeding that was to come.)

I myself am convinced by the Petrine claims, nor looking around the world does there seem
much doubt which (if Christianity is true) is the True Church, the temple of the Spirit dying but 

living, corrupt but holy, self-reforming and rearising. But for me that Church of which the Pope is
the acknowledged head on earth has as chief claim that it is the one that has (and still does) ever
defended the Blessed Sacrament, and given it most honour, and put it (as Christ plainly intended) in
the prime place. ‘Feed my sheep’ was His last charge to St Peter; and since His words are always
first to be understood literally, I suppose them to refer primarily to the Bread of Life. It was against
this that the W. European revolt (or Reformation) was really launched – ‘the blasphemous fable of
the Mass’ – and faith/works a mere red herring. I suppose the greatest reform of our time was that
carried out by St Pius X: surpassing anything, however needed, that the Council will achieve. I wonder what state the Church would now be but for it.

This is rather an alarming and rambling disquisition to write! It is not meant to be a sermon! I
have no doubt that you know as much and more. I am an ignorant man, but also a lonely one. And I
take the opportunity of a talk, which I am sure I should now never take by word of mouth. But, of
course, I live in anxiety concerning my children: who in this harder crueller and more mocking
world into which I have survived must suffer more assaults than I have. But I am one who came up
out of Egypt, and pray God none of my seed shall return thither. I witnessed (half-comprehending)
the heroic sufferings and early death in extreme poverty of my mother who brought me into the
Church; and received the astonishing charity of Francis Morgan.

But I fell in love with the Blessed Sacrament from the beginning – and by the mercy of God never have fallen out again: but alas! I
indeed did not live up to it. I brought you all up ill and talked to you too little. Out of wickedness
and sloth I almost ceased to practise my religion – especially at Leeds, and at 22 Northmoor Road.
Not for me the Hound of Heaven, but the never-ceasing silent appeal of Tabernacle, and the sense
of starving hunger. I regret those days bitterly (and suffer for them with such patience as I can be
given); most of all because I failed as a father. Now I pray for you all, unceasingly, that the Healer
(the Hælend as the Saviour was usually called in Old English) shall heal my defects, and that none
of you shall ever cease to cry Benedictus qui venit in nomme Domini.”

Anyways, I thought it good, fatherly advice for Lent. God bless you all! Sorry if the formatting is a bit off; I was copying and pasting from a .pdf!

I love Ash Wednesday.

One of my favorite things about this day is that when I walk around campus I can tell who all the Catholics are…you kind of grin at each other and instantly know something very intimate about the other person. You know that while you aren’t on the same page about everything, you are at least in the same chapter on the most important things. You notice people you know from classes but didn’t realize they were Catholic; you see some people you are really surprised about as well. The cross upon ones forehead, I think, makes a person very vulnerable; suddenly just by looking at a person you can tell so much about them and what they are, in that moment, proclaiming to believe. Now if you see that person at a party you can think, “Wait a second, aren’t you Catholic?” Or perhaps you’d seen that person at a party before and, remembering something they did, are wondering about the contradiction. In short, Ash Wednesday can be a day of wonderful surprises, quiet witness, but also a day full of the temptation to judge.

What is this day all about anyways?

Well, as with many Catholic traditions, it’s always about one thing: Christ. Also like many Catholic traditions it also serves to call us to remember many things. It seems to me that the theme of one-though-also-many seems to weave itself through just about everything when Jesus gets involved… I’ll try and touch on those that come to mind.

The most obvious meaning to Ash Wednesday is…ashes! The ashes, as most people know, represent our repentance for our sins; ashes were used similarly throughout the Old Testament. By being marked with ashes we admit, very publicly, that we are sinners. That we are marked with a cross made of ashes gives witness to an even higher truth than that of the Old Testament: that we are sinners yet SAVED by the Cross.

Also relating to the ashes we are reminded that we came from the dust of the earth, and to that dust we will return. As is read upon a plaque in a Capuchin crypt in Rome, the dead themselves tell us, “Where you are, we once were…where we are, you will be.” We read in Genesis that God created man from the dust and then went on to bring about His last creation, woman, from man’s side (praise God!!). The cross of ashes, just as they reminded us of the promise of eternal life, also remind us that the Christian’s life always tends toward the cross upon which we will die, only to be raised by the One who died upon it first. We are a suffering people, crumbling to dust yet yearning for life, having it promised to us though it seems so far away yet.

Ash Wednesday is also the beginning of Lent, a time where we combined the traditions of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, and the different Churches of Catholicism observe these in different ways. In the West the only days of fasting are Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, with all Fridays of Lent being days of abstaining from meat. Many Catholics also try fasting or “giving something up” during Lent or perhaps take on something extra. This causes a lot of needless anguish and anxiety in people; I think St. John Chrysostom says it best in reminding us that Lent is more importantly a time for fasting from sin. No wonder he is a Doctor of the Church! In the East they not only begin observing Lent three days earlier, but I believe their fasting is much more strict though I don’t know much more about it.

During this time we recall the forty days Christ spent in the desert after His baptism, praying and fasting before beginning His public ministry. We are also invited to do the same so that, reinvigorated by the graces of Easter, we are better prepared to minister in the world. Likewise we have an opportunity to grow in holiness, to deepen our relationship with God and to understand our faith, to turn away from things that normally distract us from the holy life we desire or even are the sources of temptation for the sins we struggle with the most. This time we spend in the “desert” reminds me of Hosea 2:16 when God (speaking of Israel) says, “So I will allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart.” Lent is a chance to quiet our lives and to hear the whisper of God that is so often drowned out by IPods, television, video games, and all manner of things that bark and beg for our attention. 

Really I think Ash Wednesday can be summed up by St. Gemma Galgani’s conviction that “It is not enough to simply look at a cross or even to wear one; we must rather carry the Cross within our hearts.” Receiving the ashes on your forehead does not make you a Christian; it is an outward sign of an inward reality, or at least of the reality one hopes for. That cross on our forehead must also be upon our hearts, a constant confession with every beat that we are sinners yet not abandoned to death, that we die so that we may truly live, that death itself will one day crumble utterly to dust, that Christ has staked His claim upon us in a way that cannot be wiped away. Lent is a time when we can set aside some quality time to intentionally open ourselves to the slow, steady and gentle work of Christ in us and to observe how He works, learning the many ways that He moves our hearts ever closer to Him so that when Lent is over we are more attentive and are not so blind to the thread of salvation history sewn through our very souls.

In other news, there was this humorous little incident last year…

Would you trust an organization that identified as one of its primary goals:

 -TO PROVIDE LEADERSHIP...IN ACHIEVING, THROUGH INFORMED INDIVIDUAL CHOICE, A U.S. POPULATION
OF STABLE SIZE IN AN OPTIMUM ENVIRONMENT; - IN STIMULATING AND
SPONSORING RELEVANT BIOMEDICAL, SOCIO-ECONOMIC, AND DEMOGRAPHIC
RESEARCH...

Doesn't that just sound creepy and Orwellian? Gives me goosebumps just thinking about it...in fact it reminds me of propaganda coming out of Germany not so long ago, like:

"Every propaganda means, specially the press, radio and movies, as well as pamphlets, booklets and lectures, must be used to instill in the Russian population the idea that it is

harmful to have several children. We must emphasize the expenses that children cause, the good things that people could have had with the money spent on them. We could also hint

at the dangerous effect of child-bearing on a woman's health." (April 27th, 1942)

Anyone else creeped out?