Musings of a Catholic Convert

Everyone shoudl check out this video of Fr. Euteneuer publicly confronting Sean Hannity on his open support of contraception.

 

 Fr. Euteneuer Is Awesome!: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Note how Hannity immediately attempts to steer the argument AWAY from the issue at hand via an ad hominem attack.  He might as well have said, "well, you're argument is false because I'm calling you a stupidhead."  It would have held just as much weight.  The argument against contraception DOES NOT HOLD WATER.  People choose to sin through contraception because something is more important than self control, more important than total self-giving love, and more important than openness to God and complete trust in Him.  What's more important?  Self, that's who.

Thank God for priests who are not afraid to call sin what it is.  God, raise up more men like Father Euteneuer who will stand firm on principles of right and wrong, who will not back down in the face of public ridicule, and who will do so with charity.  I've met good priests like this.  They are out there.  Let's ask God for more, and let's ask God to strengthen those men who just need the push to regain that fire and passion for truth.  God, revive your people.  Continue to renew your Church.  Grant that we will be bold for the faith.

Blessed Mary, Ever Virgin, pray for us.  Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us. 

I love good food.  I love grilled or roasted food.  I love good grilled food that is grilled good.  Mmmmm.  So last night we had dinner with the RCIA team, candidates, and all their respective families.  We gathered to look at the traditional Seder meal that our Jewish friends celebrate each year.  Now, our meal was not an actual Seder, but we did take time to look at the elements of the Seder and their significance both with regard to Passover, and with regard to the Christian life.  

I would very much like one of these days to be invited to a real live Seder.  It would be good to hear from the source what the Seder means and the role Passover plays in their life of faith.  Maybe one day this will happen. 

For now, this was our dinner.  And you know what?  I didn't spaz out.  My kids were their normal young selves, but I didn't get agitated with their antics.  I did not sit nervously waiting on it to be over so I could escort them to the car feeling embarrassed at their behavior.  I enjoyed my dinner, and I watched them enjoy theirs.  Did they stay in their seats the whole time?  Nope.  Did they attempt to throw food?  Oh, yes.  But I did good.  Hooray for Andy this time.  Not being nervous was HUGE!  I can control my temper almost always.  There are only a couple of people in this world who can push my buttons.  But I get nervous with my children in public.  Last night though, no nervous.  No, I was not high.  I was able to keep it together, and I'm pretty happy about that.  

Now, let's see if I can keep that streak going.  We're leaving for a brief vacation tonight.  Let the test begin. 

One more thing:  Murray, you are the GRILL MASTER!  Hats off to you, good man!!!!   !!!!!!!!

The best way to treat ingrown nails is to not get them in the first place.  If I've read it once, I've read it a thousand times, CUT YOUR NAILS STRAIGHT ACROSS!  Now have I EVER listened to that advice?  Yes and no. 

I got this monster ingrown nail about 10 years ago.  It got so bad that I was afraid it would get infected and kill me, so I reluctantly went to see a doctor.  I hate going to the doctor.  He looked at it and said, "Ughhh!"  Then he asked, "Do you cut your nails straight across?"  After getting a million shots in my big toe and watching him DIG TOENAIL out of my foot for what seemed like hours, I was thinking that the straight across method would be a good thing to do. 

Did I follow his advice?  Yup.  Well, most of the time.  Every now and then I have performed the old "home surgery" of cutting a nail out that is digging into the sides a bit.  Who wants to go to the doctor for something easy like that, right?  So I had such a situation a few weeks ago.  I cut and when I was pulling the ingrown part out, the nail broke so everything did not come out.  I couldn't get at the rest without digging into my toe so I had to leave it alone.

I let it grow and I didn't mess with it that much.  I looked to make sure it wasn't getting red and puffy or that stuff wasn't coming out.  I bathed it in peroxide every night to keep stuff out.  Ooooh it was sore for days and I could feel in my toe where it the nail grew under the skin.   After a nice long time I could not take the pain anymore, so I put on my scrubs and went into surgery mode.

Let me tell you something, brother.  I got it all out in one cut and pull.  That dude was HUGE!  I should have taken a picture to show you the crooked growing mess that was dwelling under my toe surface.  It looked like a giant shark tooth that was pulled out at the root.  Maybe it WAS a shark tooth.  I don't know.  I just know that the thing was out.  What followed?  Instant relief.  No more pain, no more crooked nail. I felt like a million bucks after I extracted that monster.

And you better believe that I am cutting ALL my nails straight across now.

Did you figure it out yesterday? 

You know two men could be standing in front of you wearing identical looking shirts.  They both have a Tommy Hilfiger trademark symbol stitched into the "chest pocket" area of the shirt.  Same color.  Same size.  And let's even say that the two men are actually identical twins!  One of them - let's call him Tomax - is wearing a knockoff and the other - we'll call him Xamot - is wearing the real Tommy shirt.  How do you know which is which?

There are actually two correct answers to this question.  I'll give you the easy one.  Tomax's hair is parted on the right side of his head and Xamot's on the left.  Also, there is a scar on Xamot's right cheek, and Tomax has no scar.  See?  Simple.  

Know let's make a stretch and assume you didn't know how to identify Tomax or Xamot.  You'd have to use the shirts then, right?  So how would you do it?  How do you spot the fake shirt?

I'm going to tell you how tomorrow.  There are ways to tell.  But for today, let's assume you cannot tell them apart.  You might say, "Who cares?  It doesn't matter to me if one of them has a counterfeit product."  You might even be persuaded to buy into the lie that this isn't hurting anyone and that it is harmless.  Somebody is saving a buck, right?

What about the real merchandiser who stocks the actual Tommy shirts?  What is he saving?  What about the manufacturing plant that produces the goods?  Are those plants and their workers saving a buck too?  What about the families supported by those plants?  How is their savings?  And what about the shirt itself?  Is it made of quality material?  Is it going to last?  Is it made of safe fabric, or could there be something potentially harmful?

The picture on the left shows two feet that were chemically burned by a pair of cheaply produced sandals (not name brand even).  Several people were injured by these products and countless emails were circulated warning of the very real problem (I checked it out, because we got so many emails).  The quality of manufacturing materials DOES matter.  

And that is just a shirt or a pair of sandals.  What about baby formula?  What about medicine?  People can be seriously injured by counterfeit products.  It is a big deal, beyond the fact that it is theft on several levels, which in itself is a grave sin. 

Let's make another application to this.  What about false teachings?  What about fake Christians and the things they teach through their living and speaking?  Do you think there is potential there to cause harm?  Eternal harm even?  Absolutely.  All paths DO NOT lead to God.  All theological viewpoints are not equally truthful.  Someone is wrong.  Everyone is not right.  And it matters on an eternal scale.  How do you spot the fake?

I'll tell you tomorrow. 

Today marks the day young Bernadette Soubirous saw the Blessed Virgin Mary in an apparition. Many miracles have occurred since that day, not to mention the increase of faith among Christians, and the conversion of many to the Christian faith. For your reading pleasure, I have included below an excerpt from the official Lourdes site.

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The “Message of Lourdes” is the words and actions that were exchanged between the Virgin Mary and Bernadette at the Grotto of Massabielle during the 18 Apparitions from 11th. February 1858 to 16th. July 1858. To understand the events which took place and the “Message of Lourdes” it is necessary to know the context of the Apparitions that Bernadette experienced

Lourdes in the 19th. Century was one of the main places in the district with more than 4,000 inhabitants including nobles, notaries, advocates, doctors, officers as well as manual workers, tradesmen, slate workers, small artisans such as millers. Mills were plentiful; many were dotted around outside the town, along one of the streams that flowed into the Gave - the Lapacca. Bernadette Soubirous was born in one of these, the Boly Mill, on 7th. January 1844.

The bankrupt family were living in the Cachot.

On 11th. February 1858 Bernadette, her sister Toinette and a friend of theirs, Jeanne, went looking for wood on the meadows and led towards “the place where the canal rejoins the River Gave”. They were in front of the Grotto of Massabielle. Toinette and Jeanne crossed the icy water, crying out with the cold; Bernadette hesitated to do this because of her chronic asthma. She heard “a noise like a gust of wind”, but “none of the trees were moving”. “Raising her head, she saw, in a hollow of the rock a small young lady, who looked at her and who smiled at her. This was the first Apparition of the Virgin Mary

At the time of Bernadette, the Grotto was a dirty, hidden, damp and cold place. The Grotto was called the “pigs’ shelter” because that was where the pigs feeding in the area usually took shelter. It was there that the Virgin Mary, dressed in white, a sign of total purity, the sign of the Love of God, in other words, the sign of what God wishes to accomplish in each of us, deigned to appear. There is a contrast between this damp and obscure Grotto and the presence of the Virgin Mary, “the Immaculate Conception”. It reminds us of the Gospel: the meeting of the wealth of the goodness of God and the poverty of the human person. “Jesus goes to sit at the table of sinners”, “because he came to search out that which was lost”.

At Lourdes, the fact that Mary had appeared in a dirty and obscure Grotto, in the place called Massabielle, the Old Rock, tells us that God comes to join us where we are, in the midst of our poverty and failures.

The Grotto is not only a place where something happened - a geographical place - it is also a place where God gives us a sign by revealing his heart and our heart. It is a place where God leaves us a message, a message that is nothing other than that of the Gospel. God comes to tell us that he loves us, - this is the heart of the Message of Lourdes, and he loves us as we are with all our successes but also with all our wounds, our weaknesses and our limitations.

During the third Apparition on 18th. February, The Virgin Mary spoke for the first time. Bernadette held out a sheet of paper and a pencil so that she might write down her name, but the Lady replied: “what I have to say to you does not have to be written down“. This was an extraordinary statement. It meant that the Virgin Mary wanted to enter into a relationship which is of the order of love, at the level of the heart. The heart, in the Bible, signifies the very centre of the person, that which is the depth of the person. Bernadette was right away invited to open the depths of her heart to this Message of Love.

At the second statement of the Virgin Mary: “Would you do me the kindness of coming here for 15 days?” Bernadette was overwhelmed. It was the first time that anyone had addressed her in a formal way. Bernadette describes these words by saying that the Virgin looked at her ‘as one person looks at another person’. Human beings, created in the image and likeness of God, are persons. Bernadette felt that she was also respected and loved, she also had the experience of being a person. We are all worthy of our dignity in the eyes of God. Because each of us is loved by God.

The third statement of the Virgin was: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world but in the other.“ We know a world of violence, lies, sensuality, profit, and war. But we know also a world of charity, solidarity, and justice. These two worlds exist on our earth. When Jesus, in the Gospel, invites us to discover the Kingdom of Heaven, he invites us to discover in our world, as it is, “another world”. Wherever love exists, God is present.

To experience God is nothing other than to experience love in this world. To whoever knows how to discover this, Jesus makes the following promise: “You are not far from the Kingdom of God. That is: “you have known how to discover here below this Kingdom and you have lived out your life in this Love.” This is the promise of the Virgin Mary to Bernadette. “I promise that you will discover here below another world”. And, in spite of her poverty, her illness and her lack of education, Bernadette is always deeply happy. That is the Kingdom of God, the world of real Love.

During the seven first Apparitions of the Virgin Mary, Bernadette has a face radiant with joy, happiness and light. Between the eighth and twelfth Apparitions all changed: the face of Bernadette became hard, sad and sorrowful, and moreover, Bernadette does incomprehensible things.

She moves on her knees to the back of the Grotto. She kisses the dirty disgusting ground of the Grotto. She eats some bitter grass. She scrapes the ground three times trying to drink the muddy water, at the back of the Grotto, she tries sucking in a little and then throwing it away, she takes mud in her hands and she smears her face.

Then the young girl turns to the crowd with her hands apart. They all say: “She’s mad!” During four Apparitions, she carried out the same actions. What is happening? Nobody understands! We are at the heart of the “Message of Lourdes”.

These actions are biblical actions. Because “the Lady” asked her, Bernadette acts out the Incarnation, the Passion and the death of Christ.

Moving on her knees at the back of the Grotto: this action recalls the Incarnation, God lowers himself to become human. Bernadette kisses the ground showing us that this act of humility is an action of the love God has for his people.

Eating bitter grass at the back of the Grotto: when the Jews in the Old Testament wanted to show that God had taken on himself all the bitterness and all the sins of the world, they killed a lamb, cleaned it out and filled it with bitter herbs and then made the following prayer over the lamb “This is the Lamb of God who takes away, who takes on himself, all the bitterness and all the sins of the world.”

Smearing her face with mud: when the prophet Isaiah wanted to speak to us about the Messiah he called him “the suffering servant”. “Because he carried on himself all our sins his face no longer appeared human.”He was” Isaiah specifies, “like a lamb led to the slaughter, and on his way the crowd mocked him”. At the Grotto, mud disfigures Bernadette and the crowd cries out “she has gone mad”.

The actions that Bernadette carried out were the actions of freeing something. The Grotto was choked with grass and mud. But why does she free this Grotto? Because it hides an immense treasure, which must be brought out into the open. Thus, at the ninth Apparition, “the Lady” asked Bernadette to scrape the ground, at the back of this “pigs’ shelter”, saying to her: “Go to the spring, drink of it and wash yourself there“. There is only a little muddy water to begin with, enough for Bernadette to drink. At first this water is muddy and dirty then, little by little, it becomes clear.

By these actions, the mystery of the heart of Jesus is revealed for us: “A soldier pierced his heart with his lance and there immediately flowed out blood and water.” It is, as well, the depths of the mystery of the heart of the human person, created in the image and likeness of God: “The water that I shall give you will become, in you, a spring welling up to eternal life”. The grass and the mud signify the human heart, wounded by sin. But in the bottom of this heart, there is the life of God, as signified by the spring.

Bernadette was asked: ‘Did the Lady say something to you?’ She replied: ‘Yes, now and again she would say: “Penance, penance, penance, pray for sinners”. By penance we understand conversion. Conversion in the Church, as we learn from Christ, involves turning our heart towards God and towards others. “Pray for sinners”. Praying brings us to the Spirit of God. Thus we understand that sin does not make us happy. We must understand that sin is something that is contrary to the love of God that is revealed to us through the Gospel.During the thirteenth Apparition Our Lady said to Bernadette: “Go, tell the priests to come here in procession and build a chapel here.” “Come here in procession” means always moving, in this life, towards others. “Build a chapel here.” In Lourdes, chapels were built to receive the crowds that came here. But these chapels are only the signs of the communion based on the love to which we are called. The chapel is the “Church” that we want to build where we are, in our family, at our place of work, in our parish, in our diocese. All Christians spend their lives building the Church, living in communion with others.

On 25th. March 1858, the day of the sixteenth Apparition, Bernadette went to the Grotto, and on the instigation of the Parish Priest, Abbé‚ Peyramale, asked the Lady for her name. Three times Bernadette asked the question. On the fourth request, the Lady responds in dialect “Que soy era Immaculada Conception“. (”I am the Immaculate Conception“). Bernadette does not understand immediately the meaning of these words. The Immaculate Conception is, as the Church teaches, “Mary, conceived without sin, thanks to the merits of the Cross of Christ”. (The definition of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception 1854) She goes to the Parish Priest to tell him the Lady’s name. He understands that it is the Mother of God who has appeared at the Grotto of Massabielle. Later the Bishop of Tarbes, Monseigneur Laurence, confirms this.

The Immaculate Conception is, as the Church teaches, “Mary, conceived without sin, thanks to the merits of the Cross of Christ”. Thus the Immaculate Conception is also the sign of what all people, recreated by God are called to be.

Internet Explorer is giving me fits. I only now figured how to get back to my “new” blogger account with Firefox. I’m frustrated, but I am alive (in case anyone doubted). I trust you are all doing well. During my hiatus, we were blessed with a new addition to our family. Little Raegan Therese was born last Thursday. She and mommy are doing great.Question: anyone in the Memphis metro area interested in being part of the Third Order of Dominicans (Laity)? Email me if you are. I have some information you may find helpful.